everyone chart request

[spydrsrch 0]

After using FTM for several years, I found that it would not do some of the things I wanted, so comparisons of competitive products led me to acquisition of TMG. For the most part, I have found TMG to be an excellent and sophisticated tool. However, there are several facilities which it seems to lack and which I find important. I am making this entry then as a request to seriously consider inclusion of these capabilities. If the functions I am requesting are already available, and I have simply not discovered them I humbly, (and gladly,) accept that information.

 

1)FTM has a chart option which is called an "All-in-one" tree. This function creates a box chart of all people in the data base. Admittedly, this size of chart can become very large. However, I found it to be very useful and of great interest.

 

Not everyone is as interested and taken with genealogy research as are those reading this entry and using these utilities. But almost everyone gets curious when they see a family tree chart of their family. Many times it is difficult to get people to open up and provide information for our genealogy projects. When they observe the family connections and relationships, it opens up new ideas and forgotten remembrances, and provides me ways to obtain more information and cooperation.

 

Another aspect of an all-in-one style chart is that it includes family branches that are indirectly connected and that are not displayed in a basic ancestor chart. For example, I have many situations where great great ... grandparents were married more than once, with resulting offspring. In many countries in times past, wives died in childbirth and the husband had to marry again soon because he had small children. It was a fact of life. The husbands died young because of illness and hard life and the widow needed the protection of a husband. These situations, multiple marriages, and associated individuals are not included on the ancestor chart, yet they are part of the family history, and show a connection in the family. Excluding them creates a blank spot in the charted picture of a family.

 

With FTM's implementation of the all-in-one chart, I found that it could be something of a problem just because it charted everyone. The chart became difficult to work with and print because of the size. As a result, I would often go through a series of machinations to break a connection within a family so as to reduce the size of the resulting chart to a specific section of the entire family. By doing this I could create a workable chart specific to the family group with whom I was working. By group in this case, I mean real people, still living. They are typically not interested in any family branch outside their sphere.

 

Since I still own a license to FTM, I have circumvented this failing by exporting data from TMG and importing it back into FTM, simply to create these charts.

 

I suggest therefore that TMG consider implementing a modified all-in-one using the chart options in the ancestor chart selection. Allow us to specify that we want all individuals in the ancestor chart of the focus person to be included. This manner of implementation would be more flexible than that of the FTM option. It would result in a controllable all-in-one chart that would more than satisfy that which I feel is an important capability.

 

2) Perhaps I have not gotten deep enough into TMG but I have found the reporting capabilities have some limitations in comparison to FTM. In FTM I could specify the items/fields I wanted in a report in a very easy manner, then create a report and export the data to a file either to print or easily brought into a spreadsheet for further analysis. Although it seems more or less workable to do something similar in TMG, it is really not as direct and quick, nor as flexible.

 

I find these two items to be of serious enough importance to me to consider a further review of competing products with the possibility of a return to FTM. This even though I believe TMG to be overall a superior product.

[Terry Reigel 0]

2) Perhaps I have not gotten deep enough into TMG but I have found the reporting capabilities have some limitations in comparison to FTM. In FTM I could specify the items/fields I wanted in a report in a very easy manner, then create a report and export the data to a file either to print or easily brought into a spreadsheet for further analysis. Although it seems more or less workable to do something similar in TMG, it is really not as direct and quick, nor as flexible.

I've not used FTM in years, so don't recall exactly the features you are describing, but from your description, I think TMG does what you want.

 

For most "genealogy" reports - narratives of various types and Family Group Sheets, TMG allows you to specify which tag types are to be included. Go to the Tags tab of report Options, and specify "Selected" tag types. Then a list opens from which you can select which tag types you want to include in the report. The key to success if you want to fine-tune this feature is to enter data you may want to exclude from reports in different tag types than data you want to always include.

 

For specific items of data you might want to protect, there are also the sensitive data features, that let you mark specific data to be included only with an option in the report or to never be reported. And, depending on the type of report, there are many options to include or exclude sources, specific place fields, spouse and children data, etc.

 

Is there some specific type of information you want to exclude that you find difficult to do in TMG?

 

Almost all TMG reports can be created as word processor files. In fact, I can't imagine using them any other way for reports I would send to someone else, as I always want to make some edits or reformatting. Of course you can also edit those you create for research purposes if that's helpful. The "List of..." reports can also be created as spreadsheets, which can useful for further analysis. You suggest you find this difficult in TMG. Where do you find a problem doing that?

