DNA/Genealogy program

I *know* I can do this in PAF, and I can probably use the same
techniques in a number of other programs including Legacy and FTM and I
can certainly do it on plain paper, but ...

If I want to know whether a certain woman's daughters had daughters who
had daughters who had daughters, is there a program that will take a GED
and TELL me that? (G)

Robert G. Eldridge...

Have a look at GedView:

and see if this little free Windows program to navigate through GEDCOM
files can show what you want.

It has a mitochondria view (as well as a Y-chromosome view) which may
assist but in any event it is a handy viewer for Windows users and the
price is right .

singhals...

Thanks. I d/l it, and I'll give it a test drive, but it looks like it
goes UP the pedigree and I need to come down (I need the mtDNA
descendants of X, not the mtDNA ancestress of X)

0_Qed...

A new 'wrinkle' ... 'mtDNA'.

Assuming a =full=, across the board mapping ...
Seems like you'd need the precedence 'rule set' for descendant 'strand'
constituency
for descendant_from_X_and_Y ...
compared to any extant 'booboos' of an mt_XY_descendant_reality.
Implies many full mappings.

??
Audit a good course at a nearby Med School ???

Charlie Hoffpauir...

WHAT are you talking about? A child can only inherit mtDNA from his
(or her) mother, and only a female child can pass it on to her
offspring. So it doesn't matter who the father(s) are. And Cheryl is

0_Qed...

Hi Cheryl ,

I've no idea what 'GedView" can/cant 'do' ..
howsomeever ...
considering that a 'gedcom' file is simply an un_exploded set of "tree"
records ...

Kerry Raymond...

To be mathematical, it's not a tree, it's a graph.

0_Qed...

From the POV of a programmer , its' an excercise in building a linked
list of assembled "parts" ... parts being akin to a member of a family
in an indentured family tree, if you will.

Little, to no, math involved, no graph to be built.

Kerry Raymond...

I am not just speculating on what the structure of GEDCOM is; I have written
programs to process it. It is not a tree as children are not "completely
contained" within their parent's family group (as is generally the case in
an assembly of parts into a large item, which generally are trees). In
GEDCOM, a person can appear as a child in more than one family group (making
it a graph). These situations arise from step-parent relationships,
adoptions and fostering.

0_Qed...

Hello Kerry,

the_verminator...

Ah... but those relationships have no business in a family tree to
begin with as they are only social relationships. While a person can
have many people acting in Loco Parentis they can have only one male
who supplied the sprem and one female who supplied the egg- whatever
society wishes to call them.

Hugh Watkins...

pedigree is for domestic animals

Family History is of more interest to many of us
and includes friendships, neighbours and cluster genealogy too

Hugh W

the_verminator...

Hugh, very true but tell me- are those valid relationships that should
be displayed in a family tree?

My point is that a Family Tree is a certain kind of format to display
certain kinds of data and that including data of any other kind should
be avoided. Thus adoptees should NOT be shown in a Family Tree but
certain SHOULD be included in any narrative ( which a Family Tree is
NOT) comcerning tha family.

Hugh Watkins...

yes I have moved on from the simplistic pedigree you talk of

definition
1. A genealogical diagram of a family's ancestry.
2. The ancestors and descendants of a family considered as a group.

my interest is in family and social history

not an "aristocratic" pedigree or a breeding plan for dogs, cats , sheep
or cattle

try and read what I wrote

my data bases include many unrelated people

in fact many fragments of family trees

linked by place
jones raglan

or surname
lapham

Hugh W

Ye Old One...

I would say yes, these relationships should be shown, but must be
clearly identifiable as such.

In a recent tree I did for someone I had the problem of two couples
who divorced and them married each other partners. Working out how to
show the children's relationships took some time.

Hugh Watkins...

not in FTM 16

menu >> people >> other parents

Hugh W

Ye Old One...

The tree it produces from that is very hard for someone to understand.

I redrew it using some graphics software in the end.

Hugh Watkins...

I very rarely ever use trees anymore
years since I last printed one out

I view an hour glass tree now and then
as a check
now I am mobile blogging and using thebrowser in the Sony Ericsson K800i

I can follow the links from my blogs to world connect
and see my data when in an archive
and use the phone to photograph documents too

I am not quick with sms
so the text of my phone blog is minimal

enjoy

Hugh W

Kerry Raymond...

As I have close family members who happen to be adopted, I cannot share this
point of view. Indeed, I find it highly offensive.

You've just outlined a good notion for a " Where Used " file( dbl
indexed )
in 'hu_man' genealogy processing.

Being also a half_baked math major( G_School )
I'm having trouble streaching the definition of "graph" to include
your useage.

Perhaps 'we' argue local 'terminology', as opposed to global.

'One' mite view the final listing as a 'chart' .

Most 'typically', hardware SKUs ... or End Items ...
are "exploded" downward , starting from the 'top' .
Seldom( rarely ) 'exploded' upwards from the bottom .

The process of 'explosion'
being the search for lower_level constituent parts of an upper_level
'assembly' ,
further repeated at each downward 'assembly' level,
until NON_assembly "piece_part", raw material, "spec" level(s) are
reached.

