Showing the direct line

[Kim & Kelly Derrick 0]

When in Person View, I would like to see which of the listed children is my direct ancestor (grandmother/grandfather). I have the relationship calculator ON and displaying in the Person View, but it only indicates my relationship with the current primary person, not his or her children. To find out which child is my grandparent, it seems I have to select each of them individually, make them primary and check the relation tag on the details window. Some of my families have 15 children, so this can take some time. I would like to mark all my direct line ancestors so I can tell, at a glance, who is direct line and who isn't. (It would be nice if it showed in the Picklist, too.)

 

I'm looking at Flags, Custom Tags and Accent. It looks like I can add a direct line tag (relationship tag type), or add a flag, and then use the Accent, or just notice the direct line tag in the Details window. It appears I would have to go in and manually add this flag or tag to each person.

 

Has anyone else tried this? What approach have you used? Any suggestions?

[Michael Hannah 0]

This is very commonly done, and one of the nicest features of TMG. Terry Reigel's TMG Tips about accents uses this very circumstance to demonstrate that feature. See his page about Showing the direct line for complete step-by-step details on how to do this.

[Terry Reigel 0]

If all you really want is to mark the direct line, you can use Accents and a filter for "Is and ancestor of..." This is described on page pp 93-94 of my book (see link below).

 

Michael has directed you to the article on my website which shows a more comprehensive system, which not only marks the direct line, but also shows by color coding siblings of your ancestors, cousins, spouses, and parents of spouses.

 

The flag method outlined in the webpage takes a bit longer to set up, but is more flexible and doesn't slow down naviagation from person so person as the filter can when your data set gets large.

[StewartR 0]

I'd like to know if there is a practical limit to filtering on "Is an Ancestor of...".

 

I was recently using TMG 6.12. And needed to update my accenting based on some major changes and additions.

 

The report using that filter failed. TMG appears to lock up. Several hours of disk grinding, to only quiet down, and never return.

 

The database contains 27,000 or so people. (Not all my ancestors, but the lineage is extensive.)

 

So I upgraded to TMG 7.02 thinking new programming would address such possible memory glitches.

 

It does not. TMG again locks up on that report/filter.

 

I tried using the Related By "book of reports" that I found online (probably Terry's). But it locks at the report that looks to mark my ancestors.

 

This feature, the accenting of Ancestors, and setting all the others, (using individual reports to set and reset flags), has worked in the past. And I absolutely think marking the "direct line" in every view, through children and everything, is something I can't do without.

 

Is there a limit in TMG on how many "ancestors" can be found before it quits?

 

If all you really want is to mark the direct line, you can use Accents and a filter for "Is and ancestor of..." This is described on page pp 93-94 of my book (see link below).

[John Cardinal 0]

Stewart,

 

Is there any chance that you have a circular relationship defined, i.e., a case where someone is recorded as their own ancestor as a result of a mistake in the parent-child linkage?

 

Second Site has a relationship calculator and after searching ancestors back approx. 1000 generations, it gives up. In all cases where that has happened, the TMG project had a circular relationship. If TMG's "is an Ancestor of" filter is not protected from such a condition, then it may never stop searching...

[StewartR 0]

Thanks John.

 

It will give me something to analyze and see if I can find a smoking gun in the database.

 

Stewart,

 

Is there any chance that you have a circular relationship defined, i.e., a case where someone is recorded as their own ancestor as a result of a mistake in the parent-child linkage?

 

Second Site has a relationship calculator and after searching ancestors back approx. 1000 generations, it gives up. In all cases where that has happened, the TMG project had a circular relationship. If TMG's "is an Ancestor of" filter is not protected from such a condition, then it may never stop searching...

[StewartR 0]

Maybe I went about it the wrong way, looking for the circular reference. Here's what I did.

 

I made a list of people with a report, four columns: Person - Person's ID - Father - Father's ID

 

Using Excel I created a column that showed the Father's ID for the Father. (Using LOOKUP.)

 

So now I have Person - Person's ID - Father - Father's ID - Father's Father's ID

 

Then I made a column where I subtracted the Father's Father ID from the Person ID.

 

Person - Person's ID - Father - Father's ID - Father's Father's ID - Check #

 

A circular relationship would have netted me a 0 in the Check #. No zeros. I then extended it one more time, no zeros. And a fourth time, no zeros.

 

And I did the same for the mother's. No zeros.

 

So I'm wondering, is there perhaps a simple solution to finding this possible problem of a circular relationship?

 

 

Thanks John.

 

It will give me something to analyze and see if I can find a smoking gun in the database.

 

Stewart,

 

Is there any chance that you have a circular relationship defined, i.e., a case where someone is recorded as their own ancestor as a result of a mistake in the parent-child linkage?

 

Second Site has a relationship calculator and after searching ancestors back approx. 1000 generations, it gives up. In all cases where that has happened, the TMG project had a circular relationship. If TMG's "is an Ancestor of" filter is not protected from such a condition, then it may never stop searching...

Edited June 4, 2008 by StewartR

[John Cardinal 0]

Stewart,

 

I don't know an easy way to find a circular relationship. In the cases I have seen before, Second Site found multiple people who were affected by the problem. I instructed the users to choose a person in that set who is the furthest back in the lineage, and starting from there, look at that person's ancestor tree carefully until you see a parent who was born later. People who are way back in the lineage will have less parents, grandparents, etc., so that reduces the relationships you have to inspect.

 

I just thought of this: you might try using the relationship calculator. Choose the person who you used with the "Is An Ancestor Of" function and set both IDs to that person. See if TMG will report more than the closest relationship (same person).

 

Hmm... another idea would be to generate a pedigree report for that person. Limit it to a certain number of generations, but more than you believe is valid. SO, for example, if you think you have at most 30 generations, set the limit for the report to 40 and see if the tree expand along a certain line and shows duplicate people. That may yield some clues.

 

Given that we don't know for sure that the problem is a circular relationship, I am not sure how much effort I'd expend looking for it.

 

Good luck.