Suggestions

Matching names isn't really the issue as that is easily overcome.

I don't like the idea of Capitalisation at all but it could be achieved by having a marker, star or whatever in the name box for direct ancestors.

It is how to implement it that is the bigger issue. As mentioned, it would have to be 'one size fits all' and it would have to be dynamic too, by which I mean changes you make to your direct line would need to be immediately reflected in the view.

Change the home person, or change the pedigree and it would change the direct line markers. That takes processing power to handle so would slow things down a bit whilst it re-calculates everything.

Next question is how this might appear to someone else looking at your tree. They might prefer to see the link to another name on the tree, so do we allow them to select two names and see the relationship between them?

I've been thinking about this and yes it did hurt ;-)

What would be more useful than capitals is a different font colour for the direct line e.g. Red that way it will stand out at a glance.

I think the matching would ignore case but it would be useful to have the option of specifying an exact name match (including the case).

I think the names should be case sensitive. I think Audrey fforbes-Hamilton (To the Manor Born) would not be amused to see her surname as Fforbes-Hamilton even though her ancestors would have intended Forbes-Hamilton (ff being the way of writing a capital F).

Trouble is, if we had a choice of how to 'enhance' particular names in out trees, then would the 'matching' system work?

I think there should be the choice. I wouldn't want all ancestors in capitals, just my direct line.

I don't bother doing anything on either my GR tree or ancestry one................... I leave them in cap initial letter and lower case for the remaining letters..


However, I do something different in the tree I maintain on my home computer ................. which is much much larger than either of the trees on GR or ancestry

I use one colour for direct lines, and another colour for all siblings.

However, I still use the cap initial format


I find the colour makes it easy to see a glance.



Whatever GR does, it HAS to be a choice by the user .........................

it is probable that just as many people want all Upper Case, as do not want it!

and there will be just as many complainers for and against.

I use capitals on my Ancestry tree for my direct line. It just makes it easier to see when in family view.

I started doing so when building a friend's tree and he was having difficulty following it unless in pedigree view but wanted to see siblings of his grandparents.

No, no, no - I hate capitals in my tree. However I do feel that members should have a choice :-0 :-0

The new and unnecessary policy of converting all my UPPER CASE names to lower case is deeply resented by me and is yet another reason for my increasing disillusionment with the Genes product.

Hi Simon, many thanks for your amusing reply. I just think that as the trees get bigger, it is very difficult to remember all of the direct ancestors, so a bit of help would be very useful. I started to put all my direct ancestors in capitals but some stay as capitals, but others go straight to lower case. All the best. R. Keith Brewer.

We should certainly have the option, if we want to use it, of entering text in UPPER CASE. We used to have it on the (good) old tree but it's been 'lost' in the building of the current tree, which means that most but not all of my (and my wife's) direct ancestors appear in upper case.

I've even pointed out to 'the team' which bit of HTML code needs to be changed to reinstate the option... but, as usual, nothing has happened yet, 3 months on.

It certainly doesn't have to be a 'one size fits all' Sylvia. That's what has been imposed on us now by the software automatically converting text entered as upper case into lower case.

I've also asked for the ability to use italics and bold fonts - which would be especially useful in the 'Notes' field, so one could enter the 'information' in regular font and the reference (often, in my case, a web url) in italics, which would make it all so much more readable.

Who knows, one day we might get a tree that's fit for purpose...

Problem is that it seems that it would ahve to be a "one size fits all"


I, for one, do not want all caps on names on my tree, small though it is.

I'm probably not the only person who does not.


It seems be either / or


when what is needed is the option to have whichever one is wanted by each individual member!

The ability to enter names in capitals might be handy but the lack of the facility is hardly a fault, so is unlikely to qualify as a fix.

Any solution would have to be automated, and it is not just a case of showing the ancestry for the home or root person in each tree, which as I have said, is already done on at least one commercial tree program. For it to be really useful to anyone else looking at your tree on GR it would have to show the connection to the person they are interested in too.

Whether of not GR would see this sort of development as attractive I'm not too sure.

For years I've been using the very convenient method of following my direct line of ancestry in my tree by making the FORENAME in upper case. Others have noticed this feature in my tree and agreed that it is quite handy. However, for several weeks now this has been impossible on GR because the system no longer allows one to enter names in upper case!!!!

Most frustrating! I have complained to GR support but, as usual, they are aware of the problem and are working diligently on it but have no idea when it will be fixed . . . blah blah blah.

In their latest reply, they say that members of the support team are actually NOT ABLE to do anything about it but refer it to another team of technicians who do this sort of thing. That was quite a revelation.

Any thoughts about this?

Tampa

OH lost his umbrella last week, a very large umbrella


eventually, the man he was talking to said "It's in your hand!" :-D

Kim - too right - spent some time yesterday looking for my glasses and they were on my head!!!

Not the first time I have done this either.

And how many times do you look for something so hard that when you do look at it you just do not see it.....

i have just had to go back to my tree to look at the colour of the shoulders....
its amazing what we dont see when we spend way too many hours looking at something.... :-)

As said before I no longer have a tree on here and cannot for the life of me remember what my tree actually looked like as I so rarely used it.

It is a problem for me in that in my early days on here I made contacts due to sharing the same people in our trees and now cannot remember what our relationship was (if any).

So I can find a shared person on the other tree but it is not easy to see if that person is a direct ancestor of the root person or closely related to a direct ancestor.

An indication of the direct lines to the root person would enable me to determine whether thae other rootperson was a cousin, related by marriage or not particularly related.

To be honest the facility would be more useful on another site which has lots of public trees and would indicated whether making initial contact would be useful.

FTM has a direct line indicator. It is linked to whoever is currently set as the Home Person.

Not quite sure how it might work when looking at other trees on GR, as a direct line to the member's Home Person might not be what other members are interested in.