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ckrummel

NEW FEATURE REQUEST: Creating a box chart for all people in a focus group

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Hi All,

 

I'm pretty sure that you have all been in a similar situation when working on your family tree - often you find yourself talking to relatives of relatives that are not blood related but who can provide or at least have access to a wealth of information relevant to your own family tree.

 

However, there seems to be no feature in TMG 7 to create a box plot that also inlcudes non blood related individuals and their relatives.

 

I was advised by TMG support that creating an 'all in one' box plot can be accomplished but not in one step. As you can imagine, creating separate box plots for all non blood related people and their relatives would be highly manual and time consuming. Leave alone the fact that the 'snapshot' taken will be out of date as soon as the data in TMG are updated.

 

In short, I would like to create a box plot for an entire focus group (or even the entire family tree).

 

I am very hopeful that other TMG users have this requirement, too. Please don't hesitate to post your answer, even if it's just 'AGREE' or 'DISAGREE' so I can provide some feedback to TMG Support based on your comments.

 

Best regards,

Christian K

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Charts are created based on one person and that's unlikely to change.

 

If you select a focus group to create a chart, multiple charts are created, each based on one person.

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Christian,

 

This has been asked for before, certainly by me. In order to facilitate this I export a GEDCOM from TMG with just the people I want (e.g. like your focus group suggestion) and the relevant tag info. I then input that into FTM 2006 and use the All-in-one tree there. It’s a bit fiddly, (e.g. you can only save 1 setup, so you have to import a "no people" master project before you import the GEDCOM), also if you get too many people in it, it still works, but the odd letter gets truncated (known bug). But the output is a very neat PDF text searchable file (use the 1 page PDF and magnify), great for "ticking off people" if you are importing a GEDCOM or similar.

 

The later "total re-write" versions of FTM lost the all-in-one tree (along with a lot of other features), but I now believe they are reinstating it (see below), however, when I last tried I got a massive sized none searchable jpg file!!). I've not seen the later versions so they may have improved it.

 

I HOPE WG DON'T MIND ME PUTTING THIS HERE, BUT MANY PEOPLE ACCEPT THAT THEY NEED MORE THAN 1 PIECE OF GENEALOGY SOFTWARE, EACH HAS ITS GOOD POINTS, and I would not be without the database, filtering etc etc features of TMG, just hope the reports rewrite for v8 adds some useful features.

 

FTM2010 has an Extended Family Tree chart. You pick the names you want, no idea how good it is, and they promise an All in one in the future. They seem to be spending a lot of money on development, but to me the basic structure just does not work as a useful database.

 

Jim Orrell

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I appreciate the interest in all-in-one charts, but I wonder if there aren't more practical and just as effective alternatives in VCF. The VCF forum here has dozens of threads on one- or two-page letter-size charts (one thread has had over 30,000 views). Small non-wall charts used with a manual index are easy to make and update individually. Might be something to consider.

 

Virginia

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Thanks to all for your replies so far. Good to get different perspectives on this.

 

Before using another software in conjunction with TMG just to facilitate this, I'd like to try out the alternative suggested by Virginia. Can you please point me in the right direction re a step-by-step instruction for creating the all-in-one chart via VCF. If it is a simple enough workaround, I'd be happy to try it out.

 

The GEDCOM export sounds a bit more complicated and as I'm actually very happy with TMG, I don't want to start using another piece of software yet. However, I find it rather strange that such a basic requirement cannot be facilitated within TMG - renowned as the world's leading geneology software.

 

Jim's comment below sounds like a typical answer from IT ... it basically cannot be done because of the way the system (TMG) is built. Well, maybe TMG has to change if this turns out to be a rather common customer requirement.

 

Views?

 

Rgds,

Christian

 

 

Charts are created based on one person and that's unlikely to change.

 

If you select a focus group to create a chart, multiple charts are created, each based on one person.

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AncWhipple_3_.jpgDescWhipple_97_x.jpg

 

Christian -

 

I have not found the all-in-one chart of other gen programs practical for everyday use, for sharing, or for updating. My own solution is a combination of a one-page ancestor chart with one-page descendant charts for each end-of-line ancestor. The examples above are on letter-size paper and show an ancestor chart of a maternal grandfather Whipple and a descendant chart of the 4th-great-grandfather Whipple.

 

With larger families I may break down the descendant chart into smaller groups (more pages). In the descendant chart above I manually edited/compacted the chart to add 2 generations below the grandfather and still fit on one page. There are several threads and examples on the forum re manual editing.

 

Boxes in the charts can be numbered to provide an index to other charts or to, for example, Family Group Sheets. There are examples in the forum of charts as a Table of Contents.

 

Virginia

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Hi Virginia,

 

Thanks for sharing - this is very helpful indeed.

 

Taking a closer look at the two charts leads me to the assumption that they are created using 'Charting Companion for Family Tree Maker'. If so, do you work with TMG as your master data source and data entry tool and then load an exported GEDCOM file into FTM to satisfy all your reporting needs?

 

The more I study the reporting features in TMG, the more I think it is nowhere near what e.g. FTM in conjunction with the 'charting companion' offers. Do you agree?

 

My goal is to find a long-term solution for comprehensive family tree reporting, reaching from basic ancestor and descendant charts incl colouring and thumbnail portraits to more advanced timeline reports (Genelines) as well as mapping my family tree (Map My Family Tree).

 

What is your view?

 

Regards,

Christian

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Thanks for sharing - this is very helpful indeed.

 

Taking a closer look at the two charts leads me to the assumption that they are created using 'Charting Companion for Family Tree Maker'. If so, do you work with TMG as your master data source and data entry tool and then load an exported GEDCOM file into FTM to satisfy all your reporting needs?

 

The more I study the reporting features in TMG, the more I think it is nowhere near what e.g. FTM in conjunction with the 'charting companion' offers. Do you agree?

 

My goal is to find a long-term solution for comprehensive family tree reporting, reaching from basic ancestor and descendant charts incl colouring and thumbnail portraits to more advanced timeline reports (Genelines) as well as mapping my family tree (Map My Family Tree).

 

What is your view?

Christian -

 

My charts, like the other charts in this forum, were created in TMG using Visual Chartform. The examples in this thread just scratch the surface of what you can do. Browse the VCF forum here for more examples of TMG user creativity, including Mike Talbot's wonderful composite charts. I have not found another charting program that provides the tools and flexibility of this program - particularly when it comes to the eminently practical one-page letter-size chart. In my experience you are limited only by your imagination when it comes to TMG/VCF charts.

 

You can see examples of VCF wall charts, including some submitted by users, on the WG sample report site here.

 

Virginia

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With the increasing popularity of atDNA research, the need for Extended Family Charts (aka All-In-One Charts) is becoming a necessity for successful atDNA researchers. Such charts would be used online to expedite atDNA common ancestor searches. Ancestry.com has had an online version for some time and FTM has a PDF version. I understand that such chart would be massive in many cases and that multiple linked pages would probably be necessary. I have no desire to print such a chart. I also understand that historical lineage charts have been based on the one ancestor or one descendant concept. I also understand that most existing chart software has been developed around this one person concept and that an Extended Family chart is a radical departure from this concept. There seems to be no doubt that the design and development of such a chart would be a very significant challenge; however, the need for such a TMG chart is only going to grow. Since I use the Second Site product to generate my online lineage databases, I am sending a similar message to John Cardinal.

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