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Couple Circle Chart — Help

GEDitCOM II internal script  |  Mick Reed, REED / MAXWELL Family History  |  Re-creation of the LifeLines program ps-circ by Jim Eggert (1993), which used CIRC.PS by David Campbell and John Dunn

What it does

The chart shows the ancestry of a married couple in a single full circle: the husband's ancestors fill the top half and the wife's the bottom half, five generations back from each — up to 62 ancestors per side, plus the couple themselves.

It is the couple-centred companion to the Fan Chart, which shows one person's ancestry in a half circle.

Husband Wife father mother father mother … outwards …

Simplified layout: husband's line above, wife's below; fathers left, mothers right.

Running it

  1. In the browser, select either the couple's family record or one of the spouses. If you select a person with more than one marriage, the first family is used — select the family record itself to choose a different marriage.
  2. Run Couple Circle Chart. The chart opens in a report window.

If nothing suitable is selected, a message explains what to select.

Reading the chart

PartShows
CentreThe couple: husband above, wife below, each with first name, surname and life span. The marriage date runs across the middle.
Ring 1Parents
Ring 2Grandparents
Ring 3Great-grandparents
Ring 4Great-great-grandparents
Ring 5 (outer)Great-great-great-grandparents

Orientation. In every pair of segments the father is on the left and the mother on the right. So the far left of the top half is the husband's direct paternal (surname) line, and the far right of the bottom half the wife's direct maternal line.

ColourMeaning
blueHusband's ancestors — lighter with each generation outwards
roseWife's ancestors — lighter with each generation outwards
greyUnknown — no one recorded in that position (a research gap)
yellowHighlight when the pointer is over a person

Text layout changes with the space available:

Life spans are shown as GEDitCOM II formats them, e.g. 1854–1908, c1805–1881, <1823–1892 (before), or 1942– (no death recorded).

Controls

ActionResult
Open the reportThe whole circle fits the window, whatever its size. Resize the window and the chart resizes with it.
Zoom slider (60–400%)Enlarges the chart for reading the outer rings; scroll bars appear when it is larger than the window. Lettering stays sharp at any size.
Hover over a personShows the full name and life span — useful where long names have been shortened with “…”.
Click a personOpens their record in GEDitCOM II.

Things to bear in mind

Version history

DateNotes
29 OCT 2026New GENerel script, re-creating ps-circ as a scalable SVG chart: five generations per side, fit-to-window, zoom slider, hover names, clickable records, outer-ring text drawn to avoid the viewer’s minimum font size.