Tuesday’s Tip – The Relationship Chart

madhattergenealogy@gmail.com

12 Jul 2016

Tuesday's Tips provide brief how-to's to help you learn to use the Legacy Family Tree software with new tricks and techniques.

My new favorite chart – the Relationship Chart

I have lots of favorite charts depending on what I am doing at any moment.

I just looked on AncestryDNA and I have a brand new 2nd cousin match so I contacted her. This happens to be someone that is interested in her DNA and family history but isn't a genealogist so she was having a hard time visualizing our connection. As soon as she told me who her parents and grandparents were I knew where she belonged.

A picture is worth a thousand words so I added her and her parents (I already had her grandparents) to Legacy. I was then able to go to TOOLS > RELATIONSHIP and then I put myself in the left box and her in the right box. I finished the process by pressing PRINT.

I set up the report to look nice with minimal info so that it wouldn't be overwhelming and then I sent it to a PDF. I sent her the chart and she was so appreciative. Not 15 minutes later someone contacted me about a match on Family Tree DNA. After a few questions back and forth he turned out to be a third cousin, once removed. Yup, I generated a chart for him and sent it to him.

I generated one for my dad and his first cousin Bobbie Joyce to give you an idea. The chart has the relationship between the two at the top and their grandparents are labeled as the "common ancestor." The direct line connection is in bold. This chart is so easy to understand even for the lay genealogist.

Give it a try and share it with someone in your family!

Find tech tips every day in the Facebook Legacy User Group. The group is free and is available to anyone with a Facebook account.

For video tech tips checkout the Legacy Quick Tips page. These short videos will make it easy for you to learn all sort of fun and interesting ways to look at your genealogy research.

Michele Simmons Lewis is part of the technical support team at Millennia, the makers of the Legacy Family Tree software program. With over 20 years of research experience, Michele’s passion is helping new genealogists get started on the right foot through her writings, classes and lectures. She is the former staff genealogist and weekly columnist for the McDuffie Mirror and now authors Ancestoring, a blog geared toward the beginner/intermediate researcher.

Comments (9)

Christine,
I don’t think it is confusing. Jane and her first husband John Smith will be on the left and Jane with her second husband John Jones will be on the right. In between these two boxes will be a box stating “Another Marriage” and then the lineage will continue down from there. It clearly shows that the two children of the Jane were half siblings.

I’m trying to create a relationship chart for someone with whom I only share the same female ancestor but our male ancestors are different. For example, we are both descended from Jane Doe, but I’m descended from Jane Doe’s relationship with John Smith and my relative is descended from Jane Doe’s relationship with John Jones. Is there any way to set up the relationship calculator to display our relationship to each other in a way that is not confusing?

Denise,
I just ran the Name Tags and it is working just fine. I need you to send an email to support@legacyfamilytree.com There are a couple of things we can do to get this report back working for you.

I am planning a family reunion and discovered the Name Tag feature is no longer working. This was a great tool and the family members attending the reunion especially appreciated the 3-generation chart that appeared.
Will this feature ever be functional again. It hasn’t worked since the 7.0 release.

go to Wikipedia and search Cousins they have a chart that might help

Pierre,
You can’t put more than two people in the Relationship Calculator. You would have to do it in sets of two and then compare them. You can send a suggestion in to the programmers for them to consider something like this. You can do that here http://www.legacyfamilytree.local/suggest.asp If you send your suggestion in this way it will get logged into our tracking system.
What the Relationship Calculator will do that is pretty neat is tell you if you are related to someone in more than one way 🙂

Now THAT is very cool! And so simple. Thanks

I appreciate these little tutorials. I am new to Legacy. I am trying to wean myself off Ancestry.com and Legacy helps more every week. Thank you.

I use frequently this tips myself.
But I need to get this tips for more than two persons. I need to examine the relationships between 3, 4, 5 and more peoples at the same time.
Any idea how I could make this more easly that two by two
Pierre Laporte
Québec City
CANADA

M
Michele

8 years ago

Christine,
I don’t think it is confusing. Jane and her first husband John Smith will be on the left and Jane with her second husband John Jones will be on the right. In between these two boxes will be a box stating “Another Marriage” and then the lineage will continue down from there. It clearly shows that the two children of the Jane were half siblings.
CR
Christine Riggle

8 years ago

I’m trying to create a relationship chart for someone with whom I only share the same female ancestor but our male ancestors are different. For example, we are both descended from Jane Doe, but I’m descended from Jane Doe’s relationship with John Smith and my relative is descended from Jane Doe’s relationship with John Jones. Is there any way to set up the relationship calculator to display our relationship to each other in a way that is not confusing?
ML
Michele Lewis

8 years ago

Denise,
I just ran the Name Tags and it is working just fine. I need you to send an email to support@legacyfamilytree.com There are a couple of things we can do to get this report back working for you.
DJ
Denise Jarrett

8 years ago

I am planning a family reunion and discovered the Name Tag feature is no longer working. This was a great tool and the family members attending the reunion especially appreciated the 3-generation chart that appeared.
Will this feature ever be functional again. It hasn’t worked since the 7.0 release.
M
Me2nu

8 years ago

go to Wikipedia and search Cousins they have a chart that might help
ML
Michele Lewis

8 years ago

Pierre,
You can’t put more than two people in the Relationship Calculator. You would have to do it in sets of two and then compare them. You can send a suggestion in to the programmers for them to consider something like this. You can do that here http://www.legacyfamilytree.local/suggest.asp If you send your suggestion in this way it will get logged into our tracking system.
What the Relationship Calculator will do that is pretty neat is tell you if you are related to someone in more than one way 🙂
JS
Jim Sweet

8 years ago

Now THAT is very cool! And so simple. Thanks
ST
Sharee Thornberry

8 years ago

I appreciate these little tutorials. I am new to Legacy. I am trying to wean myself off Ancestry.com and Legacy helps more every week. Thank you.
PL
Pierre Laporte

8 years ago

I use frequently this tips myself.
But I need to get this tips for more than two persons. I need to examine the relationships between 3, 4, 5 and more peoples at the same time.
Any idea how I could make this more easly that two by two
Pierre Laporte
Québec City
CANADA