Fan Chart app

Profile managers: Murray Maloney [send private message] and Greg Clarke [send private message]

The WikiTree Fan Chart app can be used to create a customized display showing the direct ancestors of any individual listed on WikiTree. User-specified settings control the display form of personal metadata (names, dates, places), inclusion of thumbnail photos, and how colours are used to highlight characteristics such as gender, generation, grandparents' lines, DNA inheritance paths, DNA confirmations, and birth/death locations. The Fan Chart lets you examine a person's vital statistics, jump to any person's profile, or jump to a new Fan Chart for any person in the tree.

History: The Fan Chart app was originally programmed by Greg Clarke and created as a standalone app^[1], which still functions. (The most recent update for the standalone app was a tweak in January, 2023.) The standalone Fan Chart app is in end-of-life maintenance mode. That is, there will be no further development of new features in the standalone Fan Chart app. New features will be developed exclusively in the Fan Chart as a WikiTree Tree App. (The only feature not being added to the Tree App is the ability to add checkboxes to each ancestor wedge, which could be used for tracking purposes, if you want this option, use the standalone app.)

Since Hacktoberfest, 2022, a Tree App version of the app is available from any WikiTree profile, which makes it easier to access, and which has now all (but one) of the same features as the original standalone version, plus a number of new features not available on the older one.

Future: The focus for this Free Space help page is the WikiTree Tree App version of the Fan Chart, which will continue to receive updates, bug fixes, and new features in the future.

The most recent version of the Fan Chart as a WikiTree Tree App was updated in August 2023 by Greg Clarke.

New features — within the last six months — are marked by NEW !

If you have any questions, suggestions, or bug reports about the app, please send Greg a message on WikiTree.

How-To Guide

This quick how-to guide will show you how to use the various features of the app.

We recommend that you enable the WikiTree Browser Extension (WBE) feature — Image Zoom. Some of the images presented in this document are purposely smaller than full size so that we can present them side-by-side or as a group, rather than scrolling through a long series of full-size screenshots.. With WBE's Image Zoom enabled, you can just click in the bottom right corner of any screenshot and you'll get an enlarged version of the same image. If you haven't been using it already, this is a good time to get started — WikiTree Browser Extension.

Starting the Fan Chart app

To use the Fan Chart app, there are three actions you need to take

1. Select Tree Apps from the horizontal tabs on any WikiTree person profile
2. Select Fan Chart from the pulldown menu
3. Customize the display to suit your purpose

• On any WikiTree person profile, click on the Tree Apps tab.

Profile of Maurice Richard-1571.

• The WikiTree ID of the profile is carried over.
• Choose Fan Chart. It will automatically load up, without you having to enter anything.

Please wait while the Fan Chart is loading.

• Initially, you will see a message asking you please wait— typically only a few seconds.
• Then the chart is displayed and you can adjust the size and settings to suit your purpose.

Fan Chart for Maurice Richard.

The Fan Chart

The Fan Chart places the Primary Person in the very middle of the Fan. Then, the person's father is listed to the left, and the person's mother is listed to the right, in a ring or arc around the Primary Person. The next ring holds the names of the grandparents, then the great-grandparents, and so forth. Each ring holding the next generation as the chart radiates outwards from the Primary Person.

Printing your Fan Chart
You can print your Fan Chart at any time by using your system File->Print... menu. We have found that the Fan Charts fit the page best in landscape mode. (The Print dialog box for each of the browsers in the different operating systems varies, so we aren't going to show you all the different versions.) Once you have selected your options, you may choose to send your Fan Chart to a local printer, or you may elect to Save as PDF.

Shareable Image — Coming Soon
We hope to offer you a button to save a shareable image of your Fan Chart. Watch this page for future developments.

Profile Detail Popup

Click on any ancestor to reveal their details in a pop-up — birth and death dates and places; a link to their WikiTree profile; and, a quick link to their Fan Chart, the Descendants app (NEW), and the Bio Check app (NEW).

