Org Chart (or Family History Chart)

[SunnySis]

I am not that familiar with Affinity Designer but I think it's the best choice for creating a family history (or Descendant chart). It's also similar to an organizational chart that you might see in a business usage.

I poked around but I didn't seem to find any videos that might provide guidance or best practices on how to achieve this goal. Since I have to create about 30, I want to be wise with my time.  Also, I wondered if the data merge feature might be an option. However, I'm guessing since the family charts can vary based on how many children there are, it probably isn't a good candidate for that feature.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciate. 

 

[MikeTO]

I draw my family trees manually in Designer, they're just too complicated to use any automation. The drawings get complex if somebody was married three times and has children from each marriage.

Designer isn't the perfect tool for drawing family trees but it works well. Visio for Windows would be easier (I'm on Mac and have ConceptDraw and OmniGraffle which are like Visio) but I chose to draw mine in Designer because the trees are going into my book in Publisher and it's nice to keep it in the same set of tools. The downsides compared to using a Visio-like app are the lack of connecting lines which makes moving things around tedious, and the lack of jump lines for lines that must cross.

I draw my trees in Designer because I like keeping my tools separate but you could draw them directly in Publisher. Designer has two missing features compared to Publisher - no Find and Replace which makes finding somebody in a complex tree difficult, and no Autocorrect so apostrophes will be straight instead of typographic.

Good luck

[SunnySis]

2 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Visio-like app are the lack of connecting lines

Ok ... maybe I'll do the tree in arty way so I don't have to fool with the lines.

I'm only doing a family at a time - so the reader can understand the relationships based on the position on the page (and dates). 

I guess I'll just have to find a basic tutorial on the tool.

[MikeTO]

One more limitation of Designer is that you can't set the fill and stroke for text frames. I believe this is to help differentiate the products but it makes creating trees a pain if you differentiate some people with fill and stroke. You can either draw them in Publisher to avoid this, or do like I do, draw the initial boxes in Publisher and copy paste them into Designer. Then just duplicate them in Designer as required.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[SunnySis]

You make a fair point.

I tried Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic 10/11, and even Gramps. I'll look at them again - but I'm not in love with the way they handle the layout.

@MikeTO is correct - Visio would be the perfect solution. 

 

 

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[SunnySis]

12 hours ago, lacerto said:

Yes, most often quite ugly! But if they support exporting to PDF, it can be a good starting point! Affinity apps work quite well opening PDFs.

Ok I exported a chart to PDF and imported it to Publisher ... and wow!  The name/dates are in little text frames where I can assign styles and the boxes can get a do-over.  This was a huge timesaver. The lines might be an issue but I was already thinking I might do something a little more creative or modern. 

My biggest worry was that I would introduce a typo and, of course, just the labor of retyping 200+ names. 

Excellent suggestion @lacerto

I hate to admit this ... but I'm really falling in love with this app.

[MikeTO]

The problem with opening a PDF exported from a genealogy app or site is that you may end up spending more time making all the boxes and text objects the sizes you want then if you did it from scratch. The PDF will likely produce separate rectangles and text frames whereas if you created it from scratch you'd just have text frames with strokes so only one object to scale. Which solution is better for you depends on how much control you want over the design.

I re-typed all of my information as I drew my trees from scratch, and made numerous mistakes as I copy/pasted one person's box to start the next, so you're right that it's prone to error. Another way to get all the information into Designer is to export from the app or site into a text format and then use Data Merge to import the data into Publisher. But that takes a bit more expertise so perhaps better to save that for after you've mastered the app.

If you end up drawing from scratch, it's best to pick a complicated person with a really long name and multiple marriages first to figure out how wide the boxes need to be. I got a bit fancy and included a thumbnail photo on the left, when available, inside the box with the text to its right.

I didn't use a standard format and the height of each box depended on whether the person was married or married multiple times because that added more information to the box. I also didn't try to show too many people on each page but instead showed more information for each person than trees often do. I had a key person for each tree and I showed them (in a bolder box) with their parents above them, their spouse beside them, their spouse's parents above, and their children below. Each person's box listed their name, age at death, date and place of birth, date and place of marriage and who they married and that person's followed by that person's years of birth and death as a range), and their date and place of death:

Jane Middle Doe (age 78)
b.DATE: Town, State, Country
m.DATE: Town, State, Country to John Middle Smith (YEAR–YEAR)
m.DATE: Town, State, Country to William Middle Wilkinson (YEAR–YEAR)
d.DATE: Town, State, Country

There are more standard formats, but I liked this one because it packed a lot of information into a small space.

Good luck!

[SunnySis]

3 hours ago, MikeTO said:

 

There are more standard formats

Similar to what you suggested, I created one large chart with all the people. Family Tree Maker allowed me to force the boxes to all be the same size. I kept the format as simple as possible - so no background colors, no bold text, etc.

Then I exported it in booklet format instead of poster so that the data was a little more manageable. 

I'm happy to report that Publisher did an ace job of putting each person with lifespan into one text frame. It was easy to tag them with a style. Then the boxes were easy enough to select and round the corners. So far its making this such a simple task. 

I wish the objects had a style you could save.

Thanks for taking the time to add your process - it helped me think it through. I'm jealous that you had photos! 

[stuck]

21 hours ago, SunnySis said:

and even Gramps. I'll look at them again

In Gramps, install the 'Interactive Family Tree' Addon.  This will automatically output your tree and display it in the Topola Genealogy Viewer.  If you like what you see, look on the viewer's 'Download' option to save a copy in PDF, PNG or SVG format.  Alternatively, from the genealogy application of your choice export your tree in GEDCOM format and then manually open that file in the Topola viewer.

NB although your data is displayed in your browser, none of your data leaves your device, i.e. by using the Topola viewer you are not uploading your data to the web.

If you want to investigate this idea without using your own data then you can explore the examples that are on offer on the viewer's home page, here:

https://pewu.github.io/topola-viewer/#/

[SunnySis]

17 minutes ago, stuck said:

In Gramps, install the 'Interactive Family Tree' Addon. 

That's really cool. Thanks for sharing - it gives me some ideas.