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Archiver > FAMILY-HISTORIAN-USERS > 2003-12 > 1071014172


From: "A. Kirk" <>
Subject: RE: [FHU] Spouse & children in diagrams - answer? (long)
Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 23:56:12 -0000
In-Reply-To: <memo.20031207180051.56A@as.cix.co.uk>


I was intrigued by this question as I had also noticed it, however lets
also ask the question - how do you manage a man who marries three times?
I have this in my tree, and there is only a left and a right to the man,
so logically on one side or the other there must appear at least two
wives.

In my tree it shows as M=W=W=W

I think that the logic behind this - looking at the case of three wives
- is that as it is impossible to show it following the pattern suggested
by Alan (W=M=W, where does the other wife go?), then it would have to be
shown as W=W=W=M / W=W=M=W / W=M=W=W / M=W=W=W

Foloowing on from this, and assuming that a man or woman could have more
than three spouses, the logical approach is to always have it as W=W=W=M
or M=W=W=W and as the program always places the person in the tree on
the left and their spouse on the right, it is logical to have the
pattern M=W=W=W

However, I then noticed a female in the tree with two husbands where it
has placed it as requested by Alan: W=M=W.

The only difference I could think of was that this family was added when
the file was in Family Tree Maker, not Family Historian, so is there a
difference in the GEDCOM file?

Looking in the GEDCOM the following shows her entry after I have added
another (spurious) spouse (result M=W=M=M):

0 @I127@ INDI
1 NAME Diana Mary /Kirk/
1 SEX F
1 BIRT
2 DATE 8 MAY 1929
2 PLAC London
1 FAMC @F34@
1 FAMS @F41@
1 FAMS @F42@
1 FAMS @F1055@
1 CHAN
2 DATE 9 DEC 2003
3 TIME 23:18:10

The entry FAMC relates to the children, the entry FAMS relates to the
spouse's family number. You can see that no. three is 1055, the others
41 and 42 as I have entered them a long time ago, and no 3 today (new
entries go to the end of the GEDCOM file).

If you change the numbers around you will change the position of the
spouses: i.e. from M=W1=W2=W3 to something like M=W2=W1=W3,

I then created a small family of parent and son in family tree maker and
gave the son two wives in FTM it shows as W=M=W, in FH it shows as
M=W=W, looking at the gedcom shows no obvious difference.

However, when creating a small family in FTM of parents with daughter
and giving the daughter two husbands, it shows as M=W=M in FTM and in
FH.

So, current observation (and getting late!) is that you can have M=W=M,
but not W=M=W! so change the sex and hey presto no problems - except in
real life!

regards

Alasdair Kirk

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan White [mailto:]
Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2003 6:00 PM
To:
Subject: [FHU] Spouse & children in diagrams


Try as I might I can't get my family to appear correctly in a diagram.

I had a wife W1. We had no children. I have a second wife w2. We have a
child C1. This appears in diagrams like this (fixed font required):

Me=W1=W2
|
C1

This is obviously nonsense as it shows my two wives marrying and having
a
child when, so far as I know, they've not even met :-)

I can get the diagram to duplicate me, thus showing the child with the
correct parents, but this is obviously unwieldy and confusing.

I must be doing something wrong. How can I get this family to show
correctly as:

W1=Me=W2
|
C1

TIA
Alan


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