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Is a Clear Layout of a Full Family Tree Possible?

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  • Is a Clear Layout of a Full Family Tree Possible?

    I have been looking at a large selection of family tree display layouts and they all appear to have one thing in common, at best they are quite confusing to read and at worst, they are impossible to make sense of.
    Is there a layout which displays the whole family in a clear and concise manner?
    I am not looking for an actual software package but just the layout for the final family tree.
    I have managed to create a clear layout for a single person's descendants, ascendants, siblings and siblings ascendants but being able to include the rest of the tree just confuses the issue.
    I may be seeking the Holy Grail here but I would welcome your opinions.
    http://www.hodgkinsonclark.co.uk

  • #2
    Originally posted by StudioSoft View Post
    I have been looking at a large selection of family tree display layouts and they all appear to have one thing in common, at best they are quite confusing to read and at worst, they are impossible to make sense of.
    Is there a layout which displays the whole family in a clear and concise manner?
    I am not looking for an actual software package but just the layout for the final family tree.
    I have managed to create a clear layout for a single person's descendants, ascendants, siblings and siblings ascendants but being able to include the rest of the tree just confuses the issue.
    I may be seeking the Holy Grail here but I would welcome your opinions.
    Are you trying to emulate the All Relatives diagram which you get from Family Historian (and others too, I expect) ??? That is clear but enormous and copes well with displaying several first and second cousin marriages on the same line.
    Caroline
    Caroline's Family History Pages
    Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

    Comment


    • #3
      I did a great family tree for a One Name Study. It represented all the 'one surname' descendants of a couple who married in 1795. I used Family Historian and customised the tree so it was as small as possible but still legible. The result was SEVEN METRES long!!
      That's the problem with big families! You could do an Ancestor tree much more conservatively because there is a much more limited number of people.
      Anne

      Comment


      • #4
        I have never seen the all relatives output from Family Historian so I am not sure.
        I looked at some sample layouts of theirs but they only have about 20 people showing.
        I am looking at creating an effective layout of over 500 people which doesn't look like an old defaced school photo.
        It will only contain names and DOB's.
        I can create the output of my whole tree any way I like but I have yet to see a layout which is easy to understand.
        I have at the moment, what you describe as, an ancestor tree but I would like to try and get everyone on a single banner.
        http://www.hodgkinsonclark.co.uk

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by StudioSoft View Post
          I have never seen the all relatives output from Family Historian so I am not sure.
          I looked at some sample layouts of theirs but they only have about 20 people showing.
          I am looking at creating an effective layout of over 500 people which doesn't look like an old defaced school photo.
          It will only contain names and DOB's.
          I can create the output of my whole tree any way I like but I have yet to see a layout which is easy to understand.
          I have at the moment, what you describe as, an ancestor tree but I would like to try and get everyone on a single banner.
          I would suggest using a drop-down family tree, this forms a family tree in the form of a pyramid with each generation on a seperate line. The earliest generation being at the top and the latest or newest generation at the bottom of the tree.
          As all siblings are on the same line it is very easy to follow.

          The drawback is it only shows descendants of the one couple.

          However you can always use the program Treedraw to "draw" the tree. The advantage of this program is you can, if you don't mind a bit of work, combine as many descendant trees and/or ancestor trees on the one diagram, as you like, forming a tree which includes every person on your database.
          I have compiled one for my main dataset of 3952 people, it displays well on the computer.
          The drawback is if I want to print it out it would take three rolls of 200 inch paper to print or roughly 50 feet.

          I did produce a dropdown tree of the Guy pedigree a number of years ago which followed the same design but was far smaller and able to be printed on 4 landscape A4 sheets of paper.
          That is on my Guys of Bottesford website and produced in Word but tree draw is far simpler.


          Cheers
          Guy
          Last edited by Guy; 18-01-16, 21:23.
          Guy passed away October 2022

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by StudioSoft View Post
            I have been looking at a large selection of family tree display layouts and they all appear to have one thing in common, at best they are quite confusing to read and at worst, they are impossible to make sense of.
            Is there a layout which displays the whole family in a clear and concise manner?
            I am not looking for an actual software package but just the layout for the final family tree.
            I have managed to create a clear layout for a single person's descendants, ascendants, siblings and siblings ascendants but being able to include the rest of the tree just confuses the issue.
            I may be seeking the Holy Grail here but I would welcome your opinions.
            how many generations do you think the tree covers, how many people? How much space did you want it to take up? I think in the reference section you might find professional family tree printing companies - others have used them, and there have been a few threads about them here.

