Two missing indicators from Ancestry, FindMyPast and MyHeritage trees ?

[kob3203]

I may be wrong, but there are two really obvious (to me) indications that should be visible on the overall tree diagram:

1) Whether a couple are known to have had no children, as opposed to no children having yet been found.

2) Whether a couple were married (i.e. legitimate children) or unmarried (illegitimate).

I'd be very pleased if I've simply not found how to do it maybe hidden in plain sight?) - can somebody tell me ?

[ColinBignell]

In Ancestry, there are tags you can add to each profile and custom tags you can create, but you need to go into the profiles to see those.

I use the profile images to show me things at a glance. My direct ancestors have a different image from the general one. Otherwise, I use the general image and add things to it using Paint 3D.

I use the top left corner for information on birth. If blank, born and died in England. Otherwise, a flag shows country of birth while, in one case, a ship means born on voyage.

The bottom right is for information on death. A flag show died in a different country from the country of birth. A crawling baby shows died under age 3. A head and shoulders of a child, shows died before 18. An anchor shows died at sea. A broad arrow, shows died in prison. An outline of a WW1 soldier with rifle reversed, KIA during WW1.

The top right is for additional information, such as another country they may have lived in for a long time or the broad arrow to show they were transported.

A double helix across an image marks a DNA match. Prison bars across the image shows they served time in jail in England.

These are my personal settings, but I am sure you could do something similar to show what you wanted.

[kob3203]

Annotating the profile photo's definitely a good idea - I already add text to the profile images to identify anybody who died as a child, or anybody whose connection/details are not based on my own research.

But I can't think of a simple way to indicate on a profile photo that a person was married twice with no children after having had an illegitimate child with a different person. To me that's something that would be better indicated by (or on) the line joining the couple.

[ColinBignell]

I can only say how I would do it on Ancestry. Enter the parent of the child. Add two spouses. Go to edit relationships on the child and remove any attachment to either spouse. That would leave the person having two spouses and a child with an 'add father/mother' option for the child. Then it is only a case of putting something on the profile images of the spouses to show they had no children, perhaps a cradle with a cross through it.

If I could understand the instructions for adding JPEG images to a post I would illustrate it. 

[Kiltpin]

Annotating the profile photo's definitely a good idea - I already add text to the profile images to identify anybody who died as a child, or anybody whose connection/details are not based on my own research.

But I can't think of a simple way to indicate on a profile photo that a person was married twice with no children after having had an illegitimate child with a different person. To me that's something that would be better indicated by (or on) the line joining the couple.

 

Maybe I am being very stupid, but what is the advantage, please? Ancestry allows me to make prodigious notes on any relationship. My cousin was very promiscuous, one of her one-day partners and the father of her 5th child was "Unknown rugby player, Clifton College First XI". How that would translate into an emoji, I don't know. 

Regards

Chas

[ColinBignell]

Some of us are more visually orientated and I, for one, would much prefer to be able to tell things by looking at the tree, rather than having to look at attached notes. Admittedly, in one or two cases, all I can do is indicted a complicated relationship.

[kob3203]

To me that's something that would be better indicated by (or on) the line joining the couple.

 

Maybe I am being very stupid, but what is the advantage, please? Ancestry allows me to make prodigious notes on any relationship. My cousin was very promiscuous, one of her one-day partners and the father of her 5th child was "Unknown rugby player, Clifton College First XI". How that would translate into an emoji, I don't know. 

Regards

Chas

Not stupid at all Chas 

Like Colin I prefer to see as much basic information as possible on the tree view. Yes, it's easy to add just about anything you can imagine as notes*, so I can easily do it that way as well.

But to find those notes later I have to click on the individual and navigate to the relevant piece of information - at least one more click I think (to see the 'full profile'). I have a very old computer with a slow internet connection and after each click it takes some time to update. And then I go back to the tree which also takes time. So it's rather tedious.

When I draw a partial tree by hand I often write the marriage year on the connection along with any relevant notes, e.g. "unwed, 1 child", "no kids","div.1964". I was surprised that none of the three sites seem to do this.

You ask "what's the advantage?

1) When I look at my tree after a long gap it helps me recall some basic things without the frustrating clicking around.

2) Anybody viewing the tree (I have a public tree on each of those three sites) can see the same basic stuff at a glance without having to dig around.


*P.S. I found that that MyHeritage has a field for relationship type (married, widowed, divorced, annulled, separated, etc) when you add/edit a spouse. I'd missed that when I originally posted this topic.

[kob3203]

I can only say how I would do it on Ancestry. Enter the parent of the child. Add two spouses. Go to edit relationships on the child and remove any attachment to either spouse. That would leave the person having two spouses and a child with an 'add father/mother' option for the child. Then it is only a case of putting something on the profile images of the spouses to show they had no children, perhaps a cradle with a cross through it.

Adding/editing the three spouses, the child, and the relationships isn't a problem - I've worked it out on all three sites (we know the names of all three spouses).

I was actually puzzling over what icon I could add to the profile photo of the person who had the three spouses - adding icons to the three spouses hadn't crossed my mind ! 

And then I suddenly thought of the WWII pilots who added a tally mark under their cockpit for every enemy plane they'd shot down...

[kob3203]

Here's what the three 'spouses' look like on my three trees (the first time I've compared the three representations). Personally speaking I find the representation incomplete (and in one case misleading - the top one (FindMyPast) appears to be saying that Daniel Burns and William Dunn had the child !  ). All I can see at a glance is that Bridget had three partners. No indication of which order, no indication of whether married, divorced, widowed, or whatever. I guess that, like Kiltpin, most people don't see any advantage in having that information on the tree.

I've been playing around and here's what I found so far:

• FindMyPast allowed me to set a 'preferred' marriage - that's the solid line, the other two dotted lines are 'unpreferred'.
• MyHeritage (quick edit) allowed me to set Married/Divorced/Other for the three relationships - divorced is a dotted line, solid lines for other and married.
• Ancestry seems to believe that all spouses are the same.