Fan Chart — Profile Detail Popup

Fan Chart — Profile Detail Card

• Click the person's name to open their profile in a new tab.
• Click the Fan Chart icon to open that profile in Fan Chart.
• Click the Descendants icon to open that profile in the Descendants tree app. (NEW)
• Click the Bio Check link to open that profile in the Bio Check app. (NEW)

Button Bar panel icons

Fan Chart — Button Bar

Customize Display

In the icon bar, you will find three options:

Chart Format Buttons

At the left-hand side of the Button Bar are the three chart format icons. Select any one of them to chose whether you want a full-circle, a circle with a missing wedge, or a semi-circle format.

Fan Chart (semi-circle): Maurice Richard-1571.

Note: You can use your Image Zoom feature to enlarge the following screenshot images.

Fan Chart (circle): Maurice Richard-1571.

Fan Chart (wedge): Maurice Richard-1571.

Legend

Chart Legend Button.

If you have chosen either the Colour by Place name or Colour by Country options, the Legend for the places appears in a pop-up box. This Legend button will alternatively hide or show that pop-up box.

Generations Displayed

Generations Displayed

At the centre of the Button Bar, the number of generation being displayed is indicated, and you may choose to increase or decrease that number by selecting + or –. (Minimum=3, Maximum=11). You may detect a slight pause as the app retrieves additional ancestors from WikiTree, especially at more distant generations

Zoom to Fit Button — New

Zoom to Fit Button.

Cycles through 3 settings — one of which is a custom zoom that remembers the last zoom factor the user used by pinch to zoom gestures.

Info Button

Info Button.

About the Fan Chart tree app

Click on the (i) icon to open the Info box.

Help Button

Help Button.

Click on the (?) icon to open the Fan Chart app space page.

New — click on the (?) icon on any Settings tab to access the Fan Chart app space page in a new browser tab, at the specific section that describes that Settings tab.

Settings Button

Chart Settings Button.

Click on the gear-shaped Settings icon to open the Settings dialog.

Settings Dialog

Settings options

The Fan Settings (gear icon) provides you with content options... what to include on the Fan Chart and how to format it.

In the Settings menu, you will find options to customize the look and content of your Fan Chart. There are eight tabs:

• General
• Names
• Dates
• Places
• Photos
• Colours
• Highlights
• Reset/Save/Load Settings

Reset/Save/Load Settings

Reset/Save/Load Settings

• You can reset to the default settings at any time.
• You can save your current settings
• You can load a previously saved settings.

General

Settings — General

Font for Names: — Select your preference
Font for Info: — Select your preference
Extras:

• Show WikiTree ID (e.g. Jones-123 ) NEW !
• Show Ahnentafel # (unique ancestor numbering system) NEW !

Colourize Repeats will use a unique colouring style for ancestors that repeat in the Fan Chart so they can be easily identified when they appear multiple times.

Add Badges will present a dialog that allows you to select from a list of badgeable categories or stickers associated with the people in the tree. For example, you might want to badge all people who lived in a certain place, are buried in the same graveyard, or have a common heritage.

Adding Badges to Fan Chart

In the example above, the Badges dialog is shown with 5 badges selected, and the Fan Chart demonstrates where those badges were placed on Maurice Richard or his ancestors.

For demonstration purposes, we have chosen to use Custom Labels (MCNAU) to represent the categories and stickers chosen:

• M — Montreal
• C — Canadiens
• N — Notables
• A — Acadians
• U — Unsourced

New: In addition to categories and stickers, you will also be able to choose from a set of profile metadata status indicators:

• DNA Confirmed
• Created by me
• Managed by me
• Bio Check: style issues
• BioCheck: no sources

New Badge Options.

Colourize Repeats example In the following example, Paul Pellerin and Fèlicité Ferron are repeat ancestors of Jocelyne Bourassa. You can see them at the top of the chart on her father's side, and again on the mother's side, a generation earlier. They are coloured distinctively to draw attention to the fact that they are repeat ancestors. (Paul is coloured light tan, Fèlicité is light green.) Notice that their ancestors are also coloured distinctively.

Colourized Repeats.

Names

Settings Dialog — Names tab

These options determine how names are displayed in the tree. By default, the First Name at Birth (FNAB) and Last Name at Birth are selected; you can opt to display the Preferred Name and the Current Last name (CLN) instead. There are numerous other options to fine tune the display of names to suit the application.

