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Family Tree Layout

Ewan

master brummie
I used to use Family Tree Genealogy Suite 4, and I could print the tree to be shown vertically (me at the bottom and ancestors all the way to the top), I have started to use Family Tree Maker 2005. Does anyone know if this program or any other program will print my tree the way Family Genealogy Suite 4 used to as I can't seem to find how to do this.

Thanks for any guidance in advance
 
I keep an old copy of FTM 2004 (and an old computer on which to run it!). Not sure about FTM 2005 but with 2004 you can print the tree however your wish and include what facts you want too. You just have to fiddle with the settings.
 
I keep an old copy of FTM 2004 (and an old computer on which to run it!). Not sure about FTM 2005 but with 2004 you can print the tree however your wish and include what facts you want too. You just have to fiddle with the settings.


Thanks Suemailings, to be honest I have yet to find how to print the tree, any tips on how to do this I am sure 2004 wouldn't be much different to 2005, well hopefully.
 
You should be able to go to View, Tree Charts, Ancestor Tree - Vertical, that sounds like what you are after.

You will need to go to your own entry first to get the focus right. Format, Tree Format and other options under Format should get the tree looking the way that you want. Contents can also effect what is displayed.

To my mind Family Tree Maker 2005 was the last decent version. I was persuaded to buy a newer version but when it started insisting that all my relatives connected with the capital city of Scotland actually came from an artificial tourist trap open for two weeks per year in the USA I decided that the 'new features' were a nuisance rather than an aid!

Hour-glass trees are quite nice too. If you are hoping to get relatives involved it helps to go for a tree that encourages them to fill in the gaps, perhaps one centred on them?
famtex.jpg
 
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Thank you Spargone for your help, I feel I have made some progress. The problem I have is that I have used Family Tree Genealogy Suite 4 for almost 20 years without too many problems, I now have to change my program to another one, and that other one is Family Tree Maker 2005. Before I decide to update this one I feel I work like to work my way around it and get used to it before embarking on a more up- to- date version.

I don't know if you are anyone else is still using Family Tree Maker 2005 and would be able to advise me on a couple of things -

In Family View I have the parents of 6 children, when I click on Ancestors Tree Vertical it just shows me the 2 parents of these 6 children and no children. If I choose All in one Tree it shows the parents and the 6 children. How would I get to see using the Ancestors Tree Vertical all 8 individuals? Also, when in Family View and I have clicked on one of the children it then displays their details in a box on the right of the screen, is the only way to get back to the screen with the 2 parents and 6 children by pressing the green back button?

One more thing for now! When the tree was printed in an All in one Tree showing 8 people on landscape A4 paper it was very tiny. How would I make this, if possible, spread onto the page more

Thank you
 
You can change the font but you will find that the tree will be printed on more than one sheet of paper. It is a bit awkward sticking it together but I overlap to make it a bit easier to cut. I always use a steel rule and a scalpel to cut, scissors are not really any good. You can change the font of just the name or all of the contents in your box. I think it may be formatting but can't remember. By the way do you have Windows 10? My FTM 2004 wont fun on 7 or 10, that's why I keep it on my old laptop
 
The Ancestor Tree report will show the ancestors of the highlighted person.

The green arrow button is a quick way to get back to where you were before but there are many other ways of moving around your tree.

I think you will find that playing around with the various format/ type sizes etc. you will eventually get something useable!

Personally I don't think newer versions of these programs add much, it is better to get used to a tool and work around its limitations rather than move to something completely different. As I said earlier the newer version of Family Tree Maker had a feature of 'correcting' addresses that didn't work for me. Personally I want to record people as living where they thought they did at the time, not present day names which aren't static anyway. As a local example, if someone is recorded as living in Yardley, Worcestershire then it is the contemporary Worcestershire records that may give more details, not necessarily those of a modern West Midlands authority.

Good luck with your exploration of Family Tree Maker!

P.S. A further thought, if you use an Hour Glass Tree you can put the focus on a parent and Contents, # Generations to Show will allow you to set one generation of children, putting in your example six children at the bottom of the chart and building up (backwards) as many ancestoral generations as you have or want to show. I agee with suemalings that multiple sheets with overlaps are best for big reports, trim one side and slide it onto the overlap.
I guess 'new improved' programs will allow everyone to have multiple genders, indeterminate sexes and as many parents as you like, very 'PC', but hardly genealogy.
 
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Actually I don't find the family tree charts all that useful and depending on your own family they can become unwieldy, pushing siblings apart if there are lots of marriages.
My preferred chart is found under View, Reports, Outline Descendant, that can always be made to fit A4 pages and relatives can easily be taught how to interpret it. It brings home to the reader information that you don't know as they read down the chart noting B,M,D details etc. then spotting the incomplete entries. Somehow they don't notice that on tree charts - Oh you have got all your aunts and uncles then! - (Yes but I haven't a clue when they were born or who they married, please tell me!)

I like to maintain ring binders with index cards for the generations. I will start with a family group sheet and behind that will go marriage and death certificates for the parents, census returns, maps, parents wills and birth certificates for the children. If a child doesn't marry then their death certificate will also go behind the family group sheet. I put everything in poly-pockets, the thinner the better. Woolworth's made some good ones, hopefully I will have enough to keep me going.

