# Family tree

There are three types of tree diagrams GEDKeeper can create: tree of ancestors (ascending relationship tree), tree of descendants (descending relationship tree), and a combined tree (tree of ancestors and descendants). You can set up the diagram appearance from the "Service\Options" menu in the "Options" dialog on the "Charts\Trees" tab. You can change what information to show about persons and change colors of tree elements.

To build a tree, you pick a person out in person list, then choose a tree type (ancestors, descendants, or complete) in the "Pedigree" menu. Alternatively, you can use the following buttons from the main window:

- Tree of ancestors
- Tree of descendants
- Complete tree

Note: The trees built by GEDKeeper always contain only the descendants and/or ancestors of the selected central person. Exception: with the "Extended tree" option, the ancestors of all spouses of the central person will also be displayed.

After a tree is created, you can use the button to export the tree in one of the following formats: raster format (BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG) or vector (EMF, SVG, PDF). Not every family tree may be saved as a raster file since they may not store more than 65k pixels per horizontal line. Vector files do not have such restrictions. Therefore, a vector format can store trees of any size. Moreover, having a vector file may be better for the next image processing in graphical applications and printing. Please note that the vector format "emf" is only available in Windows versions of the program.

The following controls are available when you view a diagram:

- Vertical scrolling with mouse wheel.
- Horizontal scrolling with mouse wheel and holding the [`Shift`] key.
- Zoom with mouse wheel and holding the [`Ctrl`] key.
- Zoom with scale control at top right corner of the window.
- The [`F4`] key performs the folding or unfolding of the selected person's branch.
- The [`F5`] key rebuilds the tree.
- The [`F6`] key marks the currently selected person as a starting point and updates all ancestors and descendants of that starting point.
- The [`F7`] key recalculates relation degrees (if they are turned on) of the currently selected person.
- Double-click on a person to enter edit mode for that person.
- Click on a person to adjust it with the window's center.
- Pan the content while the mouse's right button is held.
- click on the icon ("there are additional hidden data") near a person to rebuild the tree relative to that person (this icon is not exported to an image file).

The number of visible generations (of both ancestors and descendants) can be adjusted from one to nine (or unlimited) by the "Generations" button using the dropdown menu.

With the "Separate depth" option it will be possible to use the selection of displayed generations separately by ancestors and descendants.

The colors of the person cards are configured in the settings section (the button on the toolbar of the diagram window or the menu Service\Options). Also, for each person, for specific needs, you can set a separate color (a pop-up menu by right-clicking on the person card). In some cases, the person cards may be shown in gray (not configurable) - this means that this person has previously been displayed in the tree in another branch. This happens, for example, in the case of ancestor reduction.

In the tree, it is possible to show not only the name, life dates, but also a one-line short comment. To do this, a comment with the type "Tree note", you must enter in the tab "User references" of the editing dialog persons and enable the option "Show special notes" in Options.

The tree diagram has a function for collapsing branches. You need to click on the line leading from the person to the branch. Very close to the person. Then the person itself will remain, and the branch will collapse and a small yellow triangle will appear there - an indicator of the collapsed branch. Or press the [`F4`] key on this person.

You can also filter content with the button.

If you have used the [`F6`] key or the icon (set new person as the central one for the tree), you can use the and buttons to return to the previous or next person.

"Display modes" button shows the following tree options:

- All — show both ancestors and descendants for a specified person.
- Ancestors only — only ancestors of the selected person are visible.
- Descendants only — only descendants of the selected person are visible.
- Hide spouses of descendants- in some cases it is useful to derive a tree of descendants without their spouses (to exclude people from other families).
- Trace root — turns off/on a mode when the center of the tree is smoothly adjusted with the selected person.
- The certainty index — turns off/on the authenticity index visibility for each person in the tree (it is handy for visual valuation of development progress).
- Identifiers (XRef) - display the identifier (XRef) of each person's record.
- Highlight the lines of the selection - the selected person will have all the lines connecting them to other people highlighted.
- Track matching sources - if there are links to the same sources in the person's records, the connections between these persons will be highlighted with a running green dotted line, if there are no common sources - with a running red dotted line.
- Age of parents - display of the age of each parent at the time of the child's birth on the lines leading from parents to children (control of sources and data accuracy).
- Background color — changes the background color for the tree.
- Background image — changes the background image for the tree.

