* Couple in between siblings.. help

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Carel
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Couple in between siblings.. help

Post by Carel »

Dear colleagues family tree builders,
I am desperately trying to get a married couple in between there siblings in one row.
I am able to do so in FH sample project (the siblings move apart if I move the couple up) but not in my own tree.
It is a tree of ancesters eg the root is the latest child (this in order to get everybody in from both sides of the family).
Can somebody please enlighten me?
Thanks a lot!
Carel

nb, please see the attachment, how do I get the right couple at the same row ate te left?
question1.jpg
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tatewise
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Re: Couple in between siblings.. help

Post by tatewise »

Welcome to the FHUG.
Although you say it is a tree of ancestors, I think it is actually an All Relatives Diagram.

I imagine you are talking about Pieter CETON and Huijberdina VAN.

You already have the Movement Control Box set for Box & Bar movement.

Try click & drag on the box of Pieter CETON and drag up between his siblings.
The other boxes should move out of the way, but may spread far apart to make room for his children.

Now click & drag the horizontal bar above those children and drag it back down to its original position.
The boxes that spread far apart should close up, but the couple should stay put.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Carel
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Re: Couple in between siblings.. help

Post by Carel »

Hi tatewise,
Thanks for your quick reply..
I wish I could as you proposed..
If I try to move them up the whole tree above them moves also up :-(
If I fix their position I can't either.
I add another attachment with the same request but less space needed: how do I get Cornelis Ceton and Pieternella Poulie in between there siblings?
Do I have a wrong setting somewhere?
And btw you were correct it is an all relatives diagram :-)
Best
Carel
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tatewise
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Re: Couple in between siblings.. help

Post by tatewise »

In your screenshots there are several couples not on the same row as their siblings.
With the Movement Control Box set for Box & Bar movement can you drag any boxes up or down?

In my experiments it has always been possible to drag most boxes up and down, including those of couples.

You have clearly customised your All Relatives Diagram settings.
Do you still have an All Relatives Diagram with Installation Settings?
If so, then try that to see how it behaves,

If not, then use Diagram > Save Diagram As > Custom Diagram Type and give it a memorable name.
Close that Diagram and open a new standard All Relatives Diagram via the toolbar.
In Diagram > Options on each tab (except Text and Boxes) click the Installation Settings button.
Does that improve the layout and can the couple boxes be dragged up and down?

BTW: You can open your customised diagram via View > Custom Diagram Types and select the memorable name.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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LornaCraig
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Re: Couple in between siblings.. help

Post by LornaCraig »

Because Cornelis Ceton and Pieternella Poulie are both direct ancestors of the diagram root it is not possible. You don't currently have any ancestors for Pieternella Poulie, but if you did they would need to be displayed in the diagram, just as Cornelis Ceton's ancestors are. Try adding a 'dummy' parent to Pieternella and see what happens. (You can delete the dummy record afterwards.) FH is not quite clever enough to recognise that because she doesn't have any ancestors to display she can be fitted in beside her husband between his siblings. And if it did, the layout would still have to change completely when you add some ancestors for her.

You will see that the same applies to all other couples who are both direct ancestors of the root.
Lorna
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tatewise
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Re: Couple in between siblings.. help

Post by tatewise »

Sorry, yes, I did not spot that, partly because the boxes are not colour coded green as Ancestors. :oops:

The only other idea is to use Diagram > Options > General tab and set Style (top right) to Flat instead of Layered.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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LornaCraig
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Re: Couple in between siblings.. help

Post by LornaCraig »

The Flat option suggested by Mike will place the couple on the same row as the husband's siblings, but at the extreme right of the row (so that the wife's family can be added on the right). In a case where the wife has no family to be displayed this looks odd, and it is harder to see where the husband fits into his sibling group. It does reduce the overall height of the diagram though, if that is the aim.
Lorna
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Carel
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Re: Couple in between siblings.. help

Post by Carel »

Thanks Lorna, very clear explanation.

I did figure out the work around putting the couple at the right, it skews your tree though, creates the wrong order and becomes messy when I use relative connection lines.

Also a bit frustrating (if you take an ancester as root person it draws the chart like a dream..)
After trying Ahnenblatt (very basic) , Reunion, Hederis (nice graphics but no all relative diagram) and Myheritage (all relative chart looks awfull and are 'impossible' to edit) I thought I'd found the right tool to do like I wanted.
So, going manual in Visio or wait for an update I reckon :-)

cheers
Carel
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AdrianBruce
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Re: Couple in between siblings.. help

Post by AdrianBruce »

In fairness, Carel, the logic that any automatic diagramming tool has in it, has to deal with any and everything that gets thrown at it. It's pretty inevitable that a lot of non-trivial diagrams will leave us saying, "But if only it moved that to there then... ". And then, of course, if that were actually programmed in, it would mess up someone else's diagram...

For what it's worth, I did start with FH exactly because of the All-Relatives diagram, but pretty soon ended up with so many relatives that it became totally impractical just in size terms. These days I tend to just do lots of Descendant Diagrams and if it looks like a small tree could easily fit in with a big one, then I'll just do option Diagram / Insert Into Diagram / some sort of other tree.

(It's no longer having access to the office A3 laser printer that's the real problem these days!)
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Jane
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Re: Couple in between siblings.. help

Post by Jane »

Another option is to turn on full proxy boxes even if they are close so you see the siblings in the right order and then have a second box for the joined family. All relatives only make sense when you are following all lines up for all ancestors. As if you have the female line as well it's more obvious why they are designed as they are. If not you could use an Ancestor Descendant tree.
Jane
My Family History : My Photography "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad."
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Carel
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Re: Couple in between siblings.. help

Post by Carel »

Dear Jane, Adrian,

Thanks a lot for your excellent tips. The one on the proxys made things much clearer but the one on combining different diagrams made the difference. I now combined the all relatives tree with the eldest ancester as root person with the lower part with the youngest child as root. Exactly what I was looking for.
Also nice to know that there are more people spending their evenings on this, and so easy to find you through the forum and such a quick answers.
Thank you!
Rgrds
Carel

nb. last one for the road, is there a way to hide the coloured arrows when you combine multiple diagrams?
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LornaCraig
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Re: Couple in between siblings.. help

Post by LornaCraig »

is there a way to hide the coloured arrows when you combine multiple diagrams?
Yes, in Diagam Options > General tab untick Check for duplicates.
But if you leave it ticked you will see there are various Options you might want to try out.
Lorna
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jmurphy
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Re: Couple in between siblings.. help

Post by jmurphy »

Much as I hate to steer people away from using Family Historian, I'll toss out a couple of suggestions for other diagramming tools.

Tony Proctor's SVG was designed for people drawing trees for blog posts. I haven't used it yet, so I don't know what features if any it has for displaying charts for printing.

http://parallax-viewpoint.blogspot.com/ ... trees.html

The tool I use for quick-and-dirty diagramming is Scapple by Literature and Latte, available for Mac and Windows. https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview I haven't used it yet for an extensive family tree -- it's the tool I would turn to if I were experimenting with possible lines of descent if I were helping someone else with a DNA analysis problem.

Sorry for the hijack -- I'll bow out now to let the FH power users carry on! ;)
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