Talk:See Your Family Tree

Can't say I know whether I'm here by mistake or not. Just made my impressive fan display. Like Lehi, I think immediately of my children and grandchildren: I'd love to print a personalized fan for each as a Christmas present, but nothing seems to show me how to create a fan other than my very own. Can anybody guide me to the right set of controls (or drop the disturbing news that it doesn't exist, for some reason that isn't obvious to me just now? If you have flak (further light and knowledge), please make contact at CoMMensa@Alum.MIT.edu.

--Andy Anderson

I would also be interested in learning how to change the starting person on the fan chart. I would like to do one with my deceased husband as the starting point.

Nancy Schaalje schaaln@shaw.ca


 * I suggest that you contact new FamilySearch support, 1-866-406-1830 Klk3 00:43, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Klk3. I just called and spoke at length with Sister Smiler in New Zealand. She confirms that privacy concerns limit the use of the fan display to orphans like me. Anybody who has a living ancestor will find a wedge-shaped blank in the fan chart, radiating out from that living ancestor. And there appears to be no way to fix that, under existing privacy policies. My grandchildren, since they have living ancestors in all directions, have blank fan charts, except for their own name in the center. Doesn't imply that my grandchildren's ancestors aren't in FS, just that the fan-chart-creation routines stop hunting when they find a living person, inasmuch as FS doesn't search for living people. When I add my grandkids in so that they show up on my screen, FS assigns each a new 7-digit person number; when my daughter--in-law entered the same kid, he got a different number, connected to her and to her ancestors. But I don't know that number, and if I used it, I'd find that it isn't connected to MY pedigree, just HERS. NOBODY, apparently, can combine the disparate IDs of my living grandkids, nor those of any other living person. Looks as if you might want to change your fan-chart advertising so as not to raise unrealistic expectations, as for example on the part of fond parents or grandparents. Guess we could all just die and thereby empower our descendants... Again, If you have flak (further light and knowledge) to contribute, please make contact at CoMMensa@Alum.MIT.edu. --Andy Anderson