At its simplest, GEDCOM consists of a set of records for each individual
(each assigned a unique ID) and a set of family groups (each assigned a
unique ID) in which individuals are given the role of husband, wife or
child. An example of a family group is:

0 @F22@ FAM
1 HUSB @I0323@
1 WIFE @I0299@
1 CHIL @I0340@
1 CHIL @I0303@
1 CHIL @I0349@
1 CHIL @I0342@
1 CHIL @I0389@
1 CHIL @I0338@

So to go up the family tree requires searching for family groups in which
this person is a child, and then repeating the process for each of their
parents, and so on.
So to down the family tree requres searching for family groups in which this
person is the husband/wife and then repeating the process for each of the
descendant, and so on.

0_Qed...

My "point" ... exactly.

In the hdwr 'world', that "search" is termed an 'explosion' ... up or
down.

Added that downward hdwr explosions are greatly assisted
by an inverted " parts where_used " file , both link_ends indexed.
I doubt 'such' exixts in the 'hu_man' world of tree processing.

So from a processing perspective, you can follow down the daughters and the
daughters of daughters and so forth in much the same way as a normal
descendant search. You just have to add an adiditional check on each child
to see if they are female for further processing and discard the males. The
reverse applies when searching for sons and sons of sons etc.

0_Qed...

:-)

So any software that can do descendants charts could be easily extended to
these X/Y-chromosone descendants (provided you have the source code). I
don't know if phpGedView supports this, but being an open source community,
it might be a good place to start asking.

0_Qed...

I suspect your "chart" is akin to my "indentured parts list".

Backwards 'DNA' mapping is a reality ...
but it's meaningfulness depends highly on the "match" patterns selected.

'Simialar' for forward 'DNA' mapping.

I'd substitute " conceptually extended " for your "easily". :-)

************
Added ... in general ...

.................
In the 'hardware' world ,
raw_material/parts/assemblys may belong to many , next_level 'up'
assemblies .
" Attaching parts " is a prime example .

Also, restrictions must be placed st 'parts' cant be assembled from
themselves.

Typically, Bill_of_Material(BoM) 'explosions'
are initiated top_down ...
bottom_up 'explosions' are arduious , requiring both up/down constituent
chasing.

.................
In the 'hu_man' world ,
a 'hu_man' normally belongs to 'a' family ...
exceptions possibly being
. polygamous sub_family groupings.
. et al .

Also, limited allowence mite be placed
st =a= 'hu_man' mite exist at several levels within a 'family'.

Et al.

I'd strongly suspect that 'viewers' wont "explode" the gedcom records
into
a useable "tree" for you .

Re_stated ....
Since an 'ancestor' tree is similar in concept ,
to an industrial Bill_of_Material(BM) for an assembly ,
and
that such 'BM' requires "explosion", of it's constituent parts, into a
"tree" ...
I'd expect that a simple "viewer" will just let you 'view' the
UN_exploded
ancestor_constituents, =not= in 'tree' fashion .

To include the computer 'code' for 'explosion',
would =vastly= increase the pgm size/complexity well beyond that of a
"viewer".

singhals...

Uhhh ... no? :)

0_Qed...

Sorry 'bout that. ;_(

Pick one point/concept that 'bothers' ...
we' start there , move on to the 'next'.

the_verminator...

This one is easy!

1) Just copy your genealogy program file
2) on the copy mark all females for export to a new gedcom
3) export to new gedcom and feed that into your genealogy program.
4) run a descendants report on each individual female.

It will show you which female has female descendants and if those
descendants have female descendats.

Kerry Raymond...

the_verminator...

Please note that I have NOT said that adopted persons are not members
of thier adopted families- only that those relationships shouldn't be
shown in a family tree.

Those relationships are certainly valid- but a family tree is not a
valid format to show them.

Very neat!

It hinges on having an easy way to select all the females though. I know
that is trivial to do in FTM, not sure about others.

singhals...

(G) Yeah, that'd be how to do it in PAF all right ... I was looking for

Lars Erik Bryld...

It has been some years since I used Heredis, but I distinctly remember
a gender-specific descendancy view.

a descendancy chart which only traces female lines - among numerous
other options.

Easier.

singhals...

OK, yes, I got it working. It does indeed do what I wanted. I'm not
(yet) used to working with icons, so it took me a minute or more to
figure it out, and I'm sure it would have been MUCH more useful if I had
as much data in the database as I thought I had in there -- but no,
bottom line, the maternal ancestor of concern does not have two lines of
female descendants other than the one I think is hers.

Charlie Hoffpauir...

I tried it, and it does show descendants mtDNA, but what it does with
my GEDCOM isn't nice.... for any names that I have multiple or
alternate names, it "always" picks the wrong name to display. I've

mm-lists...

DNA studies have shown that the incidence of 'non paternity events' where
the 'social' father is not the 'biological' father can be as high as 30%
although from 5 to 10% is common - given this very few family tree would
actually exist as we know them !

seen this with a lot of GEDCOM viewing programs.... they seem to pick
the "last" name listed in the GEDCOM, rather than the "first" (where
"last" means later in the GEDCOM list, not surname).

Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

Robert G. Eldridge...

No, manouver to the female you're wanting to look at and then select
the Mitochondrial DNA button and the viewing window that opens then
shows the descendants of that female.

For your purposes just ignore all the descendants with a blue coloured
icons in the window (the males).

If the selected female also has ancestors they are shown as well.
Also note you can click on any person in the list display window to
move to that person, which then closes the list window and then shows
the detail for that person.

interested in only female descendants, so just what are you referring
to?

Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/