I have in mind timelines for ancestors and descendants with life-spans shown as bars of appropriate length which would be aligned appropriately with the time bar at the top. Only the names and the birth/death dates need be shown.
I would find such charts interesting because of the slippage in dates that occurs between generations. For example I have first cousins once removed who are the same age as me, but in a conventional descendants chart they show up alongside my mother. For a normal chart this is, of course, as it should be as it is very useful for most purposes to see the same generations alongside each other.
I realise the problems that would occur for the programmer where dates are missing. All I can suggest is that where one of the dates is missing the bar could be located appropriately for the known date, with a short bar ending in dots pointing towards the unknown date. Such bars could be in a different colour.
Where neither date is known (and here it gets very interesting for the programmer) the best that could be hoped for would be a single dot, located according to a best guess dependent upon information inferred from spouses, children, parents whose date(s) are known.
I hope it is clear that I don't want something that is a formal display of what is known, but rather a chart that suggests when people lived in relation to one another.
I am interested in what other people think. I don't know whether such things exist in other software, but I'm not interested in other software because iFamily is so great.
Ancestors and Descendants timelines
Ancestors and Descendants timelines
Money can't buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.
Spike Milligan
Spike Milligan
Ancestors and Descendants timelines - great idea
I too would love to see that!