* Simplify Diagram

[JKC]

I am having difficulty understanding diagrams admittedly in an unusual but real situation with close cousins getting married. I find that there are a confusing number of lines.

The example diagram (FH chart) is almost too difficult to understand largely because the parents are duplicated and the many interconnecting line. I cannot see the wood for the trees

For comparison I show the same tree (GF chart) in a diagram using connection lines drawn at an angle and without the use of duplicate parents which I find much easier to understand.

Is there any way to "adjust" the FH diagram to make it easier to read?

[tatewise]

Try collapsing the ancestral branches for ANN PRESCOTT with green background centre left, and ALFRED CROFTS with green background centre right.

That should eliminate most of the family duplications, except for the two couples WILLIAM CROFTS = ANN PRESCOTT and ALFRED CROFTS = CHARLOTTE PRESCOTT.

Also try hiding CHARLOTTE PRESCOTT with brown background far left, and WILLIAM CROFTS with brown background far right.
i.e. Right-click box and choose Hide.
Then in Diagram Options > General tab, in 'Check for duplicates' Options button, untick Use Family links...

I suspect the result will be even simpler than the GF Chart, which I must admit I find very difficult to understand.
So I guess familiarity plays a part in understandability.

[philmcleod]

Having just come across my first instance of first cousins marrying, I have to ask why it is not possible for it to be recognised that this is the case and for the diagram to show it correctly, without duplicates, but with the tree spreading out and coming together again. Is it simply a case that it is difficult to draw or program or are there other complications.
Interested to know.

[tatewise]

It is a case of the human eye can see ways of simplifying some of the simpler relationships, without considering the more complex ones.

Whereas, the program has to cope with all possibilities of any relations marrying each other, and in most cases, the simplifying is difficult for a program to recognise.

FH tries to minimise the number of crossing lines, contrary to GF chart shown below.

[philmcleod]

Understood, thanks