* Diagram with cut-off date for all information?

[Anthony_Pigott]

Dear All

Apologies if this is covered already somewhere but I couldn't find anything...

Is there a straightforward way of producing a diagram (say, all descendants) where there is no information after a certain date, including anybody born after that date?

Thanks.

Anthony

[tatewise]

Anthony, I am not sure I fully understand the request.
Can you explain the purpose of such a Diagram.

Exactly what do you mean by 'no information'?
Do you just mean Fact Dates as listed on Facts tab, or also Citation Entry Date, linked Media record Date, etc?

How do you classify undated information such as Facts without a Date?
Do they count as after every cut-off date or not?

There may also be complications with Date Range and Date Period entries.
e.g. What about After 1900? Does that count as after a cut-off date of 1920 or not?

Does the cut-off apply to all relevant Individuals or just the Diagram Root Individual?

I suspect the general solution would involve a Query to test the cut-off criteria, and then a standard Diagram based on the Root Individual if it passes the test.

[Anthony_Pigott]

The concept is very simple but I can imagine there are issues in achieving it.

I want to produce a diagram that would represent 'the present' at that date. E.g., if I choose say, 2 April 1911, then the diagram would represent only events up to that point, no individuals born after that date appear, no events after that date are recorded against people who are alive; nothing appears that could not have been known on 2 April 1911.

I can see date ranges would need care, similarly undated facts although I think I have very few facts that aren't date related.

Thanks.

[tatewise]

Ah! I now understand. That is an interesting concept.

I don't think there is a straightforward way of achieving that.
The only viable solution that occurs to me is a Plugin that scans your entire Project and automatically deletes all relevant details that are after the user selected cut-off date, including Individual records for those not alive at the time.
That would make use of estimated Birth event Dates where explicit dates don't exist.

It would be feasible (but risky) to run the Plugin on your master Project and then, after saving the Diagrams, using the Edit > Undo Plugin Updates command to restore all the details. However, it would be safer to run the Plugin on a Copy of your Project.

I believe the Plugin itself would not be particularly complex, and Clean Living Persons could form the basis.

Is this solution of any interest?

[Anthony_Pigott]

Thanks, Mike - that sounds like a feasible approach. I would envisage this being an occasional operation, for special purposes, such as distribution to relatives, rather than 'day to day' work so running on a copy of the project would be fine.

Just a word on the motivation for this. I saw it intially as a confidentiality thing, rather neater than just removing all living people. It would also enable 'tidier' presentation of descendant trees where one doesn't want to go all the way down to the present. I personally set myself the target of identifying all the decendants of all my G-Grandparents, but only down to 1911 for all my GG-Grandparents. For the later, inevitably one ends up further down in some branches than others and this would enable a consistent display. Thinking about it, such a facility would also enable 'snapshots' to better visualise what ancestral families were like at particular times more easily than from the usual trees which effectively show all times up to the present at once.

Anthony

[LornaCraig]

inevitably one ends up further down in some branches than others and this would enable a consistent display.

Anthony,
With regard to the point about getting further in some branches than others, there are ways of producing a consistent display in terms of number of generations. You can specify how many generations down (or up) to display in Diagram > Options > General tab.

You can also manually hide boxes for people who were not alive at a date by right-clicking the box and selecting Hide.

Of course this is not the same as producing a snapshot of the family as at a certain date, because there would still be some information displayed about the remaining people which falls after the chosen date.

[tatewise]

Having given this a little more thought, I am not sure it would work too well as proposed.

If all Individual records are deleted that have a Birth event Date after say 1900 then you and all your immediate family would not exist in the Project.
So there would be no family connections between your great-grandparents, and no obvious File Root person.
Thus =Relationship(FileRoot()) cannot identify the ancestral relationship between you and any of the Individual records.
In other words, FH cannot say that any of your great-grandfathers is your great-grandfather.

There would just be a series of disjoint sub-trees, because in 1900 there was no connection to your current family.

Therefore, a better solution may be to delete all Facts dated after cut-off date, and add a Living Flag to all those born after that date. Then in Diagrams it would be possible to either Hide those Living people or display their boxes very faintly to show they were not born at the date the Diagram represents.

[Jane]

If you are not worried about showing events after a date, you could simply run a query for Born after and use that to hide boxes.

Depending on how many lines you have in your text scheme you could condition each fact on the date, if you wanted a flexible cut off date, you could set up a dummy individual for the cut off and then use that birth date in the conditions as you can't prompt for values in a Text scheme.

