Overview
The Chapter People - Ancestors item adds person entries to a chapter for people who are ancestors of a designated subject. For other ways to add people to a chapter, see the Chapter People help page.
The Chapter People - Ancestors item makes it easy to create chapters where the person entries are organized in couples by generation. You specify the subject and the generation range to select one or more generations of ancestors of the subject. Gedcom Publisher finds the ancestors and renders them in sequence by generation and by couple.
Generations
The primary person filter for a Chapter People - Ancestors item is the combination of a Subject ID and the Minimum Generation and Maximum Generation. To be included in the output of a Chapter People - Ancestors item, the person must be an ancestor of the subject and must be within the generation range specified by the Minimum and Maximum generation numbers.
To include a single generation in the output, set the Minimum Generation and Maximum Generation values to the same number. To include the subject as well as his or her ancestors, set the Minimum Generation to zero.
Parents of the subject are in generation one, grandparents in generation two, etc.
Some users may wish to label generations using a different starting point. For example, if you consider the subject to be generation one and his or her parents to be generation two, set the Generation Offset property to 1.
The values you enter in the Minimum Generation and Maximum Generation properties are not affected by the Generation Offset property.
Headings
The Chapter People - Ancestors item includes headings in the output that indicate the start of a new generation or the start of a new couple within a generation.
The heading text is created using templates, one for a generation change and one for a couple change. The default templates are specified in the Strings.Generations section. You may edit the default templates via the Utilities > Edit Strings command.
You may also include headings in the list of people that precedes the list. See Include Generation Headings in List and Include Couple Headings in List.
The default heading templates will create output as shown below. The person entries have been reduced to the Subject Name and Summary only to show where headings appear. With full person entries, the output below would be spread across multiple pages.
You may specify custom templates by editing the Generation Heading Template or the Couple Heading Template properties.
For more information about heading templates, see the Heading Templates section below.
Properties
Title
The Title property identifies the User Item in the User Items list. The title does not appear in the chapter.
Enabled
See Enabled in the Common Properties section of the User Items help page.
Page Break Before
If Page Break Before is checked, Gedcom Publisher will add page-break-before: always to the CSS styles for the first person in the group, and many e-book readers will begin the content for the first person on a new page. Unfortunately, some e-book readers do not honor the page-break-before property.
Gedcom Publisher always adds page-break-before: always to the CSS styles for the second and subsequent people in the group.
Subject ID
Specify the ID number of the subject whose ancestors you wish to include. You may use the Picklist button to choose the person by name from a list.
Minimum Generation
The Minimum Generation property determines the lowest generation of the subject's ancestors to include in the output of this item.
See the Generations section above.
Maximum Generation
The Maximum Generation property determines the highest generation of the subject's ancestors to include in the output of this item.
See the Generations section above.
Generation Offset
The Generation Offset property determines the starting point for numbering generations within the output.
See the Generations section above.
People Filter
Add criteria to the People Filter to restrict the ancestors in the specified generation range.
If you leave the filter empty, this item will select ancestors in the generation range who have not been selected by any Chapter Person item or a previous Chapter People item.
In most usage scenarios, the People Filter for the Chapter People - Ancestors item should be empty.
Include Generation Heading(s)
If Include Generation Heading(s) is checked, Gedcom Publisher will include a heading before the start of a new generation. See the Headings section above.
Generation Heading Template
The Generation Heading Template determines the text of the heading before the start of a new generation. The default value is empty. If you leave the property empty, Gedcom Publisher will use the default template specified in the Strings.Generations section.
See the Headings section above.
Include Couple Heading(s)
If Include Couple Heading(s) is checked, Gedcom Publisher will include a heading before the start of a couple. See the Headings section above.
Couple Heading Template
The Couple Heading Template determines the text of the heading before the start of a couple. The default value is empty. If you leave the property empty, Gedcom Publisher will use the default template specified in the Strings.Generations section.
See the Headings section above.
Embedded List of People
You may include a list of people who are selected by this Chapter People item. The list is rendered before the person entry for the first person in the output. The list is intended as a directory of the ensuing people.
The built-in list capability is more convenient to use than a separate List of People item because the embedded list will automatically include the correct people without re-specifying a filter and it provides an option to sort the list in the same sequence as the person entries.