            Comment


            • #7
              The tree covers 12 generations and currently only has 444 individuals so is small compared with the research results of many of you.
              I have written a family tree creator, for our website, which creates a descendants and ascendants list for any individual, on demand. This is outputted as a HTML table and can also be saved as a PDF file.
              The beauty of the PDF approach is that it can be enlarged to almost any size using Adobe Reader.

              I don't think the pyramid approach will meet my needs as the display would soon become far too wide to be practical.
              Even the professionally produced trees I have seen have been quite confusing so this is why I am asking you kind folks if anyone has seen a really clear method of display which doesn't require an extension to be built onto the house to display it.
              http://www.hodgkinsonclark.co.uk

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by StudioSoft View Post
                The tree covers 12 generations and currently only has 444 individuals so is small compared with the research results of many of you.
                I have written a family tree creator, for our website, which creates a descendants and ascendants list for any individual, on demand. This is outputted as a HTML table and can also be saved as a PDF file.
                The beauty of the PDF approach is that it can be enlarged to almost any size using Adobe Reader.

                I don't think the pyramid approach will meet my needs as the display would soon become far too wide to be practical.
                Even the professionally produced trees I have seen have been quite confusing so this is why I am asking you kind folks if anyone has seen a really clear method of display which doesn't require an extension to be built onto the house to display it.
                That is why I suggested Treedraw it has the option to export the resultant tree as a pdf file which can be displayed on any computer and sized at will.
                Have a play around with the free trial and see if it suits you.

                One tip I found was to dispense with the boxes round people they waste a lot of space in my view
                Cheers
                Guy
                Guy passed away October 2022

                Comment


                • #9
                  I am not looking for software to perform the task but an uncluttered presentation layout style.
                  I have the computer display side of things sorted out because a site visitor can select anyone in the ancestor tree and the tree is then re-drawn with that person as the main subject.
                  I want to be able to print out the whole tree in a clear layout but cannot find a layout which looks good.
                  http://www.hodgkinsonclark.co.uk

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    You might (with a lot of patience and a good supply of paper) find you can do it best by hand on a piece of A3 paper. Careful planning required!! I have seen such trees and they are successful.
                    Anne

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by StudioSoft View Post
                      I am not looking for software to perform the task but an uncluttered presentation layout style.
                      I have the computer display side of things sorted out because a site visitor can select anyone in the ancestor tree and the tree is then re-drawn with that person as the main subject.
                      I want to be able to print out the whole tree in a clear layout but cannot find a layout which looks good.
                      Are you connected with the company Studiosoft?
                      Are you looking for information for software you are developing?
                      Or are these questions genuine questions for your personal family tree?

                      Cheers
                      Guy
                      Guy passed away October 2022

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        My project is to allow the tree output to be created on demand, doing it by hand kind of defeats the whole concept.

                        I am still seeking the evasive workable layout and not a software package to create it with.
                        The program is already written which outputs the data, the part I am struggling with is where the individual names appear on the paper.
                        http://www.hodgkinsonclark.co.uk

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Sorry, like Guy I thought you were looking for the best way to display a paper copy of your own tree. Not quite the same question!
                          Anne

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by StudioSoft View Post
                            My project is to allow the tree output to be created on demand, doing it by hand kind of defeats the whole concept.

                            I am still seeking the evasive workable layout and not a software package to create it with.
                            The program is already written which outputs the data, the part I am struggling with is where the individual names appear on the paper.
                            As one of those who have spent time looking to see what is available to help you, you are not being clear about what you actually want. It now looks as though you are wanting help with your own product which is getting extremely close to breaking our Ts and Cs about advertising:
                            Advertising
                            • Members may advertise their personal genealogy based business by adding a single link to their signature and/or via a post in the Business Services forum.


