When working with a large tree, it would be useful to have some sort of idea where we are in the tree based on a chosen reference person - not sure how to best do this, maybe a list of surnames (including first name) to show the line that is clickable across the top of the screen (or bottom) - make it hidable for those that don't need it or only want to refer to it.
When you go to add a citation source, the pull-down list of available citations is not alpha sorted - it's sorted in the order added to the project. It is very time consuming looking for previously used citations. You can press the first letter of the citation repeated times to cycle through those sources starting with that letter, but an alpha sorted list would be helpful.
The chart generation function assumes I am printing on 8.5x11 paper. I have a PDF writer that I can create custom paper sizes - I should be able to go to some sort of page setup to chose the paper size for the chart.
Very frustrating to find plenty of BOULTS, only to find the sites a re Private Sites, and there seems to be no way of contacting the site owner.
I suggest that when a private site is reached, we should always have the option of sending a message/email to the site owner, to be able to put a case for having some access to the site.
Thanks for your suggestion. Unfortunately, some site managers really don't want to be contacted! One cannot force a person who does not want to be contacted, to receive messages by others. But the fact that some sites are private doesn't necessarily mean that thir owners don't wish to be contacted. Please help us by specifying in more detail how you searched for BOULTS family members (since there are many ways of doing that) and post here a URL of such a search, from which you were unable to contact the various people you wanted to contact. We will analyze that and check whether we can make some improvements to help you.
If you used the Genealogy Center to do your search, note that you can sort your matches not only by individual but also by site, by clicking the Sites link in the sort line of the results. There you have 'Contact Site Manager' links that you can use even for private sites.
In any case, I'm waiting for more info from you on how you conducted your search and I promise to retrace the search you did and see how we can help you get in touch with the Site Managers if that functionality is not available today.
But suggestion still stands as a suggestion, with a specific suggestion below.
It would be an unusual researcher, surely, who publishes his stuff on the web, but then doesn't anyone else to even contact him about it. Indeed, does it not go against the sharing principle under which you provide the service ?
I suggest that the Private sites should have a default of - searchable, contactable. And that a person has to specifically override that. And that if they are not contactable, their data may as well not be searchable, giving only false hope !
I think one very important feature would be to support different naming systems in use in the world. For example, in Spain and all Spanish speaking countries, naming system varies from English in this way:
- All people use two family names, the first one being the first from the father, and the second, the first from the mother.
- Married women always keep their own two family names, and do not take the husband's one.
So the software should adapt by doing the following:
- When a new child is added, it should suggest the correct family names -from the father and mother.
- It should not change the family names of married women.
- For a family, it's name should be that that would be taken by the sons -ie, one from father and one from mother.
I suppose in other languages there could be different naming schemas, for example Portuguese I think is similar but changing order.
Spanish speaking community is quite ample, so this would be a very useful improvement.
Other improvements I see, is to be able to edit online family names created with FTE tool - synchronizing in both ways between the changes in the tool and in the web.
Thank you very much for your suggestion. We're currently working on the possibility of displaying different variants of names as well as synchronizing the work of FTB and site and hope that the changes will soon be available on the site.
I thaught about the something the same. It would be nice to set the rules for family names by users theirselves. In Russia women take husband's or father's surname "a" at the end. I dont speak about women's surnames in Litva - they have different endings.
I uploaded pictures and then associated them. In several cases I wanted to later delete the association and yet the picture shown on the family tree remained even though NO picture association was now shown. The only way that I found to get rid of the picture was to delete the person entirely and reinall.
I also found that when using face recognition that it sometimes changed the selected person photo of the person and that this was not changed by a secondary publishing.
Tagging done on the family site now takes priority over changes made in Family Tree Builder with regards to personal photos of people. This solved a long-time problem where people used the online tagging to assign photos to people, and then published again from Family Tree Builder only to lose those assignments to their dismay.
You mentioned that you deleted associations and yet the picture on the family tree remained. This could be a result of caching. Until there is a change in a family tree, it still uses prior information in order to speed up loading time. It's possible that you removed an association and the tree still came up with that association. To clear that, publish a new tree or make a small change in the online tree, and that problem should go away. If it does not, please let me know and include more information about the problem.
I tried it. Opened an existing album and uploaded a music file. Indeed it was added as a single file/photo. Is it possible to simultaneously play the music while watching the SLIDESHOW (in the Home Menu) or in any photo viewing case, sort of a background music?
Several years ago we thought about letting users pick background music for their entire family site, by uploading an mp3 file or choosing from a library of files. Then the music would play in any page they were on and continue as they navigated through the family site. Or just play it in the front page of the family site. We even thought of bundling some Kleizmer music since that is very touching, heartwarming music. But we never implemented this. It may be time to revisit the notion of background music in family sites. It's a question of taste, and even if the Site Manager loves it, visitors might not love it, but it's about personalization and perhaps we will add this.
The music thing would be a good idea, you could always have a mute button for those that dont want it, even without that most keyboards have a mute button on it.
It would be good to be able to link continuation of one family tree to another. This would help to contain the size of family trees and also enable the task of maintaining the history to be split among genealogists in the family.
So what I have in mind is that the branch from one person is ale to link to another tree - say parents or siblings.
It should also be allowed then for an individual site member to be associated with multiple trees, not just the one.
Linking between two people in two distinct family trees (who are the same person really) is a concept we are in the process of developing. Through Smart Matching and also via manual linking, you will be able to "jump" from a person in one tree to the matching person in the other tree, usually in another family site.
We are currently working on designing this feature and will be releasing some time after
I see this thread is 3 years old. Has any progress been made in linking to trees? I have two other family members that have their own trees, but I don't see a way to 'link' them, so that when you click on, say, my grandmother's brother, it links my cousins tree to mine - or even refers it to my family tree link. How could this not save server space? Instead of me then entering people from his tree into mine, I could just link to his tree and he would be owner that family link (or I would be if he linked to my tree). Kind of like wikitree where there's only *supposed* to be 1 profile for person ever.
Via Smart Matches you can mark the connection between two trees, and also copy information from the matching tree into your own tree, however you will still need to have a profile for each person in each of the sites.
I have merged a lot of info, but it bulks up my tree (I have over 3300 profiles as it is!). Therefore, all those 'extra' people count against my limit of 2500. I just can't afford to upgrade right now. Linking, instead of merging and adding, would eliminate this problem, but would mean less users would upgrade. From a business standpoint, I see why you don't offer this, but from the consumer side, it feels a little like I'm being forced into paying premium for life if I want to share my tree w/other family members through the family site. I have received several phone calls to upgrade to Premium, but it's sadly just not in the budget.
Linking trees is still not available, but I will forward your input and request for this feature to our developers for future consideration and will update you regarding this issue.
