Is there a way to print a descendancy list (just names, maybe names and dates)?

Deanna Limon

Is there a way to print a descendancy list (just names, maybe names and dates)?

I'm helping a cemetery association going before a judge requesting the deed or guardianship of a small 89 grave cemetery that has had no deed transfer in 120 years. I am trying to think of how my genealogy skills can help. I was thinking of just trying to find numbers of descendants for each of the 89 graves to show the vast number of descendants. I was trying to find living descendants and have made trees for all 89. Not really sure what to print out for the judge.

Alternatively, I was trying to find the number of descendant of the last deedholder (died in 1911)- to show the futility of trying to find an heir.

LegacyUser

Ben Baker said: You are right. We haven't implemented a PDF printout of the descendancy view yet. I imagine we will eventually, however. In the meantime, you can produce a printout by using the browser print functionality. In most browsers, you do this by either right clicking and selecting Print or selected Print from the File menu. It's not as nice looking as if we create a nice PDF printout, but does the job. By the way, we are working on a nice printout for the portrait pedigree view which should be available in a month or two.

LegacyUser

Mike said: I also want to be able to print a descendancy chart. It takes a great deal of time to click each descendant one at a time in order to get where you are working. Sometimes I have ten generations of descendants all fanned out and if I click one place in error I need to fan the whole thing out again. It can take 10 minutes just to get the chart fanned out each time. It would be really helpful to me to be able to print out the chart with the person numbers so I can find where I was working again.

It would also be a great report to share with non LDS family members who might have a desire to do research themselves. Having a printout of the work that was done already is really handy for people to figure out where we are connected in our family tree.

Thanks.

LegacyUser

Charles Hassard said: Dear Ben, Mike and Marilee,

As Mike suggested your browser can printout a descendancy chart.

I discovered how to print a descendancy chart the same way.

First use the Google Chrome search engine to open FamilySearch.

Bring up a desired descendancy chart in the usual way
pick an ancestor and select view descendancy
select 1 to 4 generations to (autofill that many)
drop down the show option and deselect as desired
I like to deselect portraits, and add people
click the right arrow (greater than or right carat) as desired
to show more or less generations

Once the descendancy chart is showing as desired, print it by right clicking your mouse on the screen. Select print option. wait for preview and make color, duplex
and other options as desired before printing.

It only works in Chrome. You cannot show living descendants unless you created them.

LegacyUser

Janice Byington said: Some suggestions for developement:

1. Please allow a Descendancy Chart "print" in OPTIONS, keeping the lines showing the generations belonging to which person. FOR EXAMPLE: Right now if you do a ctrl P, browser print, copy/paste, etc the lines appear, but the lines do not print causing a great deal of confusion and work to figure it out.

2. Please allow us to "switch off the females" or "switch off males" in OPTIONS for a Descendancy Chart. I don't know if it possible to do that while still allowing the spouses to be printed, but it would be nice to do, if so. FOR EXAMPLE: If we are researching only a male (or female) line to find a match to a different dead-end line, we can print just that gender. It will save time, confusion, and loads of paper when we print a worksheet.

3. Installing a search by first and/or last name of a Descendancy Chart would also be helpful. Some of the Descendancy lists are huge.

4. Also in the OPTION legend on any page: we need color shades that are helpful for those who are colorblind. The current shades are useless for those individuals. They have to go to a center to have someone read the green temples (or anything else with color) for them.

I just went through a ridiculous lengthy procedure to get the chart I needed to do further research. The suggestions above would help greatly in the future. I understand fixing pretty things are probably popular, but those of us who do serious research desperately need FamilySearch to be more useful.

Thank you for all you do. Keep Smiling, Janice

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Hm. I don't know what to think with your request..

A Descendancy chart is a chart showing all descendants (both male and female) for a specified number of suggestions. I don't know of any descendancy chart that will display only one sex.

Besides being in a two-week "off" period for the developers (holidays), there are some 1,000 items that have been requested and with limited resources, even when fully staffed, only a few are implemented (per Joe Martel's information from a month or so ago).

One of the areas where FamilyTree is weak is in its printing options. To be honest, I don't know if that area will be strengthened or not.

I have been a long time user of a personal family tree management program because they offer a lot more in terms of printing options, some of which I doubt that I will ever see on the FamilySearch site.

I will often print a descendancy chart for research purposes and even use a check list to make sure I fully research any given descendant.

Getting back to your request, I use Chrome on a Windows 7 computer and what Charles Hassard posted over three years ago is still accurate. Using Chrome, open the descendancy chart, select the number of generations, set the options, and then right-click anywhere on the chart. This will open the print preview in Chrome and there the entire displayed chart will appear, complete to the oldest generation.

The following is a sample of the preview that Chrome Displays before printing the chart.

Note: I do not know if the same chart now prints with the other three supported browsers: Safari, Firefox, and Edge.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: I have Firefox installed on this laptop, so I just tried it. I selected the same person and then with four generations set, I used the Firefox menu to display a print preview. It displayed the same chart as Chrome. But... it was more spread out and would take more paper. Without portraits showing, Chrome does a descent job of printing the chart.

Note: this is not a FamilySearch print option, but a browser print option that is being used. Something to explore.

LegacyUser

Janice Byington said: Hi Tom, I agree, every way I've tried to print, it does look like the sample you showed, it just doesn't print the lines. Putting the lines in by hand with a ruler, is a pain when it is a large file over several pages. (honestly, I goofed up a few times and had to start over a few times... grins)

So do you think the lines don't print because of the browser? Perhaps there is something in the browser settings to change?