                            Caroline
                            Caroline's Family History Pages
                            Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              I am sorry if you believe I am attempting to use your website for advertising purposes.
                              I would like to clarify my position, if I may.
                              My signature contains a link to our own family website http://www.hodgkinsonclark.co.uk which is a genuine website representing our families and was registered in January 2014.
                              I am the owner of the company you mention and can only assume that you made this connection from the link on our own website and not from anything posted on here.
                              At no time have I attempted to promote or publicise any of our products or services via your website as it does indeed contravene your Ts and Cs.
                              Unlike you, I have never mentioned the company name on here.
                              My original post states quite clearly what I am looking for, which was a way of presenting our family tree in the best possible manner.
                              I have no intention of creating, promoting or advertising any family tree product as the market is already saturated by a whole range of software, some very good, some bad and some downright awful solutions.
                              If I had found a product suitable for our requirements, I would have gone with that but I am still seeking one which produces something more intuitive than a 5ft wide tree diagram.
                              I can only assume that such a display design does not yet exist so I will have to look elsewhere for a solution or create one myself.
                              http://www.hodgkinsonclark.co.uk

                              Comment


                              • #16
                                Originally posted by StudioSoft View Post
                                I am sorry if you believe I am attempting to use your website for advertising purposes.
                                I would like to clarify my position, if I may.
                                My signature contains a link to our own family website http://www.hodgkinsonclark.co.uk which is a genuine website representing our families and was registered in January 2014.
                                I am the owner of the company you mention and can only assume that you made this connection from the link on our own website and not from anything posted on here.
                                At no time have I attempted to promote or publicise any of our products or services via your website as it does indeed contravene your Ts and Cs.
                                Unlike you, I have never mentioned the company name on here.
                                My original post states quite clearly what I am looking for, which was a way of presenting our family tree in the best possible manner.
                                I have no intention of creating, promoting or advertising any family tree product as the market is already saturated by a whole range of software, some very good, some bad and some downright awful solutions.
                                If I had found a product suitable for our requirements, I would have gone with that but I am still seeking one which produces something more intuitive than a 5ft wide tree diagram.
                                I can only assume that such a display design does not yet exist so I will have to look elsewhere for a solution or create one myself.
                                I think your choice of user name rather than a specific mention of your company together with the link to your website alerted us to the possibility of advertising. My previous post was just a warning and to reassure other members, nothing more.

                                However, I am sure that you will have had more useful help from us if we had understood exactly what you were after!! I am still unsure exactly what you want to show and how - onscreen? Printed? Who do you want see? Only direct line or with siblings and their descendants?

                                Have you looked at fan charts, bow tie charts etc. ?



                                What do you want in the way of dates and other facts?

                                What do you want to do with cousin marriages? E.g. FH has the facility to switch these off and on.

                                Caroline
                                Caroline's Family History Pages
                                Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

                                Comment


                                • #17
                                  [IMG]D:\PERSONAL\Family\Trees\Grananne-GrandfatherWhite2.JPG [/IMG]This won't be much help but it may give some ideas.
                                  I have used a program called NetManage Ecco to create my family tree. Both branches (both White's!) came to Ireland in the Act of Settlement in the late 1650's. Both Quakers so the documentation is complete.
                                  I soon gave up trying to create the traditional 'tree' - as some replies to this thread have indicated the result was going to be huge.
                                  Ecco is an 'outliner' but way ahead of any other outliner software available, even today. Think Windows Explorer with its tree in the left hand plane and columns to the right with the file stats. Ecco allowed me to tailor the columns with headers such as Born, PoB, Wed, Died, PoD Resided, Notes, Sources.... Ecco
                                  What makes my tree so manageable is that I can collapse or expand rows to isolate a particular member in context.
                                  Unfortunatey Ecco expired many years ago. It runs in my Windows 7 32bit. However the program only runs in RAM and I can only print results; no PDF or spreadsheet. As a result I can only communicate with other family members using Windows Snipping Tool and JPEGs.
                                  (I don't know if my example Snip is visible).

                                  Comment


                                  • #18
                                    Thanks Peter
                                    I arrived at the same conclusion, that a neat layout of a complete family tree was not really possible.
                                    I have seen many layouts but never really been satisfied with the finished appearance.
                                    I asked on this forum, hoping that someone may have seen a simple display method which works both on screen or a printed document.
                                    Unfortunately, the emphasis was quickly moved away from family tree displays and everyone became obsessed that I was picking their brains for a commercial venture.
                                    I thought I had explained what I was looking for quite clearly and it appears, from your reply, that you were able to ascertain precisely what I wanted from the information I had already supplied.
                                    I had decided not to post again here but felt it only fair to respond to your post.
                                    http://www.hodgkinsonclark.co.uk

                                    Comment

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