• hide/show Prefix, (e.g. Sir, or Lord, or Dr. ) NEW !
• use the First Name at Birth, or the Preferred Name NEW !
• hide/show Nickname, (e.g. "Lucky") NEW !
• hide/show Middle Name, NEW !
• use the Last Name at Birth, or the Current/Married Name
• option to use UPPER CASE for last names NEW !
• hide/show Suffix, (e.g. Sr., Jr., III ) NEW !

Normally, using the First Name at Birth and the Last Name at Birth is all we need. But there are times when you want to create a display version of a chart. These options let you tune the tree presentation. Following are two examples.

Although he was commonly known as Maurice Richard, his First Name at Birth was Joseph. Here, for the first time, you can see a chart with his Usual Name selected as the display name. In the second example, we offer the full name of Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr CC OOnt, by selecting to show his Middle Name and his Suffixes.

Usual Name: Maurice Richard

Full Name - Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr CC OOnt

Dates

Settings Dialog — Dates tab

These options determine how dates are displayed in the tree.

• hide/show Lifespan dates, (e.g. 1746-1812)
• hide/show Exact Dates, (e.g. b. 1746-01-31 / d. 1812-12-25 ) NEW !

Only 1 of Lifespan or Exact Dates can be active - or neither option, not both.

In the examples for Names tab (above), you can also see the effect of the Marriage Date options.

• The Fan Chart for Maurice Richard displays the default Marriage Date position and format.
• The Fan Chart for Gordon Lightfoot displays the raised Marriage Date position and blended colour format.

Places

Settings Dialog — Places tab

These options apply to the Places displayed for birth, marriages, & deaths.

• No Locations — do not display locations
• Show Locations for life events — display locations as specified below

Location details:

• Show Birth Location — display data if it is present in profile
• Show Death Location — display data if it is present in profile

Birth/Death Location Format: — what level of information is right for your application

• Full Location as entered — verbose
• Country only — close enough for many applications
• Region, Country —
• Town, Country —
• Region only — a State, Province, Territory
• Town, Region —
• Town only —

Photos

Settings Dialog — Photos tab

These options determine if photos are displayed or not.

• Show the Central Person Photo — a thumbnail of the main person's profile image
• Show Photos of Ancestors — for all ancestors, show thumbnail, if a profile image is available
• Use Silhouette when no photo available — male or female silhouette representations

• Limit Photos to first N generations [5] — otherwise they get a bit small and use resources

Colours

Settings Dialog — Colours tab

The Colours tab offers a set of options to manage the colours used in the entire chart according to different organizational structures (by generation, family clusters, or places), and to select from among several the colour palettes with which to colour the Fan Chart.

Colourize Repeat Ancestors — New
When selected, background colouring for repeat ancestors will also be applied, in addition to whatever colour scheme you may select from the options in this tab. If you de-select this option, then the background colouring for repeat ancestor will not be applied. (This setting is mirrored on the General tab.)

Organizational structures

• Gender — male / female colour pattern

Simple organization scheme. Effective for genealogical presentation and research purposes.

Colour by Gender. Gordon Lightfoot.

• Generation - each ring is coloured uniquely

Simple organization scheme. Effective for genealogical presentation and research purposes.

Colour by Generation. Maurice Richard..

• Grandparent - each grandparent (and their ancestors) are coloured uniquely

Simple organization scheme. Effective for genealogical presentation and research purposes.

• Great-grandparent — ditto

• Great-great-grandparent — ditto

8 generations of Jocelyne Bourassa; colour set at 2nd great-grandparents; "Rainbow colours" palette.

Colour by 2nd Great-grandparents. Jocelyne Bourassa.

• Great-great-great grandparent — ditto

Colour by 3rd Great-grandparents. Maurice Richard.

Note that in the above Fan Chart, the Colourize Repeats option is on, so those repeat ancestors use that unique colouring effect to highlight their name, while the great-great-great-grandparent colouring is in the background of the cell. You can turn off Colourize Repeats in the General tab if it is too distracting with some colour combinations.

• Bio Check status — New — Colours the fan chart to indicate the Bio Check status of each profile in the Fan Chart. See the Legend.

Colour by Bio Check Status.

