Family Historian User Group

I want to produce a descendant diagram that includes step-children, but also shows their biological parents. In other words, I want all of a descendant's spouse's other partners to be shown. Does anyone know how to achieve this, please?

Another issue is with someone who had children by a lover while still married - how can I show the lover as an unmarried partner rather than as a 'spouse'?

Last but not least, try as I might I cannot get notes about a person to be shown on a diagram. My current text scheme is 'birth, death, marriage + notes', but I see no notes??

Thanks for any help with these queries. I am trying to generate something I can send to a 'non-techy' relative that won't require a huge amount of additional narrative explanation!

1. You can use Diagram>Insert into Diagram to add an extra tree showing Descendants of the spouse of the other partner. You will probably then need to move various elements of the main tree (using the Movement Control Box) to make room to insert the extra tree in the appropriate place. In V7 there is a new type of diagram called All Relatives and Indirect Relatives which would include them all, but it doesn't give much control over the arrangement on the page.

2. Set the status of the relationship between the couple as Never Married. In the diagram they will then be linked by double dotted lines instead of double solid lines.

3. Which type of notes are you wanting to display? The text scheme you have chosen includes only notes for facts. If you want to show notes linked to the 'whole record' you need to use one of the schemes which include 'Rec notes'.

To supplement Lorna's answer 1. you may find the standard All Relatives Diagram includes what you want, although some branches and boxes may need to be hidden.
Whichever method you choose, use the Diagram > Save Diagram option to save it as Family Historian Chart in order the save the carefully created layout. Otherwise, as soon as you close the Diagram that layout will be lost.

Hi Lorna,

Thanks for your reply.

1. My diagram already shows the descendants of the other partners, but omits the other partners, so the step-children are there but both of their biological parents are not. It looks as though they are the children of their parent and step-parent, which is confusing if you don't already know that they have another, biological, parent?

2. Ah yes, I already have the status of the unmarried parents' relationship set as Never Married and have now noticed that they are connected by dotted, rather than solid, lines. I guess that's OK.

3. The notes are ones entered in the Main tab of the properties box for the individual - oh yes, they do appear when I chose 'Rec notes', thank you!

Hi Mike,

Yes, I have tried All Relatives , but it doesn't seem to help with the outstanding issue, number 1 above?

The main issue, which still remains, is that step-children are being shown as the offspring of their parent and step-parent, rather than of both of their biological parents. This is especially unwelcome when I'm trying to communicate with DNA matches, because the step-children are socially but NOT biologically related to the person whose descendants the diagram is meant to be showing. I need to communicate this clearly, and preferably without omitting the step-children, because they are still a big part of the story.

BTW I haven't upgraded to V7 yet, mainly because I'm still trying to figure this out!

I would expect the step-parent family couple to be chronologically after the biological family couple.
What order are they shown in the Focus Window and the Property Box of the parent who married twice?
In the Spouse tab, use the black arrows on the right to move the biological partnership first (left-most).

Diagrams always show the 1st instance of partnership relationships and display siblings in the order in your database.
If that is not chronological then the details will be in the 'wrong' order.
There are many ways to ensure your records are in chronological order instead of the order you entered them.
See FHUG Knowledge Base Sorting Children, Spouses & Facts into Date Order.

Have you recorded the children with both sets of parents (biologiacl and step) or have you have simply recorded them with one set of parents, but the wrong set? This could happen if you added them to their mother (assuming it was their mother who married twice) before you had created a record for the mother's other partner. FH would simply assume they were children of the partner/spouse who already existed in the project.

If you create a decendants diagram with the parent who married twice as the diagram root, do the children appear under the correct partners? Look at the main tab of the Property box for the key parent. There should be two spouse tabs. The children from each partnership should be listed on the appropriate tab. Are the children from the key parent's 'other' partner listed on that partner's tab at all? If not, they have never been connected to that partner. In that case you need to link them to the correct parent, and unlink them from the non-biological parent. (Or you could mark them as step children of that parent and make the biological parents the 'primary' parents)

Having done that you will find that the step children don't show at all in your main diagram (because they are not biological relatives of your diagram root) but you can add them with their correct biological parent, as explained in my previous reply.

Would it help to add a sentence in whatever notes show up in the diagram, saying "Stepchild of Fred Bloggs later on"? Keep it simple?

OK, thanks to all and I will reply to each post in in turn.

Mike - yes, all of the relationships and offspring are in the correct sequences. In both cases a woman married, had a child and then was widowed. She then married one of the direct descendants of the diagram root. In both cases the woman's deceased former spouse is not on the diagram and their child is shown as being the child of her second spouse. In both cases none of the parents had any other children, biological or otherwise.

Lorna - yes, I have recorded the children with both sets of parents and yes, if I make the child's mother the diagram root then both spouses are shown and the child is shown under both sets of parents. Could you please explain how I make the biological parents 'primary', as I don't know how to do that? I do have the child recorded as a birth child of the biological parents and a step-child of the step-father (and birth child of the mother).

Adrian - it might, I'll bear that in mind!

OK, you already have the biological parents as 'primary' or 1st partnership.

