Name displays - improvements

+6 votes
159 views
I have been printing a series of family trees of my ancestors and find the results very confusing.
To take one example, namely [[Stewart-8663|Keith Stewart of Glasserton, MP]], no one would guess from the output that of his eight great great grandfathers, one of them takes his Dukedom from his wife [[Douglas-1386|the Duke of Hamilton]] (it is generally the other way about) and one [[Cochrane-104|Lord Cochrane]] (and his wife) are the same person by virtue of pedigree collapse. Nor would they surmise that these ancestors include [[Stewart-8663|the Earl of Galloway]], [[Douglas-1059|the 2nd Earl of Queensberry]], [[Montgomerie-27|the 8th Earl of Eglinton]], and [[Murray-809|the Marquess of Atholl]].

I think there is nothing to be done about pedigree collapse, but I think there is a huge loss of colour by the failure of this tree to recognise that all but one of Keith's 8 gggfs are peers, many having a non-birth name for the peerage. This could surely be dealt with by changes in name displays and/or name fields. As it is, one can put the peerage in "Nicknames" (which they are not), but then it is hardly ever displayed and certainly not in the printouts of trees. Not to mention that the man was known as The Duke of Hamilton, rather than Douglas or whatever. Nor do I emphasise the "adopt the customs they used" rule.  Maybe it could be done by a toggle  under preferences. " on family tree printouts would you like to see ranks and ritles shown?" Yes or No.

Incidentally it would also be helpful if the Wikitree-ID of the ancestor of the subject were also displayed in the family tree printout box.
WikiTree profile: Keith Stewart of Glasserton
in WikiTree Tech by William Arbuthnot of Kittybrewster G2G6 Pilot (187k points)
I agree with Sir William, his tree is much richer than it looks on the "Family tree and Tools tab." It looks like there is room for another line, at least up to the 4th generation.

1 Answer

+2 votes
Sir William I also agree . A very valid point. As an American I am sorely ignorant of titles.
by Anonymous Roach G2G6 Pilot (203k points)

Related questions

+5 votes
3 answers
187 views asked Aug 25, 2015 in Policy and Style by Jack Day G2G6 Pilot (485k points)
+28 votes
12 answers
+22 votes
4 answers
841 views asked Jul 30, 2017 in WikiTree Tech by Jillaine Smith G2G6 Pilot (947k points)
+8 votes
1 answer
+8 votes
1 answer
+10 votes
3 answers
381 views asked Feb 17, 2019 in WikiTree Tech by Riley Nielsen G2G3 (3.6k points)

WikiTree  ~  About  ~  Help Help  ~  Search Person Search  ~  Surname:

disclaimer - terms - copyright

...