• Parental status — New — Colours the fan chart to indicate the Parental status of each ancestor in the Fan Chart. Note that the parental status is set accordingly in the child's profile.
  • In the example below, for example, the status of David Robb (Confirmed by DNA) and the status of Martha Pringle (Confident) are both set in the profile of their daughter Sophia Robb.
  • Both Ann Richardson and William Biggar have "status unknown" because in the profile of their daughter, Mary Ann Biggar, none of the parental status radio buttons have been selected. (Find those in the top right, when in Edit Profile mode).

Colour by Parental Status.

• Family Stats — colour the Fan Chart based on either:
  • the age (at death) of the ancestors in it
  • the number of spouses

Colour by Age at Death. Fay Wray.

Colour by Number of Spouses. Fay Wray.

• Location — offers a submenu with ten options to narrow down which location

Colour by Birth Country. Maurice Richard.

Location colouring is a more complex organizational scheme and it relies on good data among the ancestor pool. Location colouring is effective for many genealogical presentation and research purposes. Location colouring helps reveal inconsistencies in the entry of placename, especially town names and country names. — You may have thought that your ancestor was German, but the proper WikiTree name of his birth country in 1729 was "Heiliges Römisches Reich".

Fan Chart determines Location based on the birth and/or death locations entered in each of the WikiTree profiles in the lines of ascent. For our purposes, a Place Name is the first piece of text, before the first comma in a location; whereas, a Country Name is the final piece of text, after the final comma in a location.

E.g. "Nédelec, Timiskaming, Québec, Canada" would be parsed as:

Place name = "Nédelec"; Country = "Canada"

EXAMPLE

When colouring by Place name, you have the option to colour and display the places based on

• Country - places within the same country will be assigned a unique shade of the country's distinct colour, the places will form a gradient
• Region, Country - every region within a country will be assigned a unique distinct colour NEW !
• Region - every region will be assigned a unique distinct colour NEW !
• Town, Region, Country - every town will be assigned a unique distinct colour NEW !
• Town - every town will be assigned a unique distinct colour NEW !

Colour by Birth Country. Gordon Lightfoot.

Colour by Birth Country. Terry Fox.

In the following Fan Chart, we see how the colour coding changes when we use Region. Different parts of Canada take on different colours.

Colour by Birth Region. Terry Fox.

Besides the visual difference in colouring, there is a difference in how the colours are applied to historical places. E.g. consider three ancestors with the following birth places:

B. 1912 in Coteau-du-Lac, Timiskaming, Québec, Canada

B. 1854 in Coteau-du-Lac, Bas-Canada

B. 1748 in Coteau-du-Lac, Canada, Nouvelle-France

EXAMPLE

When the Places are coloured by Country Shading, the three ancestors will be coloured using 3 difference country colours

EXAMPLE

When the Places are coloured uniquely, all versions of Coteau-du-Lac will be coloured the same, even though the country name has changed over time.

Colour Palettes

There are 11 different colour palettes from which to choose. Many of the examples in this document have used the Pastel Colours palette, which is the default. Following is an example of the Psychedelic palette.

Fan Chart — Psychedelic Palette.

Highlights

Settings Dialog — Highlights tab

The Highlights tab presents a set of options that you can use to highlight your yDNA, mtDNA, xDNA inheritance paths, or to highlight those profiles with DNA confirmations.

DNA Inheritance Paths

As you can see in the accompanying screenshots, the yDNA and mtDNA inheritance paths are quite simple and easy to follow. The yDNA path descends from a father to his son(s), whereas the mtDNA path descends from mother to her son(s) and/or daughter(s). Women neither receive nor pass yDNA; whereas men receive mtDNA but do not pass it.

Fan Chart with yDNA inheritance highlighted

Fan Chart with mtDNA inheritance highlighted

The xDNA inheritance path is quite a bit more complicated — "the number of possible ancestors on the X chromosome inheritance line at a given ancestral generation follows the Fibonacci sequence."^[2]. (See accompanying image.^[3])

Men receive only one X chromosome, from their mother. In the accompanying Fan Chart, ancestors who could contribute to a male’s one X chromosome are highlighted.

