Ancestors and Descendants diagram in V5

Dagwood · Post by **Dagwood** » 07 Apr 2012 17:02

When I produced the above in V4 for my cousins and Aunts/Uncles I'm pretty certain I got a straightforward tree specific to them. In V5 I see I get their siblings ,the siblings spouses and offspring and the offsprings' spouses. I can get rid of the spouse information but there's too much information if I want to send my cousin a copy of her A&D chart.

Am I mistaken in believing this has changed with V5? Is there any way I can get rid of the extra relatives?
Dagwood

ID:6116

Post by **tatewise** » 07 Apr 2012 17:56

I think you might be correct.

Certainly, the Descendants shown in a Descendants only Diagram do not include the Root person's siblings.

Whereas, the Descendants shown in an Ancestors & Descendants Diagram do include Root person's siblings and their spouse and descendants.

The siblings descendants can be automatically inhibited using the Diagram Options setting on the General tab near the bottom left called Auto-display Root's siblings' branches.

Also try choosing a direct descendant of your current Root person and see if that helps simplify Diagram.

Post by **LornaCraig** » 07 Apr 2012 18:48

What seems to have changed is that the option in the general tab of Diagram Options is, as Tatwise says, now an option to exclude the siblings BRANCHES. As far as I remember, in V4 it was an option to exclude the siblings themselves (and their branches never showed anyway).

The quickest way to achieve what you want is just right click on each sibling and choose 'Hide'. This will hide them and their whole branch.

The book 'Getting the most from FH 5' (page 36) says 'You should be able to see that the Ancestors and Descendants diagram is simply the grafting of an Ancestors diagram on top of a Descendants diagram. Ancestors are displayed in the top part, descendants in the bottom'. This is not quite correct, as it is no longer possible to remove the root's siblings from the A&D diagram (other than by 'hiding' them after it has been generated) and they would not show if you grafted an Ancestors diagram onto a Descendants diagram. However it suggests another way of creating what you want: you could create separate Ancestor and Descendant diagrams and insert one into the other, overlapping the root box.

Dagwood · Post by **Dagwood** » 08 Apr 2012 08:32

LornaCraig said:
.......................The book 'Getting the most from FH 5' (page 36) says 'You should be able to see that the Ancestors and Descendants diagram is simply the grafting of an Ancestors diagram on top of a Descendants diagram. Ancestors are displayed in the top part, descendants in the bottom'. This is not quite correct, as it is no longer possible to remove the root's siblings from the A&D diagram (other than by 'hiding' them after it has been generated) and they would not show if you grafted an Ancestors diagram onto a Descendants diagram. However it suggests another way of creating what you want: you could create separate Ancestor and Descendant diagrams and insert one into the other, overlapping the root box.

Thanks for both your replies.
Lorna, I'll have a look at the on-line book to see how you insert one diagram into another.
I wonder though if this is an error on the part of Calico Pie as it seems to be an unecessary change to what we had previously? As you say, if you wanted siblings etc, they could have been added or deleted via the options.
Too much to ask that it goes on a V5 Wish List this early in its life but what do others think? Or is it an error that could be fixed with a download variation if enough people want it?
Dagwood

Dagwood · Post by **Dagwood** » 08 Apr 2012 08:57

Having read the page Lorna referred to and then trying out the Insert into Diagram procedure I now realise how easy it is to add the Descendents onto the Ancestors diagram. It must take all of a minute to do! Thanks for pointing that out.
Having created a simpler A&D diagram than the one I referred to in my first post I then saved it as a Family Historian Chart and can now access it from the View menu, something else I've just learnt!
I guess I should withdraw my suggestion of a patch or changing what V5 has now as it is so easy to overcome the problem and others may like what the A&D diagram gives them.
Dagwood

Merenwen · Post by **Merenwen** » 10 Apr 2012 09:03

Dagwood said:
Too much to ask that it goes on a V5 Wish List this early in its life but what do others think? Dagwood

I'm with you there! I intend to make a book of all my effords so far and I really don't want to have do this to 300+ trees.

And thanks for confirming I'm not going mad (well, this time), it really did used to look different in v4. I've been trying all the v5 diagrams to find the v4 equivalent and thought it must be me.

