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• • April 23, 2010 at 6:51 am #55562
    Easybourne

    Participant

    I just picked up a job to design a large family tree.

    The client has already roughly drawn it all out by hand and it is tiled over several large (A1) sheets.

    I'm think of setting up various object styles for the various types of info entry and don't really have a problem with designing the individual parts. Where I'm getting quite worried is how to connect all the parts together without driving myself insane if (most likely WHEN!) I have to move it all around.

    What I'm after is a way for InDesign to automatically 'shuffle' elements on the page to accommodate new ones being inserted.

    Any advise before I get started?

  • April 23, 2010 at 8:57 am #55567
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    However unwillingly, I would advise against trying to do this in InDesign …

    The key features of geneological trees are the frames with the names and their interconnecting lines. These need to be positioned very carefully, because neither the frames nor (ideally) the lines may overlap. It would be necesasry to start at the topmost, widest level, then work your way down the ancestry line — and if you need to insert a late-discovered third-degree removed cousin, you'd have to start again at the top.

    There is no real easy way to move a frame and have a line “connected” to it moving along — it would need some serious scripting (which you'd need to run after each edit), or a dedicated plugin specially written for this.

    I have zero experience with geneological programs, but it sure sounds like you should do this in one of these and produce a PDF when you're done — then you can place this into ID and finish off the book. If the tree changes, change the data in the program, export a new PDF and have ID update it.

  • April 23, 2010 at 9:19 am #55569
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Agreed. Family tree software (such as Reunion on the Mac) is far better. If you need to get it into ID later, you could save the tree as a PDF and import it into your layout, or open that in Illustrator to tweak vectors there first.

    Or use a flow-chart program. I wonder if Vizio lets you do family trees?!

  • May 12, 2010 at 3:32 am #55690
    Easybourne

    Participant

    Thanks Jongware and David.

    Somehow, I feared that was going to be the outcome…

    Anyway, I've got the job and have started making some headway in InDesign with it. I thought I'd share my progress with you and scare the bejesus out of you! I've attached two screen shots.

    One shows the document size that I am working to – a staggering 4A0!

    

    The other screen shot shows part of the first section that I have built.

    

    For this, I elected to make object styles for 'Male' and 'Female' entries with placeholder text using various stylesheets and the very handy 'apply next style'. I then grouped these objects with a leader line coming from the top and popped the resulting groups into a library.

    Fortunately, the client has requested that all children in one generation run from right to left in a neatly aligned row. This means that I can easily join the entries onto a blood line. Marriages, rather unusually have been stacked vertically so they have a tint behind to help show the union. Where there are re-marriages, the offspring are labelled with a number that corresponds to the relevant spouse – hence the green circles above some of the entries.

    I've got a lot more to do as my client has really done his research and this stretches back to the 1400s! Ultimately the family tree will fill the 4A0 sized area, and to give you an idea just how much info there is, the blank 'Male' and 'Female' entries measure 34mm x 20 mm.

    Naturally, the client wants it yesterday…. and for not very much money!

  • May 12, 2010 at 3:37 am #55691
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Freemind is quite good and I think a lot better than Vizio

    https://freemind.sourceforge.ne…../Main_Page

  • April 7, 2016 at 4:56 pm #83810
    Doug Ahart

    Member

    I am quite happy with my InDesign family tree final product. I did a layout designed for a 18″ x 27″ poster and was able to go back on both paternal and maternal sides, 6 generations. I did a watermark of my parents hugging in the center to symbolize the two families coming together and various family heirloom photos placed along the sides and bottom. Quite nice Take a look a it at

    https://racehorseherbal.net/family%20tree.html

  • April 7, 2016 at 5:40 pm #83812
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Beautiful work, Doug!

  • April 8, 2016 at 11:21 am #83849
    Guy Ivie

    Member

    Wow, Doug! That’s impressive!

  • October 15, 2017 at 1:00 pm #98906
    Brian Kemper

    Member

    I approached creating my family’s tree in a different way.

    I worked with Ancestery.com to do the research for my Maternal Family History. Once I did as much research on it as I needed, going back to the 1400’s, I then realized how difficult laying out all of the different generations was going to be. I decided that because it was obviously going to be impossible to include every family, sub-family, etc. that I would follow the direct lineage from my maternal grandparents. So for example my grandfather’s siblings would be shown alongside of him but I wouldn’t include each of his sibling’s descendants.

    I found that trying to design the whole tree’s layout to be an extremely difficult task. The whole project took approximately 1 1/2 years to complete. Carefully trying to fit each piece of the puzzle was a trial and error process with only to find out later on that I would have to completely rearrange the large sections of family groupings so that they all would all fit together.

    The end result wound up being about 60″ x 52,” and that was scaled down to the smallest possible size so that the text would be readable, although very small. To make all of the family members fit, I had to display many of the older generations as lists, instead of as graphics.
    The “roots” of the tree were my living family members, consisting of 4 generations.

    I created the tree as a gift to my 86 year old aunt, so I dressed up the entire piece with old photos from the town that my family is from, as well as photos taken throughout the years. I also added artwork, like graphics of the countries that we had come from, ships to show the immigrants that were made, as well as flags from the wars that family members fought throughout our history.

    If you would like to see my final family tree, please visit it at

    https://brianscottkemper.myportfolio.com/genealogy-artist

    Brian

    • October 16, 2017 at 1:17 pm #98988
      Dwayne Harris

      Member

      Very nice.

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