How to chart "Linked" Family Members?

[reggoboy]

This is somewhat related to:

https://www.reuniontalk.com/showthread.php?t=12568

but takes a different spin. Start with a real example.

I have a "cousin" whom is related to me in 3 ways:

1. Her mother's father is cousins with my mother's father (blood relationship)
2. Her mother's mother is cousins with my mother's mother (blood relationship)
3. Her father is siblings with my great-aunt's husband (not a blood relationship)

Once I get all this entered in Reunion (still fleshing out some details), I'm going to want to diagram it. I'm going to want to see all 3 relationships reflected on a single chart.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to make a chart as follows:

1. Select two people
2. Say "draw all links between these people"
3. Everything would just work, but I'd have options about how many generations to extend up and down from there.

But if I have to do the hard work of selecting all the individuals by hand and Mark them, there's still no Chart that will just draw a tree of all Marked people, is there? Essentially a roll-your-own, custom tree?

Thoughts?

[ttl]

Re: How to chart "Linked" Family Members?

I’m reading and responding on my phone, so my response is going to be a bit abbreviated. The short answer is yes, there is a way to chart just marked people. In the Charts pane, there’s an option to Prune>marked relatives only. I’d recommend using this feature with a descendant or relative chart.

[reggoboy]

Re: How to chart "Linked" Family Members?

I’m reading and responding on my phone, so my response is going to be a bit abbreviated. The short answer is yes, there is a way to chart just marked people. In the Charts pane, there’s an option to Prune>marked relatives only. I’d recommend using this feature with a descendant or relative chart.

Thanks but I don’t think you’re catching my goal here.

I believe the feature you’re referring to is subtractive: it will only remove people from the inclusion list for those charts, never add anyone new in.

But my original post is trying to include a group of linked family members whom none of the existing charts appear to include.

Unless I’m missing something?

[ttl]

Re: How to chart "Linked" Family Members?

Thanks but I don’t think you’re catching my goal here.

I was responding to your question "But if I have to do the hard work of selecting all the individuals by hand and Mark them, there's still no Chart that will just draw a tree of all Marked people, is there? Essentially a roll-your-own, custom tree?"

To be less abbreviated, if I understand your scenarios correctly, a relative chart starting with you or your cousin should capture everyone necessary to depict Conditions 1 and 2.

My mistake for not more closely analyzing your conditions: a descendant chart is unlikely to capture Conditions 1 and 2 simultaneously unless there's more going on than you shared. Sorry for throwing that out there in my first response.

The relative chart will be messy, but that's unavoidable when trying to include full sets of ancestors for unrelated people (ancestors of mothers' fathers and ancestors of mothers' mothers).

For Condition 3, I'll assume (possibly incorrectly) that your great aunt is related to you through your father's side. If this is the case, a relative chart will show your connection to your cousin's uncle, but the links will stop there. Conversely, starting with your cousin, the relative chart will show her connection with your great aunt, but the links will stop there. If your great aunt is on your mother's side of the family, I would think there would be a path shown all the way through, but my head's beginning to hurt.

Condition 3 (assuming your father's side is involved) would require Reunion to be able to draw an everyone chart (which I'd favor), but if you've seen other developer's everyone charts, you'll know that they can't do it with connecting lines.

Hope this helps explain better what's available to work with.

[reggoboy]

Re: How to chart "Linked" Family Members?

Tom thanks for he reply.

Yes I think you’re getting that I can show the three relationships between the same two people on three different charts, and I can do that today.

The point of this post is that I want to show at least two if not ALL 3 relationships between us on a single chart.

[ttl]

Re: How to chart "Linked" Family Members?

Hypothetically, it should be possible to manually add the missing links for Condition 3 (if in fact they are missing). That would get even more involved, so if you'd like to discuss further, please contact me directly at ttl (at) familygraphics (period) com.

[ttl]

Re: How to chart "Linked" Family Members?

Tom thanks for he reply.

Yes I think you’re getting that I can show the three relationships between the same two people on three different charts, and I can do that today.

The point of this post is that I want to show at least two if not ALL 3 relationships between us on a single chart.

Actually, I said that given the description of your family, that you should be able to show the first two conditions in one chart, and part if not all of the third, using a relative chart starting with you or your cousin.

However, the relationships might be clearer if you just went with separate descendant charts.

You may or may not be able to get Reunion to show the entire 3rd path automatically. Yes, if there's a parallel unmentioned blood relationship; no, if not.

[reggoboy]

Thanks for the reply.

But I will clarify that, per my original post, I do want to show all three relationships in a single chart: both blood relationships, and the one relationship by marriage.

However, now that I have all the relationships charted, I tried to even get the two blood relationships charted together, and it doesn't seem to work.

1) First of all, for anyone else who might need to know what I figured out, you have to go into "Define Layouts..." -> Hourglass and DESELECT "Ancestors & descendants only". Otherwise, the chart will not go "up and down" more than once around the source person.

2) But unfortunately, even though doing that shows all the right people on the chart, the chart fails to "close the loop" on the second relationship.

This is tricky to explain. But I think the essence of it can be explained as follows. There are two couples. The husbands are uncle-nephew. The wives are 1st-cousins once removed from a totally separate family line. The Relative Chart includes all the right people and "trees" out the uncle-nephew side properly. But when it "trees" the wives, it draws a second copy of the one couple (with no descendants) rather than realizing that couple was already drawn (with descendants) and bringing that "line" over to that box and closing the second loop on the diagram.

I think this is a bug. I don't think the chart is expecting to run into the same couple twice when seeking relatives from the first couple. But if the software could check that the box for that couple already exists, it could draw the (second) line to that existing box, close the loop, and give us the chart properly.

Can this be fixed?

Thanks!

Dave

[Gregg]

I think this is a bug. I don't think the chart is expecting to run into the same couple twice when seeking relatives from the first couple. But if the software could check that the box for that couple already exists, it could draw the (second) line to that existing box, close the loop, and give us the chart properly.

In the Relative Chart, if the same couple appears multiple times, the first instance will be charted along with the descendants of that couple and subsequent instances will be marked with a double asterisk (**) and show no descendants.

I agree that it would be nice to have a connecting line in this situation; but the problem is that this would make the chart into a spider web of crossing lines. Typically, when a duplicate couple or person appears in a chart (any type of chart), that second instance will not fall in the same generation as the first instance so placement of a readable connecting line is difficult if not impossible. Also, some charts can contain many points of duplication which would compound the readability problem.

Reunion does allow you to draw lines in charts, so if the duplication in your chart is appearing in a convenient location you might consider adding the line manually.