Family tree chart

desuza
For history it is critical to at some stage create a quasi family tree chart although it can be one of for example successive leaders such as prime ministers, presidents or the like. The ability to be able to add photos, names, various dates eg birth/death, reign, options for chart shape and size of paper that it prints to, cross references to historical documents on notes for the information. This function is critical in being able to draw information from various information repositories and even more critical when assessing what might have been eg while a particular succession blood line may have been followed, the what would have happened if scenario becomes more important when DNA evidence suggests quite another blood line. These charts are a challenge to draw and to use any genealogy programs do do the job involves hours of input into family history programs to generate the required output. The files need to be able to be used in or exported Word and PowerPoint documents, as well as to allow printing as a poster. Such charts are hard to decipher in a PowerPoint presentation without a handout.
  • desuza
    In addition, the quasi family tree chart function should not be limited to just people. Events, policy options, economic theories condsidered over time and in relationship to then current event and/or external national or world events would provide a background for an overlay of options not taken versus those chosen could also be developed and communicated in this manner. Being able to visualize these for demonstration and publication allow another level of communication for both the researcher and the eventual target audience.
  • bdarcus
    Sounds like a different (perhaps connected, perhaps not) application to me.
  • desuza
    Perhaps my initial description was an application rather than the basic concept. It is the concept of a decision-making tree with multiple applications applied to referencing research notes. A further example of use from an historians perspective would be when researching theories of causation and in turn proving or disproving an hypothesis of one's own from research notes. It is a diagrammatic representation of the notes rather than just a series of disjointed post-it notes.
  • bdarcus
    edited February 3, 2009
    Right. My point is this is way out of scope for Zotero in my view. But I could imagine that they could put the hooks in that would enable that sort of visualization (via a plug-in, or whatever).
  • desuza
    How ever it can be done, it fills a gap. I hope others also see the merit in it. It would certainly take the stress out of transcription for me.

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