HistoryLink - New Ancestor Graph

I love the idea, but not quite sure how this works? I did it, and see the graph, but not sure where gaps are, or where the options for viewing are..love HIstory Link tho!!

Tho I will say I LOVE the History Search.....it finds relatives before I've seen them :)

I think I've died and gone to heaven, it's so much fun.

Hi, Kristin! If you don't mind a bit of interpretation of the Ancestor Graph:

The "Grouping" selection shows that you have no 'duplicate' ancestors (e.g.: which might happen from cousins marrying) -- only one color shows. It is also clear that you have no link to your father (and thus nothing beyond that). You only have one branch that goes beyond generation 8.

The "Status" option shows that all of your ancestor profiles are currently private out to the 4th-Great's (which is Geni's current default), and that Rebecca & Samuel Tupper and her parents have been made Master Profiles.

The "Gender" selection is typically rather obvious, but sometimes I find that there are branches that tend to focus more on one (e.g.: the female ancestors), and thus I can use this to focus further research on the other gender of those branches.

The 4th option (Country / State-Region selection) is a good place to identify where the basic birth/death location information is incomplete (which will show as grey); holding the 'X' key and clicking on such a grey-segment will bring up that profile for you to look at in more detail. It can also be helpful to see where one person might be mis-located.

If you let the cursor 'hover' over a sector, brief "vitals" are shown. As noted above, 'X'-click will bring up the profile in a different tab/window, while a simple 'click' will re-center the graph on that person selected.

The options on the right, of course, just display the names in each sector (which can get pretty obscure past the 3rd or 4th generation!).

Don't forget to try putting a different person at the 'center' of the graph.

For example, copy the URL of a child, a spouse, or a sibling, and then paste it into the box after clicking the "Change Focus Person" (the little icon by the current 'focus' person's name, e.g.: yourself, by default).

Thanks for the great explanation Dan. I expect at some point, we'd all love to have a completely filled in graph. So the blank areas are those "gaps" we need to research for your ancestry, each of which could lead to more famous or historical profiles. :)

What I noticed again was that it uses a subset of the projects (which is fine), but I'd be interested in what the criteria are for the projects it uses.

I really really love both apps.

re: the Projects (a.k.a. History Search)

The Ancestor Graph has nothing to do with Geni Projects; that's History Search (the original focus of the HistoryLink web site!). See the HistoryLink project or (more directly), the place where you add projects to HistoryLink Search here (http://historylink.herokuapp.com/history) and here (http://historylink.herokuapp.com/projects); be patient and that latter page will show all the currently-searched Geni Projects.

got it now, ty :) it allowed me to add some places of birth too, thanks :)

FYI: I updated the Description for this project to include some of this information, so you can simply refer folks to the Project, instead of having to try to find the 'right' discussion page.

Nice - Thanks :)

Oh, I lovelovelove this! (the Ancestor Graph) I can't imagine a more useful tool, because I'm a total genealogical flibbity-jibbit. I can't ever remember from one day to the next what I was working on, so although I do a lot of work I'm never sure how much progress I'm making. This provides a road map and I can't thank you enough! So very cool to see just what I need to do next, wahoo!

(I think I used up my total day's allotment of exclamations... very pleased with new toy.)

Tool. I meant tool, not toy.

:-)

No, you meant toy. :):)

Thank you, Jeff. You are really transforming our 'work' to play...! I agree with Sharon - this must be heaven.

flibbity-jibbit......I think that's what I'm going to call my wife from now on......Flibbity-Jibbit

I already was inspired to find additional ancestors I had overlooked, using Jeff's toy (I mean tool)!

Love it! quite a good way to visualize the state of origin for my ancestors. Thanks!

Private User It's great! Quite a few of us posted and were discussing them on Facebook :))

@Wendi where on fb?

Randy Schoenberg posted his and then i posted mine saying it was more colorful. there wasn't really an in depth convo about them.

I mean is there a fb group? or was it just on the Geni fb pags?

Kristin Felicia VanNest neither it was just a random posting.

I've add an option to Ancestor Graph for viewing descendants. Check it out. :)

Private User
Just wondering . . .how long should we expect to wait (on average) for the Ancestor Graph to finish Researching on the 10 Generation setting during the build process?

Private User
Also curious to know if there are preferred account settings when using this function . . .do privacy settings affect the ability of HistoryLink to compile ancestors? My in-process 10 Gen chart seems to stick and spin on the 4th Generation for a long time and then time out.

John Smith, you hit a bug that I accidentally introduced this week. I've fixed it and it should run without issue now. Sorry for the problem.

Identifying that bug leads to an odd situation. A query to the API for Margaret Lichty Witmer produces 3 parents, instead of the two that are listed. It also includes Henry B Shirk, which is a deleted profile. So my graph shows this as a parent conflict, even though when you look at the Geni tree, it shows only two parents. A disconnect between the API query I guess.

It worked just fine this time through.
Did you develop this app? It is even better than the praise it has received would imply.
I remember Mary being part of a complex merge, and Henry as being an existing profile. Perhaps the possible disconnect is simply a matter of updated information lagging behind? I have noticed that some changes and additions aren't updated until days later.