Kinship, Genealogy & Family Trees ... Observations & Request

[Josiah]

It seems to me that genealogical trees should be doable in TW.

I should emphasise I don't have the programming skill to actually do it.

But I thought others might find it an interesting delimited challenge.

WHY am I interested? Because I am an anthropologist. And anthropologists know lots about kinship systems. And TW could serve as an elegant, minimalist way to record and document kinship relationships, I believe.

Kinship diagrams are in one way very easy. They are simply branching hierarchies of "DESCENT". BUT also central to them is the role of "AFFINITY" (marriage). 

So what you have is a FUSION of DESCENT lines through MARRIAGE. So its never ONE descent line.

This is why Mat's interesting recent experiment using forking lists (<li>) and smart CSS hits a limit. It can't cope with the  arbitrary crossing in of affines (relatives by marriage) who create ADDITIONAL HIERARCHIES.

I'm sure there could be a way to do this in TW without having to resort to overly complex solutions. The logic in genealogical trees is not infinitely complex.

If anyone is interested I can layout a formal procedure for constructing them anthropologists use.

Technical note: Western style genealogical trees are generally presented TOP DOWN from ancestors. Anthropologist work from "EGO", i.e. a specific person and depict the relationships UP & DOWN from there. The final diagrams are IDENTICAL, but the mode of construction is different. Its perhaps worth noting that construction from "EGO" gives a very clear procedure because its always determinate.

[PMario]

Hi,

tiddlymap.org may be of interest: http://tiddlymap.org/#Using%20the%20Map%20Raster
In the map view select: FamilyTree.

-m

[Josiah]

Ciao PMario

Thanks for that link. I had a look. As is the diagram won't work because, though its a map of relationships, it doesn't differentiate "Descent" ("blood lines") from "Affinity" (relationship through marriage). That differentiation is essential to presenting genealogical trees.

I don't think the issue is in TiddlyMap. Its more likely that the underlying JS library doesn't easily support the kind of diagramming needed.

But I will play with it a bit more to make sure. I'll come back when I'm clearer.

Thanks for your interest!!

Best wishes

Josiah 

[David Szego]

Being an amateur geneaologist, I'd be very interested in seeing your formal procedure. FWIW, I currently use TW to index all of the LDS microfilm scans with my ancestral records ... it would be great to be able to import a GEDCOM, display it, and cross-reference the record to the person, all in TW.

Maybe I'll tackle that after I'm finished Cardo 1.0! ;->

Cheers,
David.

[Josiah]

Ciao David

Thanks!

I'll work-up a decent brief on this over the next few days. 

Best wishes

Josiah