I have a system for naming digital material too. I kept the name down to 8 characters to keep it compatible with older filing systems. The first character is a letter, B for Birth, M for Marriage, D for death, C for Census etc. Then I have three numbers for the year, I ignore the century digit as I don't expect to be around long enough for that to be a problem. The next character is an arbitary digit, usually '0', I will use a different character if otherwise two files would have the same name. The last three characters are letters, the first being the persons initial and the last two derived from their surname. Obviously I use the same letter pair for each surname, mostly first and last letters, so that Watson might be WN. If I had a Wilson then perhaps I would use WL for them. I like this system because it is easy to sort the files. However some people might find it too cryptic and prefer to make use of long file names - 'Aunt Betty and Uncle Joe Marriage Certificate' rather than M8900JWN - Marriage 1890 Joseph Watson. Each to their own!
 
You can change the font but you will find that the tree will be printed on more than one sheet of paper. It is a bit awkward sticking it together but I overlap to make it a bit easier to cut. I always use a steel rule and a scalpel to cut, scissors are not really any good. You can change the font of just the name or all of the contents in your box. I think it may be formatting but can't remember. By the way do you have Windows 10? My FTM 2004 wont fun on 7 or 10, that's why I keep it on my old laptop

Thank you suemalings, I managed to change the font so it is much the same as the tree on my older program, so that is another problem solved. By the way I have Windows 10 as you have asked.
 
My word spargone, you sound like you have a really good system in place, sounds really impressive, I am hoping to go to a local Family History Group to see how others have arranged their history.
 
Another question if anyone can help please.

The tree I have printed in FTM 2005 shows each person in a box with baptism and death details, the marriage partner is joined by 2 narrow lines making another box with the details of that person. On my previous program the married couple were shown all in one box along with baptism and death details. Does anyone know where this is possible to do in FTM 2005

Many thanks
 
Another question if anyone can help please.

The tree I have printed in FTM 2005 shows each person in a box with baptism and death details, the marriage partner is joined by 2 narrow lines making another box with the details of that person. On my previous program the married couple were shown all in one box along with baptism and death details. Does anyone know where this is possible to do in FTM 2005

Many thanks
You can certainly add baptism and death details, just select the type of tree that you want and go to Contents, Items to include in each box. There is a pick list on the left. Any of those items can be added to the box by clicking on the > mark (or removed using <) and then moved up or down the list.

I don't think there is any way to put a couple in the same box, indeed that would make it complicated in the case of multiple spouses, do all three or more fit in the same box and what about their children.

There are no doubt work-arounds that can be applied depending on what you want to do with your tree and the print quality needed and how much trouble you are prepared to go to. For instance you could capture the screen image (Ctrl-PrtScr, other methods are available) and paste it into Paint (supplied with Windows) and clean it up the way you like). You could print out a tree from FTM and then literally cut and paste the boxes where you want them, just letting FTM manage the contents for you. (You could get one of those old-fashioned family tree 'tree' pictures as background!).

It is because of problems like this that I'm not a great fan of tree charts, they only behave nicely if you go for strict child, parents, grandparents etc. splitting in twos. Start adding siblings at any generation and it is all so unpredictable - (What happened to the great uncle that went to Australia? - Oh no! He married twice and had six kids by each marriage, where do I fit all that in?)

There is no right way, just find something that works for you and your data and they way that you would like to present it. Personally I am more concerned with obtaining, verifying and managing my data rather than presenting a 'final' report. It is here that I think these genealogy programs come into their own. It is worth exploring some of the tools that they offer and stick with the ones that work for you, better to wield a well-directed hammer than spend all day trying to get the circular saw to work that you have never used before! If I was giving advice to myself(!) I would say keep a research diary. FTM has a built in Research Journal but I have never used it, I do have an A4 notepad that I sometimes use. The problem here is that when things are flowing it gets in the way and I don't want to spend time on 'admin'. The downside is that if I interupt my work it takes time to pick up the thread and make sure that I don't repeat work done before.
 
You can certainly add baptism and death details, just select the type of tree that you want and go to Contents, Items to include in each box. There is a pick list on the left. Any of those items can be added to the box by clicking on the > mark (or removed using <) and then moved up or down the list.

I don't think there is any way to put a couple in the same box, indeed that would make it complicated in the case of multiple spouses, do all three or more fit in the same box and what about their children.

Hi Spargone, I have now sussed out how to add baptism/birth/death details, thank you for that help.

I have attached a part of one of my trees that I referred to where the marriage details are included in one box. As you can see, children follow on in a different box with their marriage details etc in the same box. Maybe with Family Tree Maker this is not possible and marriages do come separate.

Has anyone else had experience that this is the way that the Family Tree Maker is?CROPPED LEWIS TREE 2.jpg
 
It looks like you are trying to produce some sort of Paternal Ancestry Tree. I can't see anyway of doing that directly with FTM. I had a look at FTM 2008 (yuk!) and it doesn't seem to be able to do it either.

What you could do is to create a blank tree using a wordprocessor or image editing program, (MS Word might still have its organisation chart tool for instance that allows you to create empty boxes joined by lines), or a suitable template online.

Then use the Outline Descendant Report based on your oldest ancestor of your male line. You can select what details to include. I haven't managed to cut and paste from this report on screen but if under File, Print Setup you choose the Micrsoft PDF writer option you can print this report 'to file'. Find that file and click on the icon and it should open. Cut and paste each individual into the appropriate box. By default married males have their spouse immediately below them in the report.

Here are screenshots of the PDF Outline Descendant Report and a tree using Open Office Writer (free). It can be seen that I have used a two-column table and will merge cells on alternate rows into which I have pasted the individual's data. The row below is formatted to remove the outer edges, just leaving the centre line. A bit fiddly but totally under your control once you get the hang of it!descsamp.jpgtreesamp.jpg
In the above tree the cells below Andrew James are still to be formatted to remove the outer verticals and the next row still needs to be merged before accepting a son of Andrew. I left it that way so that you can see how it works.
 
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