[tatewise]

Yes, I was heading in that direction too and was contemplating where the cut-off Date could be held.

Once that is decided, then two customisations are significant:

1. Diagram > Options > Boxes > Condition
   If estimated Birth Date > cut-off Date then Features could set box transparent & hairline & Name text pale grey.
   Thus every Individual not alive at cut-off Date would have a small pale box & text.
2. Diagram > Options > Text > Edit > Template
   Every Fact Item would use =TextIf( Fact Date > cut-off Date , "", <original Template> )
   Thus all Facts after the cut-off Date would be excluded.

[tatewise]

I've been experimenting with this concept and have a prototype Diagram Type & Text Scheme to try.
This technique uses %CUR_FILE_OWNER.OBJE2._DATE% that only works in FH V6.
A similar scheme using a dummy Individual Birth Date would work in FH V5.

To set the Cut-off Date I have used the first Submitter record.
If one doesn't already exist, then in the Records Window on the Submitters tab right-click and add New Submitter.
If necessary, set the Name to say Cut-off Date.
Right-click the Name and choose Add Multimedia Object > Add Local Multimedia Object to this Record.
Set its Title to Cut-off Date and delete the Format and File fields.
Right-click its Cut-off Date heading and choose Add Date.
This is where you enter the desired cut-off Date for the Diagram.
The Property Box can be customised to show this Date field to create & access it more easily.

Attached are the prototype Diagram Type & Text Scheme both named Historical Snapshot.
It defaults to an All Relatives Diagram but can be changed in Diagram > Options > Tree: setting.
If there is no Cut-off Date defined it displays all boxes normally with the Name, but without any facts.

I have found that the Diagram may need to be rebuilt after the cut-off Date is changed, otherwise some Date and Place details are not displayed correctly.

Example Diagram Cut-off at 1930

Historical Snapshot.png (23.15 KiB) Viewed 6527 times

[tatewise]

The Diagram Type and Text Scheme customisations are explained below.

Diagram Type
The Diagram > Options have Installation Settings for an All Relatives Diagram except as described below.

• General tab Check for Duplicates is unticked to avoid coloured ribbons between greyed out boxes.
• Text tab Current Text Scheme is the Historical Snapshot (custom) as defined later.
• Pictures tab Preferred Picture Preference is None to avoid photos in greyed out boxes.
• Boxes tab has the Condition Expression:
  =IsTrue(%CUR_FILE_OWNER.OBJE2._DATE% <= EstimatedBirthDate(%INDI%,MID,9))
  i.e. Does the cut-off date come before the middle estimated birth date of the Individual?
  The EstimatedBirthDate(...) function caters for Individuals with no Birth event Date.
  Its box Features roughly mimic a Proxy box:
  • Text Colour is dark grey.
  • Box Fill is No Fill so box is transparent.
  • Box Line is hairline .............. dark grey.
  • Box Shadow is No Shadow.

Text Scheme
This is based roughly on the standard Birth, Marr, Death scheme.
Apart from the top Name items, each item uses the following style of Template expression:
=TextIf( {item date} < %CUR_FILE_OWNER.OBJE2._DATE%, CombineText( "Label: ", {item text}, , ), )
i.e. If the item date comes before the cut-off date, then combine a label with the item text, else display nothing.
where:

• {item date} is:
  • EstimatedBirthDate(%INDI%,MID,9) for the Birth Event and items with no Date field.
  • EstimatedDeathDate(%INDI%,MID,9) for the Death Event to cater for no Date.
  • %INDI.****.DATE% for other Individual facts such as Baptism, Census & Burial.
  • %CUR~FAMS>****.DATE% for Family facts such as Marriage.
• {item text} is:
  • Single Data Reference such as %INDI.NAME[2]:FULL% or %CUR~SPOU>NAME:FULL%.
  • Combined fact Date and Place references to mimic original Template such as:
    Text( Text( %INDI.****.DATE:COMPACT% ) . CombineText( " in ", %INDI.****.PLAC:TIDY%, , ) )
    Text( Text(%CUR~FAMS>****.DATE:COMPACT%) . CombineText( " in ", %CUR~FAMS>****.PLAC:TIDY%, , ) )

Note that:

• EstimatedBirthDate(...) function uses actual Birth or Baptism or Christening date where they exist.
• The items do NOT support the looping [1+] index, so each instance must be coded (see Census examples).