I see why the gender thing may be perplexing. For example: I have a dead end male line. I believe I may have found the line in which he may fit. It is a huge line to research. If it were possible to eliminate the females and only print the males, it would be an easier list to work and save at least half on the unnecessary use paper and ink. Therefore, I could also see the same advantage when researching female lines. Just a thought, but one I thought may be possible, especially when we can currently switch off or on spouses. Similar concept.

Another similar concept to a current option found in GALLERY: Installing a search by first and/or last name in a Descendancy Chart would also be helpful.
Thank you for listening.
Keep Smiling, Janice

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Let me take a look at this... I'm going to print to a pdf file and see if the lines are there. Right now, I'm not at home (I won't return home until after the 1st), but this could be browser, printer, or font related.

I just checked the PDF file that I printed to... and it has the lines. Again, I cannot see if those print until I get home, but it is something you might want to try if you have a print to pdf feature installed on your computer.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Remind me (bump this discussion thread) to take a look around the 4th of January or so and I'll test. I have an old LaserJet IV (big workhorse of a printer) that I can test with.

LegacyUser

Janice Byington said: Thank you Tom. No problem waiting til you get home. Hope your trip was with family and filled with joy.

LegacyUser

Jeff McClure said: I know this is an old post, but I can't figure out how to "bring up a descendancy chart in the usual way" in FamilySearch. Can anyone help?

LegacyUser

Jeff McClure said: I don't understand how to bring up a descendancy chart. I can't find any type of option to do this in FamilySearch. Can anyone help me?

LegacyUser

Jessie Hearle said: https://www.familysearch.org/ask/sale...

LegacyUser

Jessie Hearle said:

LegacyUser

Jeff McClure said: Thank you!

LegacyUser

Janice Byington said: In the Pedigree tree area of FamilySearch, in the upper left there is a down arrow where you can chose Landscape Pedigree, Portrait Pedigree, Fan Chart, or Descendancy Chart. Chose how many descendents you want, then I cut & paste which ending up not looking like how I want. I have also use Snip-it or any capture program to print it too.

We used to be able to Print a Descendancy Chart from a Print button, but no more. A shame.

There are times I need to divide the names on a Descendancy Chart by gender in order find possible duplicates when combining families (when the merge options is not working well). That is the reason I asked the questions above.
Hope any of this may help.
Keep Smiling, Janice

LegacyUser

Amy Archibald said: Janice, I can print a descendancy chart, using Chrome and the CTRL-P function. - Amy

LegacyUser

Jean Lopez said: I had a program that worked with PAF years ago called Personal Ancestral File Companion. It was great for printing charts. I have compiled family books for non genealogist family members.These charts were easy for them to understand. I really like the descendants charts for the books that I have done. I hope you can incorporate something compatible to this program for family search. I have a mac.
Jean Lopez

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: FamilySearch stopped supporting PAF many years ago, but if you liked working with PAF, you may like Ancestral Quest. The two were written by the same person and have many similar features. In addition, AQ is fully compatible with FamilySearch and has many printing options. For many people the free version is sufficient, but for those who want more flexibility, especially in printing reports, including books, the full version is not that expensive.

One of the things that AQ can do is import the old PAF database you may still have around. It can even write back to the last PAF-type of database, or you can convert it to the latest AQ database.

Not only that, but you can also download your ancestral lines from FamilySearch FamilyTree in the AQ and go from there. It is a highly sophisticated program.

Two other programs with similar capabilities, but different user interfaces are Legacy and Roots Magic. They also have free versions and all of them can download your ancestral lines from Family Tree. That is one of the requirements for full compatibility. Each program have their fans and Roots Magic has the additional ability to interface with Ancestry. I haven't tested it, so I'm not sure how that works, but the ability to fully interface with both FamilySearch and Ancestry is a plus, in my book. However, I like the AQ interface, which is why I use it.

LegacyUser

Marilee Wynne Fisher said: There is no icon for printing a descendancy chart. Could this be added or have a knowledge article about how to print it.

LegacyUser

What an interesting project! Could you please share with us where the cemetery is located so we can refer you to a group that does research for that area? And please be sure and report back here when you have completed this project - I for one would love to know how you finally organized your material for the judge.

Deanna Limon

The cemetery is: https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2650696/eli-jackson-brewster-cemetery. It was two small Ranchito Cemeteries that merged into one and I am just wanting to be prepared with some statistics to show the judge but not really sure how to gather them the most efficiently.

In my head I am envisioning like an infographic with say a dozen facts. ex 89 documented burials, 14 infants, 6 teenagers, 2 veterans, 10 unmarked, 18 that so far have not been traceable to living descendants.

Right now I have a spreadsheet - which is super handy! Columns include name, birth/death dates, contact (descendant), obituary?, notes, link to them in familysearch tree.

Would love to hear if anyone has any ideas on how to download name lists of descendants.

pharmacistfrank

how can you print decency chart from family search

Dennis J Yancey

There IS a descendancy VIEW in FamilySearch that you can take down 4 generations on all lines.

you can then print that view by using your browsers print option

(I prefer to PRINT to PDF) so as not to waste paper

 

here is an example of a descndancy view

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/descendancy/KWCF-5W9

(you can then click on the "4" on the scale to exapnd it out to 4e generations

 

and then you can simply right click on the page and see your browsers print otpion.

Dennis J Yancey

you can get to the descendancy view from the person record of a given person.

see image below

LegacyUser

Dennis, thanks a lot. Just what I needed. Appreciate your knowledge and willingness to share.

Amy Archibald

You can also manually extend each generation that has an arrow that points to the right. If you also turn off the portraits in the descendancy chart, you will get more people on each page.