Fan Chart with xDNA inheritance highlighted

X chromosome ancestral line Fibonacci sequence

Women receive and carry two X chromosomes; A woman inherits a copy of her father’s single (haploid) X chromosome, but the X chromosome she inherits from her mother is subject to recombination (technically, “crossing over”) during meiosis. If it recombines, the inherited chromosome will be a variable mix of the mother’s father and mother…so a combo of the maternal grandparents. In the accompanying Fan Chart, ancestors who could contribute to a female’s two X chromosomes are highlighted.

Ancestors who could contribute to a female’s two X chromosomes are highlighted.

DNA Ancestors and DNA Descendants Links

By now you have noticed the icon set attached to DNA inheritance indicators for Y, mt, and X. They are each flanked by the familiar WikiTree Ancestors and Descendants icons that you see elsewhere on WikiTree. We have adopted those same icons on the Fan Chart to represent links to that person's DNA Ancestors and DNA Descendants, respectively. (Please excuse these crude representations.)

yDNA

mtDNA

xDNA

But wait, there's more... XFriends app — X-Chromosome Friend Finder

DNA Confirmations

If you have confirmed your DNA inheritance using the WikiTree profile options, then you can also highlight those confirmed DNA ancestors.

For this example, we turn to the profile of Peter Roberts-7085, a resident WikiTree DNA expert who was one of the motivating forces behind the DNA highlighting features of the Fan Chart. Peter has graciously granted permission to display a Fan Chart of his family to highlight DNA Confirmations among his ancestors.

Fan Chart with DNA Confirmations highlighted.

Notes:

• If the central person does not have a DNA Confirmation with their parents, but a sibling does, the parents will not be highlighted because there is no direct DNA confirmation. However, if either of those parents has a DNA Confirmation to one/both of their parents, then those grandparents will be highlighted, even though the source of the DNA confirmation did not start with the central person.
• If there is a private profile along any given line of ascent, then the parents of that private profile will not be highlighted, because the Fan Chart app is not able to read the private profile to determine whether there is a DNA Confirmation.

Note: DNA confirmations are a formal mechanism at WikiTree. For either parent, it is possible to indicate that there is both genealogical certainty and genetic certainty for that line of descent. A requirement for flipping that switch is that the profile must contain a formal declaration that states who took which tests, how those peoples' DNA comparisons prove a genealogical line of descent, and the identity of their Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA). The formalism of the DNA Confirmation statement is so difficult to get right that Greg Clarke built a DNA Confirmation app to write them for you, if you give it some data to get started. (See also Help:DNA_Confirmation)

DNA Confirmations Dialog.

But wait, there's more

• X Family Tree is a newer (July 2023) WikiTree Tree app that is now available from any person profile.

Alive on this Day

Highlights — Alive on this Day

Select any date in history to highlight everyone in the chart who was alive on that date.

In the accompanying example, we have entered the birth date of Gordon Lightfoot to see which of his ancestors are known to have been alive then. We can see that his parents and his maternal grandparents were alive.

Highlight people — Alive on 17 Nov 1938 (Gordon Lightfoot's birth day)

Bio Check status

New — Select Bio Check 'style issues' or 'no sources' to highlight everyone in the chart whose profile has that status.

Biography Text

Highlights — Biography Text

Enter any text string to highlight everyone in the chart who has that text string in their profile.

In this example, we use the text string "mtDNA Haplogroup" to highlight ancestors of Maurice Richard whose Biography text includes those words. We see Marie David (abt.1752-1822), daughter of Françoise Olivier (abt.1726-aft.1785) on one line (mtDNA Haplogroup C1c), and we see Marie (Boudot) Chicoine (abt.1715-1805) on two lines (mtDNA Haplogroup D1).

Highlighted by Biography Text — "mtDNA Haplogroup"

Category or Sticker

Highlights. Category or Sticker.

Select from a list of categories and stickers found among you and your ancestors to highlight everyone in the chart who has that category or sticker in their profile.

The pulldown list will contain a list of categories and stickers found in the profiles that are visible on the tree.

To identify Jocelyne Bourassa's native ancestor, we use Fan Chart's "Highlight by Category or Sticker" feature, and select "First Peoples Canada Sticker". You can see a single yellow rectangle in the accompanying chart example, identifying her ancestor as Anne Ouestnorouest (abt.1644-aft.1687).

