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I would like the ability to change the order of partners, siblings, and children. Feature-Request

0 votes
1,142 views
Pretty straight forward, it would make it a lot easier if we had the ability to change the order of partners, siblings, and children without having to put in information about births and anything else. The problem is that if you put in a partner first that was actually the 3rd partner then the order of partners will be wrong and the order of children will be wrong. In my experience no matter what dates you put in it does not affect the order of partners which in turn means you cannot arrage the order of children correctly.
asked Jul 1, 2015 by ajhad (180 points)

1 Answer

–1 vote

For partners, you can select which partner is current and which is/are ex-partners. This is shown by a thicker line on the tree.

For children it can be slightly more tricky. If you don't know their dates of birth, I would advise just putting numbers in the DOB years' section, eg the oldest child is 1, the second child is 2, etc. This will rearrange the children in order of birth.

If a person has had more than two partners and you want to put them (the partners) in order, (because a thicker line to the current partner will not distinguish between the exes) you can use the number trick in the wedding & divorce/relationship start & separation dates to do this. Note that this may not re-order them on the tree.

Your question seems to ask how to re-order people without going to the trouble of entering lots of information. However, just using numbers in the date bars as described above is a quick and easy way to order people, and even if a feature like the one you describe is implemented, it is hard to envision one which is entails less work than the numbers do.

Hope this helps!

 

answered Jul 2, 2015 by p.mcallister (15,960 points)
The feature-request is that since so many people have trouble ordering their trees that it should be open to them to be able to reorder them without tricking the system by putting incorrect values to achieve your goal.

Specifically, to answer whether you have helped me with what I need, you did not. Not because of you but because of the system. As you mentioned putting in partner details should rearrange the partners but it does not. Which means that even if I do the incorrect value to arrange the children it does not work because the partners do not realign to the correct order. So, while what you are saying could be a way around the the problem it is not. Which is why I am suggesting a new feature.
Sorry my answer wasn't what you wanted. Just a thought: the order the partners are displayed in will also depend on the generation counts, and who on the tree is selected.
I am just dealing with the same issue!  FEMALE...had children with spouse #1, none with spouses #2, #3.  Tree shows spouses #2, #3 first (to the left) of #1.  I would like to be able to move them to the right side.
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