I think we all assumed the descendant tree involved the woman as a direct descendant. Since it is her 2nd husband who is the direct descendant then only direct partners of direct descendants can be included. That is the definition of a Descendant Diagram. If you had not included the children as step-children of the 2nd marriage then they would not appear at all as they are not direct descendants of the diagram root.

To add the biological branch needs use of the Diagram > Insert Into Diagram to add a mini-tree involving whoever you want to add. Such multiple marriages often cause problems as they cannot be included in simple descendant/ancestor trees. Even All Relatives Diagrams often exclude them depending on the diagram root. FH V7 has an extended All Relatives Diagram that does include all relatives however indirect, but it can get rather 'busy'. In other words, it includes everyone who has the same Relationship Pool number and satisfies a long-standing Wish List request.

OK, thanks again!

I have now managed to include the 'missing' biological parents by inserting their descendant trees into the diagram, then hiding the duplicate spouses and descendants of the step-children (I've kept the ones under the step-parents visible, in this case, but might do it differently depending on the purpose of the diagram).

I have also added a note to each of the step-fathers, to clarify their relationship to the step-child.

Now I only have to work out how to send the diagram to it's intended recipient ...

I also look forward to discovering the new diagram options in V7.

Thanks all,

Sue

I'm glad you achieved hat you wanted in the end! As I said in my original reply, I thought you would need to insert an extra diagram.

To send it to the intended recipient, use Diagram>Save Diagram As>PDF file. By default this will be saved in the Public folder of your project. You can then email the PDF to the recipient.

tatewise wrote: ↑

05 Feb 2021 18:25

I think we all assumed the descendant tree involved the woman as a direct descendant.

No Mike, only you assumed that. Careful reading of the original post made it clear that was not the case. Sue said " I want all of a descendant's spouse's other partners to be shown. " In other words it was not the descendant but the descendant's spouse who had a second partner.

I seem to have solved one problem only to have encountered a worse one!

Spent HOURS trying to paginate the diagram for saving / printing and I am driven demented. I keep getting the first few pages exactly right but as soon as I try to move something on a later page the entire thing goes completely wrong again. Is there no way to 'fix' the correct pages while I work on the later ones? What am I missing here?

I have given up for now, as I cannot continue to neglect the rest of my life!

I realise that in my angst I have probably failed to provide enough details - please ask the appropriate questions.

If you are intending to email the chart to the recipient you should use Diagram>Save Diagram As>PDF file with the (default) option to Adjust PDF File Page Size so that Diagram fits into One Page (if possible). The PDF file can then be viewed on screen by zooming and using the scroll bars to move around the diagram.

If you really need to have it in a form which can be printed on paper I agree it can be quite a fiddle with a very big tree. I assume you have clicked the Avoid page boundaries option? It avoids boxes being split across page boundaries. You may just have to settle for whatever layout that produces, even if it’s not the most tidy layout. Or you could arrange the first few pages then print the chart on paper, discarding the rest of the pages, then arrange the next few pages and print it again, keeping only the required pages from the second stage, etc… (It depends how much paper you are prepared to throw away!)

Yes, Lorna already gave you the advice about saving to PDF as a single page.

I hope you saved your primary tree with the inserted tree as a Family Historian Chart so you don't have to reconstruct it each time, i.e. use Diagram > Save Diagram and then open it via View > Saved Charts.

No, I didn't do most of those things!!

(I DID use the avoid page boundaries option, but that generally led to children being separated from both of their parents, so was only helpful up to a point.)

At my first attempt I had a splendid diagram that I saved as a PDF. The next day I realised that (a) the PDF was paginated very oddly and (b) there was no way to open it again in FH. So, I started again from scratch, resulting in yesterday's angst.

Yesterday I didn't save anything at all as I could never get to a diagram that I liked AND that would paginate sensibly.

I haven't had time to go back to it today, but when I do I will firstly set up the diagram as required and then save it as a FH Chart. Then I will see if it is possible to fit the diagram on to one PDF page.

I have started to wonder if it would have been quicker to draw this tree with pen and ink! Another, slightly less challenging, option could be to photograph it from my screen and edit the photo(s) as necessary?

I think it may also be time to check back with the intended recipient, as in all of this they have not actually replied to my email asking them whether or not they can make use of a GEDcom file or whether they have an account anywhere, such as Ancestry, where I could link them to a tree.

Sorry you have been having such problems.

I do strongly recommend that you use the single page PDF option. That is the method normally recommended for sending charts by email. The maximum PDF page size supported by this method is 128″ x 128″ or 3276 mm x 3276, so unless it's a very big chart you should be fine with that method. If it is larger than that you can reduce the size by adjusting the scaling. See the advice in the Knowledge base here: Single PDF Page of a Diagram.

Note that if you use this method you do NOT need to use 'Avoid Page Boundaries' because there are none. This method is very quick. The only time-consuming part for you will be inserting the extra tree(s) to show the biological parents of the step children. As Mike said, if you save it as a Family Historian chart you only have to do that once.

I hope the recipient appreciates your efforts!

Thanks again, all sorted out now!