Other hotkeys:

- The [`Ctrl + F`] key performs the quick person search by name.
- The [`Ctrl + S`] key performs the save current database.

If the "Additional symbols" display is set in the tree settings and specialized user references were used when editing persons, symbols/indicators will be displayed in the tree to the right of the person cards. Currently available symbols include: symbols for the main religions (Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Old Believers, Islam), symbols for holders of awards of the Russian Empire, symbols for soldiers and those killed in the WWII, symbols for home front workers, repressed persons, and members of the CPSU.

Additional functions are available by right-clicking on any person:

- Edit - call the person editing dialog;
- Add father - adds a father to a person, if the parents' family is not defined - it is created and assigned automatically; if the parents' family exists, the father can be added only if he is still defined;
- Add mother - the mother adds similarly;
- Add family - adds a family with an unspecified (unknown) spouse to the given person - this is useful when processing sources; for example, when there is a record "married third time" and there is the name of the third wife, but the names of the first two are unknown - it is necessary to perform the "Add family" operation twice, and then call the "Add spouse" function; important: if the "Hide unknown spouses" option is enabled, the added families with unspecified spouses may not be displayed on the screen;
- Add spouse - adds a new family with a request to join an existing one or create a new personal record of the spouse;
- Add son - adds a son to a person, automatically - if there is only one family; if there is no family - it is also added automatically with an unknown spouse; if this person has several marriages and, accordingly, several families - there will be a warning that this function must be called on one of the spouses to determine exactly who the parents of the child being added are;
- Add daughter - the daughter adds similarly;
- Delete - deletes the current person (note: a person that is central to the current diagram view cannot be deleted);
- Go to person record - switches to the main program window and positions the selected person to record;
- Go to primary branch - necessary if called on a "gray" person - i.e. on a duplicate (ancestor's reduction), which is already present on the diagram in another branch; finds and performs a transition to the person's card in the primary branch;
- Open in new window - creates an additional tree diagram window with the selected person as the central one;
- Merge records- necessary if there is a separate other record of the same person in the database; useful for merging duplicates generated at different stages of source processing;
- Rebuild tree - updates the diagram using the selected person as the center;
- Rebuild kinships - rebuilds the diagram with the calculation of the type of relationship if the corresponding option is enabled in the settings (display kinships);
- Maps - call the map window for the persons of this tree with the following contents:
  - Ancestors - display a map with event location marks for all ancestors of the currently selected person;
  - Descendants - display a map with event location marks for all descendants of the currently selected person;
  - All - display a map with event location marks for all persons on the current tree;
- Select color - useful if for some purpose it is necessary to single out certain people from the total number.

The following tree filtering options are available:

By year boundary
  When working with large trees, from 500-1000 people, it is useful to use the options to turn off children in different branches, who died young and did not leave offspring. This is a general case, which is not enough to increase the efficiency of the study. Therefore, there is this filter by year. The meaning is the following - all branches, whose descendants were born after the specified year, will be filtered and will be included in the tree. This is a way to remove from the image all intersected or broken branches and leave only the longest ones. For example, if you select some ancestor, who lived in the 17th century, and set the year to 1900, then only those branches that have survived to this time will remain on the tree.
By specified persons
  This is a way to get a simplified tree for one or two or more persons, if it is necessary to clearly display their relationship. That is, when building a tree from some ancestor and setting one or more descendants in this filter - the tree will display only chains of people that unite the ancestor with the selected descendants.
Additionally - by sources
  Allows you to simplify working with the tree when processing some source. Only those persons will remain in the tree, who have links to the specified source.

See also: Options.