Fan Chart (Hourglass) places a starting person in the center, with ancestors on one side and descendants on the other. People appear in curved segments rather than connected boxes. Use it to show both where a family came from and the generations that followed. You can customize the layout, style and many other aspects of the chart.

RootsMagic also includes additional Fan chart layouts:

•Fan Chart (Ancestor) for displaying ancestors of the starting person.

•Fan Chart (Descendant) for displaying descendants of the starting person.

 

 

 

•Starting Person - Select the starting person for the chart

•Ancestor Generations - Enter the number of ancestor generations for the chart

•Descendant Generations - Enter the number of descendant generations for descendants

•Separator - Enter the number of degrees separating ancestors from descendants

•Shape - Select the shape of the fan chart

o1/4 circle

o1/3 circle

o1/2 circle

oFan

oFull circle

•Orientation - Choose the direction the chart moves from the starting person

oLeft to right

oRight to left

oTop to bottom

oBottom to top

•Size Wedges by Descendants - Turn on to size each person's wedge according to how many descendants they have.

•Show Spouses - turn on to include a generation band for the descendant's spouse

•Generation widths - Enter the center value and widths for the surrounding generations. Use these to adjust the space for text in the center and the generation bands. Larger widths increase the chart's overall size.

•Layout - Enter the layout of the chart.

oBest size - Turn on Fit to Chart to automatically size the page to fit the chart. If you turn off this option, you will be asked to enter:

▪Paper size

▪Width

▪Height

▪Orientation (portrait or landscape)

oMargins - Enter the top, bottom, left, and right margins around the chart elements

oBackground - You can select a color (or no color) for the background, or select an image file which will be used as the background

 

There are other settings (colors and styles) which are described here.

Build a readable two-direction chart

Open Publish > All reports and charts and choose Fan Chart (Hourglass). Select a person with both recorded ancestors and descendants, set both generation counts, and generate the report.

Inspect each side separately. If only the descendant side is crowded, reduce its generations or compare Size Wedges by Descendants before reducing the ancestor count. Check the separator, shape, and orientation after regenerating so that the two directions are easy to distinguish.