Highlighted Sticker - First Peoples Canada Sticker

Our Subjects

We have decided on a Canadian theme for the example profiles we use in this page:

• Maurice Richard-1571

Maurice "The Rocket" Richard, the subject of these examples, is a Notable.^[4] He was a forward for the Montreal Canadiens hockey club. He led the Montreal Canadiens to a Stanley Cup championship in the 1955–56 season — the start of a still unprecedented 5 consecutive Stanley Cup victories by one team. "Richard was a cultural icon among Quebec's francophone population; his legend is a primary motif in Roch Carrier's short story The Hockey Sweater, an emblematic work of Canadian culture."^[5][6] He was a sports champion and cultural hero among many Canadians.

Maurice Richard is a cousin to Fan Chart creator Greg Clarke, many times over — they share 66 MRCAs, or 33 ancestor couples. Greg's French-Canadian mother's lines are connected back through centuries of Canadian history and into the old regime of Nouvelle-France, in the territories of Quebec and Acadia, early in the 1600s.

Profile of Maurice Richard-1571 showing connections to Greg Clarke.

We are also highlighting the profiles of four other notable Canadians in our examples:

• Gordon Lightfoot-1332^[7] — iconic lyricist and troubador
• Terry Fox-4591^[8] — athlete, humanitarian, and cancer research activist
• Fay Wray^[9] — actress, star of "King Kong", "scream queen"
• Jocelyne Bourassa^[10] — professional golfer, Rookie of the Year on the LPGA Tour in 1972

Fan Chart: Gordon Lightfoot-1332.

Fan Chart: Terry Fox-4591.

Fan Chart: Fay Wray-688.

Fan Chart: Jocelyne Bourassa-781.

Sources

1. ↑ You may be interested in the Original Google Doc help document
2. ↑ Hutchison, Luke (September 2004). "Growing the Family Tree: The Power of DNA in Reconstructing Family Relationships" (PDF). Proceedings of the First Symposium on Bioinformatics and Biotechnology (BIOT-04). Retrieved 2016-09-03.
3. ↑ "X chromosome ancestral line Fibonacci sequence" By Algorithmicist - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, (Accessed 24 Jul 2023) https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51104619
4. ↑ Wikipedia. Maurice Richard. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Richard
5. ↑ Wikipedia. "The Hockey Sweater (Le chandail de hockey in the original French) is a short story by Canadian author Roch Carrier and translated to English by Sheila Fischman." (Accessed 23 Jul 2023) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hockey_Sweater
6. ↑ CBC. "The Hockey Sweater" (Accessed 23 Jul 2023) http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/sports/hockey/the-spirit-of-hockey/the-hockey-sweater.html
7. ↑ Wikipedia. Gordon Lightfoot. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Lightfoot
8. ↑ Wikipedia. Terry Fox. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Fox
9. ↑ Wikipedia. Fay Wray. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fay_Wray
10. ↑ Wikipedia. Jocelyne Bourassa — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jocelyne_Bourassa

Browsers and Bugs

We have tested the Fan Chart in:

• Google Chrome: Version 115.0.5790.114 (Official Build) (x86_64)
• Firefox: 115.0.3 (64-bit)
• Safari: Version 16.6 (17615.3.12.11.3, 17615)

New

• Zoom to Fit button cycles through 3 settings - one of which is a custom zoom that remembers the last zoom factor the user used by pinch to zoom gestures
• Colourize Repeat Ancestors on Colour tab, as well as on General tab
• Bio Check link on profile popup
• Bio Check status options
  • Highlight - elect to highlight Bio Check status
  • Colour - select background colour based on Bio Check status
  • Badges - apply badges based on Bio Check status
• New Badge options
  • BioCheck 'has sources'
  • Bio Check 'has no sources'
  • DNA Confirmed
  • Created by me
  • Managed by me

Acknowledgements

Murray Maloney reproduced the documentation for Fan Chart between episodes of Saturday Roundup on 22 and 28 July 2023, re-organizing, adding screenshots, and writing descriptive prose. Working in coordination with Greg, he tested the app behaviour, and helped with debugging. He subsequently re-captured screenshots to address feature changes and additions brought about by the previous week's software testing and design discussions in preparation for Friday Night Bingo.