You are Here Icon on Family Tree
I have been trying to resolve any hints that I can in my family tree.
I have found it frustrating that the limit on the fan chart view is seven generations, because I cannot easily see if there are research helps beyond that point. Navigating beyond that point can be difficult and makes it hard to find my way back. (I use the fan chart view, which makes it significantly easier to see if there are any hints)
It would be very helpful if an icon (or something) would appear to indicate where you are in the family tree.
For Example:
- If you are on a direct line ancestor's tree page, then the icon would indicate which of their wives(if they have multiple) is your direct line ancestor as well as which child is your direct line ancestor, allowing you to more easily navigate back to your tree.
- If you are on a descendant of a direct line ancestor, than an icon will appear on the closest direct line ancestor on each line (if there is one), or the icon could appear just outside the tree if there is a direct line ancestor further in that direction
- If you are on the tree of a relative of a relative, the icon will appear on people who are most directly related to you.
It would also be cool if you could search for some one else in the same way, that way you could see not just where your closest relations are, but also if you are related through anybody else.
This idea functions similarly to my other idea:
Comments
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It would be very helpful if an icon (or something) would appear to indicate where you are in the family tree.
For Example:
If you are on a direct line ancestor's tree page, then the icon would indicate which of their wives(if they have multiple) is your direct line ancestor as well as which child is your direct line ancestor, allowing you to more easily navigate back to your tree.
If you are on a descendant of a direct line ancestor, than an icon will appear on the closest direct line ancestor on each line (if there is one), or the icon could appear just outside the tree if there is a direct line ancestor further in that direction
If you are on the tree of a relative of a relative, the icon will appear on people who are most directly related to you.
It would also be cool if you could search for some one else in the same way, that way you could see not just where your closest relations are, but also if you are related through anybody else.
At the top of the person page is a button that says View relationship, which already does all of of these, in a sense. It only checks to 15 generations, probably because the number of each people in each generation increases exponentially, thus making the process slower for each generation you add. They probably can't make the functionality automatically happen on the tree (as would be required if an icon were to be displayed), otherwise the website could have slowdown issues every time you open the fan chart, as it would apply the process to an upwards of 128 consecutive people. (If I did the math right, there are 128 people in 7 generations, if you were wondering where I got that number.) I suppose they could allow you to manually check it directly from the tree, by putting the button on the "card" that appears when you click someone on the tree, but it isn't much harder to go to the person page, and it wouldn't create the icon trail you were hoping for.
Navigating beyond that point can be difficult and makes it hard to find my way back.
If all you want to do is find your way back to yourself, there is a home button in the top right corner that refocuses the chart to show you as the primary person.
If you mean that you want to get back to your ancestor from the tree of an ancestor's relative, you could follow the View relationship results until you reach your common relative. Just note that FamilySearch always displays the closest relation to a person, which means that you may not always end up in the same place that you were before. This would be another issue with the icons, I suppose: you can be related to the same person in multiple ways.
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