Propose listing of children per spouse

Question

I would like to recommend separating the list of children on a profile by spouse, instead of lumping them all together in a single list.

When parents have children by multiple spouses, they are currently all listed together, and its very confusing to sort out for large families who belongs to who.

Comments

If a person is married with children and has children with more than one spouse, clicking on the spouse will display only the children of which that spouse is associated.

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yes, I realize that.

but then if that spouse has children by still other spouses, then those children are all listed together on that page too.

It would be simpler, and less confusing if it could be displayed properly on the one page in the first place, without having to go to multiple pages.

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I've seen this but not very often.  From the wife's profile it's usually obvious by the LNABs (last name at birth) of the children and dates.

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I guess my family is bigger than yours, cause I see it all the time :)

And the date's aren't obvious, because you have to hover over the links for the alt tag (and if they're not defined...).

And no, the Last Name at Birth is not all that obvious either, because the names are all in one very long line, rather than a list. Maybe at least put a bullet point (•) in between them to help separate them visually.

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I do try to list the children by spouse - when that's known. Often, I'm listing children named as son or daughter in the father's will. No knowing which of several wives was the mother.

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Dennis, I thought I had mentioned your suggestion in another G2G post, but it took me FOREVER to find the link:

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/214154/step-siblings-and-half-siblings?show=214154#q214154

It doesn't seem that any consensus or conclusion was reached, but it might help clarify the situation a bit.

 

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indeed... there are always special cases which complicates the issues.

currently, siblings and half-siblings, etc, are all together in a single, undivided line. I was just looking and hoping for a simple little visual separation in the list.

Answer 1

You have Family Group Sheet   

• http://www.wikitree.com/treewidget/Hardy-2298/300
• http://www.wikitree.com/treewidget/Hardy-2283/300
• http://www.wikitree.com/treewidget/Brownlow-71/300
• http://www.wikitree.com/treewidget/Saunders-1181/300

Comments

ok, that's actually quite helpful, thanks. where did you find those links? are they available from the profile page?

but still not what I'm asking for. :)

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No but its a way to group them per family problem I feel with this page is that if you have a child father unknown it will not appear on the list. Maybe we could get an icon and a short cut on the WikiTree profile and a  if we would like to "split" the children per family 

Video https://youtu.be/t_V_mETk_08

Family Tree & Tools/Family Group Sheet 

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Why do I not see that small graphic on any of the profiles I am working on?

For example: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Abbe-6

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David if you think of the red square icon then I did it in Paintbrush as a suggestion.....

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we understand your red box was drawn by you for illustrative purposes, but the tree icon that its highlighting is not present for the rest of us. You apparently have special admin level access that gives you a slightly different view.

edit: ah, I see. You're actually suggesting the addition of the family tree icon itself. Probably not necessary, since (as has been discovered), its already easily accessible via the menus.

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I also pasted in the icon in paintbrush - sorry 

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I can't see well enough to distinguish which icon is showing (or what it means). I get the Family Group Sheet view by clicking that option in the dropdown menu under the WikiTree ID in the mini-menu at upper right of the profile page.

Answer 2

A good point to discuss.  Of course it's handy to straighten out the children in the biographies.  But sometimes people aren't sure about when a given spouse died or was divorced, so it might not be clear which child came from which marriage.  But you still have to assign them each some set of parents.  Now I do believe that depending on which profile you're working on, a different set of children or siblings will appear.  Thus if your grandfather Charles had two wives, Amy and  Barbara, if you're looking at Charles, all his children will show in the children area and likewise for Amy and Barbara, so if the connections are right, in the profiles, you should be able to figure out who is whose by comparing the A, B, & C profiles.  So I suspect the only reason for not displaying by spouse is that it will take up more space at the top of the profile.

Comments

The amount of space it would take up, would be minimal, compared to having to open yet another browser window/tab.

It doesn't matter when the spouse died, or if divorced. The children are still associated with the union. Ah, this does, however, bring up a different issue for when spouses are not displayed on the profile (but that's usually for younger profiles).

And I understand when researching, that one might not know who the parents are. But once the connection is made, it would be helpful for those connections to be displayed separately on the page, rather than together.

Answer 3

One way is to write clearly in the bio if the person had children with different people. I have done that for several profiles.

Comments

sure, but I'm trying to propose a code change to display it by default in the profile.

Answer 4

The children are ordered by date, so they should at least be grouped.  If they're mixed up, the dates need attention.  Bad guesses can be replaced by better ones.  Before and after can be used, eg if you know when the first wife died, then her kids were all born before that and the others presumably weren't.

This also helps with the descendancy chart.

The Family Group Sheet has the issue that children not attached to one of the wives will disappear altogether.

Comments

These are all great hints for deciphering, but no, they are not grouped -- they are one long list with no line breaks. I would not call that a group.

Indeed, the messed up dates are what is adding to the confusion. The Family Group Sheet (found way down low on the Family Tree & Tools page), has been a big help. I am essentially asking for similar functionality without having to leave the page or open a new tab/window.

This would be such a simple code change, right on the main profile page, and help to visually distinguish family lines.

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The Family Group Sheet can be found much more quickly by using the drop-down list from the profile's Wiki ID up at the top of the profile, the drop-down list between 'My WikiTree' and 'Add'.

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Maybe we could get a Family Group Sheet icon next to the children if more than 1 husband....

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I've often wished that the Family Group Sheet view would, after displaying the family groups by spouse, list the children whose other parent is unknown.

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Re Sharon Casteel you get my vote for that. It's confusing when you find out that one child is missing from the family group sheet... 

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Thank you Kay. There are so many menu items that I usually forget to look there. That is quicker indeed.

Quicker still, would be my proposal for a slight reorganization of the currently displayed list in the first place :)