TonyF · Post by **TonyF** » 10 Apr 2012 11:53

I do not think there is any difference in the behaviour of this diagram in either V4 or V5. I still have V4 on one computer and I cannot get it to produced this diagram without showing the siblings of the chart root person. Would someone kindly explain how they achieved it in V4 please.

I agree that as your siblings are neither your ancestors nor your descendants they should not be in this diagram.

Tony

Dagwood · Post by **Dagwood** » 10 Apr 2012 15:05

TonyF said:
I do not think there is any difference in the behaviour of this diagram in either V4 or V5. I still have V4 on one computer and I cannot get it to produced this diagram without showing the siblings of the chart root person......
Tony

It could be that you are correct in what you say Tony. I don't have V4 to check but if you go back to my original post you'll see the problem is greater than just the siblings appearing. It's the siblings spouses and their offspring etc that bothers me - and some of the other contributors as well. However if you are quite happy with the results you are getting then my point about following Lorna's advice should keep the rest of us happy.
Dagwood

Post by **LornaCraig** » 10 Apr 2012 21:09

TonyF said:
I still have V4 on one computer and I cannot get it to produced this diagram without showing the siblings of the chart root person. Would someone kindly explain how they achieved it in V4 please.

I don't have access to V4 any more so cannot check this but as far as I remember in V4 there was tick box on the General Tab of Diagram Options to 'display root's siblings', and if unticked the siblings did not appear at all. (Sorry if I'm remembering wrongly.)

In V5 the option is to 'Auto display root's siblings' branches'. If un-ticked in V5 the siblings themselves (and their spouses!) still show. If ticked in V5 the siblings, their spouses and their descendants all show.

The installation settings for V5 have the option ticked, so a first-time user who has not changed the default settings will see the root's siblings and their descendants. In other words with installation settings the Ancestors and Descendants tree is actually displaying the ancestors and descendants not of the root but of the root's parents!

Dagwood · Post by **Dagwood** » 11 Apr 2012 08:59

Put as logically as you have Lorna it would appear to be an error in the program writers logic. Perhaps it should go on the wish list after all as the effect we are seeing is the same as an All Descendants for, as you say, the diagram root's parents.
Dagwood

TimTreeby · Post by **TimTreeby** » 11 Apr 2012 09:42

Siblings and their descendents have always appeared on A+D diagrams, or certainly from v3 at least. quote from V3 help for diagram options.

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.

As this is same for v5 would suggest that v4 was the same as well. Wether the siblings should be displayed or not is a different matter.

Post by **tatewise** » 11 Apr 2012 10:50

I can confirm that this Auto-display root's siblings' branches option is EXACTLY the same in the FH Demo 3.0 Read-0nly version as in FH V5.0.

Post by **LornaCraig** » 11 Apr 2012 16:56

Evidently my memory of the V4 Ancestor & Descendant diagram options was wrong - apologies - I probably always had the option to display siblings' branches unticked. What does seem to have changed some time between V3 and V5 (accoring to the quote given by Tim Treeby from the V3 help) is that the default at one time was for the siblings branches to be hidden and the default (installation setting) in V5 is for the siblings branches to be displayed.

The description of the A&D diagram in 'Getting the Most from FH' has probably been inaccurate since at least V3, as it says:

'You should be able to see that the Ancestors and Descendants diagram is simply the grafting of an Ancestors diagram on top of a Descendants diagram. Ancestors are displayed in the top part, descendants in the bottom'

A new user trying to get to grips with diagrams will find this very confusing.
With installation settings the root's siblings branches all show, and even with their descendants excluded the siblings and their spouses show. This is quite different from grafting an Ancestors diagram onto a Descendants diagram, where the roots siblings do not show at all. The diagram actually shows ancestors and descendants of the root person's parents, so the description in the book should probably be revised in later editions. (I have suggested this to Calico)

Dagwood · Post by **Dagwood** » 12 Apr 2012 18:11

I have to agree with Lorna. The title leads one to believe you are getting, as the book describes, a descendent grafted on to an ancestor diagram. Unfortunately we seem to be more concerned about whether earlier versions did or did not do it rather than should or shouldn't it show siblings,spouse ,offspring etc. At the moment,again as Lorna has said previously, it is showing a Root's Parent's A & D diagram and is therefore incorrect.
Dagwood

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