[RobinL 0]

There is a place for another chart style within TMG that could show more than the descendancy or ancestry of a single focus person. The Hourglass is just a simple combination of one of each of these. It is possible with an increasing amount of manual editing to produce more complex connected collections of these basic building blocks, but it is not easy, quick or consistent in format.

 

I don't think that the FTM Everyone chart layout is very satisfactory both in the positioning of persons nor in the control over the scope of who will be shown on the chart. Other FH packages have similar charts all of which leave much to be desired for ease of understanding by the normal chart viewing audience or in their efficient use of the chart page.

 

That means that

 

- a better "acceptable" layout needs to agreed on.

 

(Like minimizing the lengths of some types of connection in preference to lengths of other types of connection, while maintaining generational groupings, use of a number of standardized line styles for connection types, etc)

 

- a well defined easily used method of defining which persons are to be shown needs to be agreed upon.

 

( Like some connection distance from a fous person, - ancestors to A generations from the focus person, to this then add their descendants for B generations, plus descendants for C generations from the focus person, to this set then add their ancestors for D generations - this would include children of a parent in common (the blended family) and ancestors of spouses. This could also be controlled when (optionally) those persons had a flag value set).

 

I would support the inclusion of an expanded scope style chart layout if these issues could be addressed. I suspect that the average user under-estimates the development cost to produce such a new chart style and the likely priority that it might get when such a charting feature would not get used by a majority of users.

[spydrsrch 0]

Sorry that I have not responded sooner, but I wanted to conduct some queries and think somewhat about the request I made.

 

There is a place for another chart style within TMG that could show more than the descendancy or ancestry of a single focus person. The Hourglass is just a simple combination of one of each of these. It is possible with an increasing amount of manual editing to produce more complex connected collections of these basic building blocks, but it is not easy, quick or consistent in format.

 

I have tried the hourglass chart and find it equally lacking. It also does not chart the family members I feel should at least be an option. Manual editing to produce a report/chart should not be a necessary process. This is particularly true as the database is being developed and undergoing frequent updates.

 

 

I don't think that the FTM Everyone chart layout is very satisfactory both in the positioning of persons nor in the control over the scope of who will be shown on the chart. Other FH packages have similar charts all of which leave much to be desired for ease of understanding by the normal chart viewing audience or in their efficient use of the chart page.

 

 

The FTM all-in-one chart takes the opposite extreme in that it charts the entire database. I find that impractical and generally unworkable to actually use. However, it is the basis for what I would like and have found useful. As I said previously, I have worked around that problem by breaking connections at specific points in order to get the all-in-one to chart out the desired family section, with all of the people included in that section. It takes some doing, but it is not tremendously difficult.

 

That means that

 

- a better "acceptable" layout needs to agreed on.

 

(Like minimizing the lengths of some types of connection in preference to lengths of other types of connection, while maintaining generational groupings, use of a number of standardized line styles for connection types, etc)

 

- a well defined easily used method of defining which persons are to be shown needs to be agreed upon.

 

( Like some connection distance from a fous person, - ancestors to A generations from the focus person, to this then add their descendants for B generations, plus descendants for C generations from the focus person, to this set then add their ancestors for D generations - this would include children of a parent in common (the blended family) and ancestors of spouses. This could also be controlled when (optionally) those persons had a flag value set).

 

The ancestor chart is a reasonable starting point. If one could just be able to specify that the missing people by included either by their position in the family, or by just requesting "include everyone" above the scope of the focus individual, I would find that satisfactory.

 

 

 

I would support the inclusion of an expanded scope style chart layout if these issues could be addressed. I suspect that the average user under-estimates the development cost to produce such a new chart style and the likely priority that it might get when such a charting feature would not get used by a majority of users.

 

 

From observation and individual interviewing, I find that when I show a family chart to individuals within a family, they almost always look immediately for themselves as a reference point. I am typically using these charts to foster interest in the family genealogy efforts primarily to help solicit assistance and information from family members. It works every time. When they cannot make that reference, or find people they really know for that purpose, they lose interest. Why should they provide information if it is not going to show up someplace. People like pictures. The chart is a map of the family and its history. That history includes people who are technically not in the "direct line'" in the pure definition of an ancestor, but they make the family what it is. They had an affect on the family and people like to see how they are connected. Anything that will help researchers obtain information is generally a good thing. That said, I firmly believe that this proposed chart style would be found very useful to many people. It would be a salable feature for the product.

 

I would be interested and willing to provide help or suggestions in any dialogue to address this capability.