Overview

The Text+ Ancestor Chart is similar to a standard pedigree chart in that it draws lines up and to the right for fathers and down and to the right for mothers, but it is quite different in overall structure. Rather than place each generation in what amounts to a column in the chart,

Elements that are distinctive to the Text+ Ancestor Chart

(Open this screenshot in a separate window)

Elements 1-3 - Ancestor Chart Controls and Legend

1. Controls that affect the presence of information in the chart. Each of these controls generates a new chart as soon as you change the control value; there is no Submit button.
   1. Generations This dropdown box determines how many generations will be included in the report. One of the choices is "all".
   2. Siblings. When this option is checked, the siblings of the starting person, and of each ancestor, are included in the chart. That is, Aunts and Uncles are shown in each generation, providing a richer view of the database.
   3. Generation #s When this option is checked, Generation numbers are placed immediately before each name in the chart. (See an example) (Hide the example)
   4. Sibling #s. This option is available only if the Generation#s and Siblings options are both checked. When this option is checked, a sibling count is displayed along with the generation count in front of each name. (See an example) (Hide the example)
   5. Compact Format. The Text+ Ancestry Chart normally adds vertical whitespace to improve its readability. That whitespace is removed when this option is checked.
   6. Focus on Generation. When a non-zero value is selected in this drop-down box, all of the names (but not the birth/death/marriage data) for people in that generation are highlighted in englarged text. This highlighting helps the user find people from a given generation. Generation 1 is highlighted when the page loads. The value 'none' in the selection list disables highlighting.
      (See a different example) (Hide the example)
   7. Date & Place values. Clicking on this label drops down a form that lets you control how and whether dates, places, and ages are displayed in the chart. Most of the selections in the the form should be self-explanatory. The ones that aren't self explanatory?... Just try them :-)
      (See the date/place form) (Hide the date/place form)
      The "Save" button saves a cookie with all of these settings so that the next time you launch the Text+ Ancestor Chart, it will apply those settings. Of course, if you clicke "Redisplay Chart", the chart will use the current settings, not the ones that have been saved in the cookie.
2. Controls for width, help, and printing
   1. The "Width" control affects, well, the width of the chart, and is one of the chart program's provisions for handling page width and wrapping. By decreasing the Width, or expanding the width of your web browser window, you can reduce the occurrence of lines wrapping all the way to the left margin of the chart.
   2. Two help buttons - one that describes the chart, and one the describes the printing process for both Text+ Charts.
   3. The "Format for Printing" button. Essentially, whenever you want to print a Text+ Chart, you should click this button and use the "Format for Printing" page for set up your page width and chart size so that it will print cleanly. The Format for Printing process is described in a separate help file
3. The Chart Legend
   Two icons have special meaning.
   1. Locate Person in Chart There is a spyglass next to the name of every ancestor in the chart. When you click on the spyglass, a small, focused ancestor chart will pop up to show you how the selected person relates to the starting person. (See an example) (Hide the example)
   2. More Ancestors This icon will appear to the right of each person who has ancestors that could not be displayed because of the generation limit on the chart. You can select more generations to expand this chart, or click on this icon to display an ancestor chart for that person.

Elements 4-7 - Chart Elements

4. Here you see generation 1 highlighted because the "Highlight generation" selection box is set to 1.
5. This box marks the big printing complication of Text+ Charts, which is that the Text+ Charts require you to select a specific a chart width (in the chart controls labeled as #2 above) because long data lines don't automagically wrap to the browser or printed page width as they do in most web pages. When you see a line that wraps all the way back over to the left like this, you know that your selected chart width is too wide for the browser window.
   See the Text+ Chart Printing help file for more details.
6. This is the "More Ancestors" icon that tells you that, in this case, Jacob Armay Keebler has more ancestors. You can click on the icon to see those ancestors.
7. At the very bottom of the chart is a footer that summarizes the chart. (Depending on site configuration, there may also be a floating footer that stays at the bottom of your display screen.) Of particular note in the footer is the message "12 ancestral lines begin in this chart", with a link to show details. This message will never print on a printer, but if you to click on the "show details" link, then you'll get a report of the ancestral family names in this chart. (See an example) (Hide the example)
   The lines are divided into "male" and "female" because - most of the time, in at least many cultures - the surnames of women aren't carried down to subsequent generations.
   You can always hide this information if you don't want to print it.

II. Printing a TextPlus Chart

The printing process is the same for Ancestor and Descendant Text+ charts, and is described in the Text+ Chart Print help page.

III. Boundary Conditions

There is no specific limit to the number of generations you can try to print with any given set of parameters, though things will start to break down as the vertical lines drawn by the programs approach the right margin. Specifically:

1. The last generation or two that fits on a line will be wrapped in a small-enough area to make each person's data take several lines to print.
2. A person's name is never wrapped, so there is not room on a line for the entire name, the name will wrap to the far-left margin when you print.
3. If there are fewer than nine available spaces for data on a line, an error message will be displayed indicating that the data will not fit on the chart with the current print parameters.

If any of these conditions occur, you can simply decrease the indentation or font size, or increase the page width. (Or, of course, decrease the number of generations.)

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