Include List of People
If Include List of People is checked, the output will include a List of People that contains the people selected by this item. Use the remaining properties to configure the list.
List Sequence
By default, the List of People will be in the same sequence as the people appear in the chapter. You may alter the sequence in the list by choosing another option from the List Sequence pull-down menu. The choices are:
- Same as chapter sequence
- By birth
- By birth (descending)
- By ID#
- By last edited date
- By name
Include Generation Headings in List
If Include Generation Headings in List is checked, the list will include a generation heading at the start of a new generation of ancestors.
Headings will only appear if the list is sorted in the same sequence as the people in the chapter, and only if the chapter includes generation headings between generations.
Include Couple Headings in List
If Include Couple Headings in List is checked, the list will include a heading before each ancestor couple.
Headings will only appear if the list is sorted in the same squence as the people in the chapter, and only if the chapter includes headings between couples.
Column Items
The Column Items list defines the columns in the list. The default items are Name and Lifespan. See the Column Items section on the List of People page for more information.
Date Format
The Date Format pull-down menu controls the format of dates rendered by Person Field items in the Column Items. See the Date Format section on the List of People page for more information.
Lifespan Format
The Lifespan Format determines the format of any lifespans that appear in the list. See the Lifespan Format section on the List of People page for more information.
People per Table
The People per Table property determines how many people will be rendered in a single HTML table. When a table has more than this number of rows, it will be split into multiple tables. The default is 100.
The List of People Item uses an HTML table to produce the output. Some reading devices cannot render tables with many rows. To avoid issues on those devices, the results are split into multiple tables. When the list includes subheadings such as the current generation, etc., Gedcom Publisher attempts to split the table at a heading change.
When the output is split into multiple HTML tables, the split is visible, and column widths may vary. It's best to limit your lists to 100 people or less.
Add References
If Add References is checked, Gedcom Publisher will add a list-type reference to each person who is part of the list. This includes people who get a row in the list and does not include other people who might be mentioned via column definitions. The reference will create a link to the person's entry in the list.
Heading Templates
The following information is intended for advanced users.
As described above, Gedcom Publisher uses templates to create heading text. Templates follow the same syntactical rules as Sentence Templates.
Both the Generation Heading Template and the Couple Heading Template operate on a "fake" event that Gedcom Publisher creates before processing the template. The participants to the event may be referenced by People Variables. The commonly-used variables are described below. The participants for the "generation change" event are different from the participants for the "family change" event, so each heading has its own section.
Generation Template Variables
The subject is added to the event as a principal.
Gedcom Publisher adds text to the event memo based on the generation number and entries in the Strings.Generations section. The memo parts are explained in the table below.
You may use the following variables in the Generation Heading Template:
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| [S] | Refers to the subject. The subject is the subject specified in the Chapter People - Ancestors User Item.
You may use People Variable Parameters on the |
| [M:Number] | Refers to the generation number of the section whose generation heading is being constructed. The [M:Number] value will be one of the words from the Number Words list in the Strings.Generations section until the generation number is higher than the number of words. At that point, the [M:Number] value switches to the generation number converted to text, i.e., "11", "12", etc. |
| [M:Word] | Refers to the generation number of the section whose generation heading is being constructed. The [M:Word] value will be one of the words from the Number Words list in the Strings.Generations section. If the generation number is higher than the number of words, [M:Word] will be empty. |
You can use the [M:Word] variable to provide two alternatives for the heading, one alternative for a generation number where the word is not empty, and another alternative when the word is empty.
For example:
- Assign these Number Words:
Zero||Parents||Grandparents||Great-Grandparents - Assign this Generation Heading Template:
<[M:Word] of [S]|Generation [M:Number]>
With the combination of those values, Gedcom Publisher will produce these headings for generations one through four:
Parents of John Smith
Grandparents of John Smith
Great-Grandparents of John Smith
Generation 4
As shown above, for generations where there is no Number Words entry, Gedcom Publisher uses the alternative part of the Generation Heading Template.
Couple Template Variables
The ancestor couple are added to the event as participants. They are both principals.
You may use the following variables in the Family Heading Template:
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| [S] | Refers to the first member of the couple.
You may use People Variable Parameters on the |
| [PO] | Refers to the other principal, the second member of the couple. If only one parent is present in the data (or the other is filtered out), then [PO] will be empty.
You may use People Variable Parameters on the |