Allow us to narrow searches to related individuals only

LegacyUser

Mark Hamilton Dewey said: The relationship calculator is awesome. This idea is similar to that, but more extensive (and not for the express purpose of calculating how people are related).

Allow us to narrow our searches to individuals related to a specified person only (without putting a cap on how many generations away they are). It wouldn't have to say how they're related if it finds them, but that could be nice. Searches would return a list of results, as searches usually do, except the results would only be related individuals.

I would prefer it if we could describe what kinds of related individuals to include or exclude: e.g.
* Direct ancestors (not including the spouses' direct ancestors)
* Aunts, uncles, cousins, distant cousins, nieces, nephews, etc.
* Relatives by marriage
* Descendants
* Descendants and their spouses

It could have you be the default reference person, or allow you to input a number for a different reference person.

Here's why I would want this feature:

* It would be a fast and easy way to find some distant relative that I've been working on (without having to filter through unrelated people to find them).
* If you're just interested in knowing whether you're related to a person, it would be more convenient in some cases than the relationship calculator (since you have to search to find the person anyway before you can use the calculator, or else manually click through your tree to find them).

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A similar feature I would love in addition to this would be the ability to search only among individuals I've edited or who are on my watchlist, whether or not they're related.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: With 1.2 Billion profiles in the massive tree, you are talking about tying up a lot of computing power in seeking out your relatives.

Keep in mind that this is a single tree that is designed to cover all of mankind and therefore, there is no separation of ancestral lines done by the site. What is done with the relationship calculator is specific to the person involved.

If you are working on a distant relative, set a watch for that person. The list of persons watched will have that relative at the top of the list when you first open it. Later, when you have finished working on that person, you can unwatch him, unless you want to see if anyone else comes along and makes some changes and/or additions.

While the idea has merit, implementation may be a major problem.

And, since the site is heavily used by a lot of people (thousands at any one time), if each of you suddenly want to search only those you've edited, those you have on your watch list, or those to whom you have a traceable relationship, the system would like bog down. There is a limit to the computing power available, and even on heavy use days (Sunday being the heaviest), the system is perceived as being slow by many users, even those with high-speed access to the internet.

There are other options, which I covered in a similar request made just a day or so ago.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: See the https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea... discussion which contains a request similar to yours.