Ancestors amp; Descendants Diagram

g_mcallister · Post by **g_mcallister** » 05 Nov 2009 17:38

I have just moved up to V4 (Bought the full V4 rather than the upgrade) and have been learning about its new capabilities.
I notice a strange behaviour with the Ancestors & Descendants Diagram. It shows the siblings of the diagram root and their descendants. This cannot be right. It doesn't just happen on my own file but also with the sample Munro project.
Has anyone else seen this?

ID:4116

PeterR · Post by **PeterR** » 05 Nov 2009 18:16

Yes, this is standard behaviour, but it is not obvious why the Descendant Diagram shows only the Root plus the Root's spouse(s) and descendants, while the Ancestor and Descendant Diagram shows also the Root's siblings, together with their spouses. However, there is a Diagram Option on the General tab to untick Auto-display root's siblings' branches. See the Help for Diagram Options Dialog: General Tab:

Auto-display root's siblings' branches:-
Only applicable to the Ancestors and Descendants. Siblings of the diagram root are always displayed in Ancestors & Descendants diagrams, but unless this option is checked, their expansion buttons will be closed by default.

g_mcallister · Post by **g_mcallister** » 05 Nov 2009 19:19

Peter,
Thanks. You are right, this seems to be the standard behaviour. (I still have V3 on my laptop and just fired that up and found it behaved the same. Funny, I never noticed it before and never noticed the 'auto-display siblings branches' check box).

The Help information, which you kindly directed me to says ' ...... but unless this option is checked, their expansion buttons will be closed by default.' But the button was checked in my installation and I am still on default settings as I have not yet changed anything.

I expect I can live with this behaviour but I would still maintain that siblings are not ancestors or descendants and should not appear in this diagram.

margarita · Post by **margarita** » 05 Nov 2009 19:44

I have found the Ancestors & Descendants Diagram showing the siblings very useful when searching for Census entries. It's often possible to identify people any siblings they are living with.

If you want to print a diagram showing just ancestors & descendants you can hide the siblings you don't want.

Regards,

maggie

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