Charting

Gloswegian · Post by **Gloswegian** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 8:31 am

Hello all,

I'm looking for some reccomendations for a bit of software which will allow me to print my tree out on paper. Easy I hear you say.

I'm sure I am not the only one who would like to show siblings and others not "directly connected" but who are nonetheless quite significant in my family history. I have a fair number of multiple illegitimate births and some multiple illegitimacies which I would also like to show as they are very significant.

I use legacy 7 (the free version) which now has charting available but it does not have any of the features I am looking for and only does 4 generations.

Does the full version have more flexibility to show "all" members of the tree or is there something else available?

I have resorted to using paper and pencil and my writing is shocking!

I am not a doctor however and cannot even read my own scribble sometimes.

Gordon

LesleyB · Post by **LesleyB** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 9:56 am

Hi Gordon

I use legacy 7 (the free version) which now has charting available but it does not have any of the features I am looking for and only does 4 generations.

Does the full version have more flexibility to show "all" members of the tree or is there something else available?

I was not aware that the Standard version of Legacy only allowed 4 generations- the full version appears to have no limit on generations which can be shown on a chart.

It is possible to show siblings as well - it depends what kind of chart you choose. The descendant chart shows siblings, spouses etc, of everyone descended from your chosen person.

I don't know of any chart type which will show everyone in a family file - usually charts are either ancestor or descendant based, so some lines of folk are missed out in either version.

Legacy will shown all children to a person, not only legitimate ones, so there should not be a problem there, but of course a lot depends on any of the data being entered acurately in the software originally -e.g. if the illegitimate children have been added along with the children from a later marriage, then that is how they will appear on the chart. But even if entered as having a separate father, and indicated as illegitimate in the child settings dialog box, as I'm not seeing any option in Legacy to differentiate on a chart between those children who are legitimate and those who were illegitimate (by colour coding for example) - that would be a usefull addtion! Even if it is stated that the couple did not marry, they still appear on the chart with an = as if they had been married...

Although you could tag all illegitimate children, there appears to be no way to then apply a different box shape or colour to those tagged individuals when in the charting option area.

...and oddly enough, "illegitimate" does not seem to be a word in Legacy's help file, so no pointers there!

Best wishes
Lesley

margarita · Post by **margarita** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 10:37 am

Hi, Gordon,

I use Family Historian. (Just Google it)

There is a facility for an 'everyone' diagram, which does just what it says on the tin and shows everyone in you database, which can be a bit daunting and complicated.

However you can create an ancestor, descendent or all relatives diagram and then add other trees to it.

You can download a trial version which you could try to see if it does what you want. There is also a very good Family Historian Users Group (FHUG) where you would be able to find answers to any queries you might have.

Regards,

Gloswegian · Post by **Gloswegian** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 8:26 am

Many thanks for the recommendations,

I have downloaded Family Historian and it looks like a very good tool to me. So much so that my daughter used it to create a four generation chart of the Tudors for her history homework with very little input from me.

The charting features are excellent. They are very customisable and you can tweak it to satisfy virtually any requirement you have. I'm still learning that though!

I may well stick with this one and pay the £30 for the full version.

Thanks again

Gordon

ninatoo · Post by **ninatoo** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 9:51 am

I used to use free Legacy and I think you can have more than 4 generations, but you need to alter the amount in the options before printing.

I now use the paid version of Legacy, and to be honest I haven't yet made use of any of the added extras....give me time though!

Nina