Ancestor Circle — Help

GEDitCOM II extension | Mick Reed, REED / MAXWELL Family History | Full-circle companion to the Fan Chart

What it does

Draws one person’s ancestry as a full circle: the person at the centre, the father’s ancestry in the top half and the mother’s in the bottom half. Every ancestor is a wedge with name and dates, and every wedge opens that person’s record.

Because the ancestors are spread round the whole circle rather than half of it, each wedge has twice the room it has in the Fan Chart, so one more generation fits at the same text size.

Sketch of the layout.

Running it

Select a person.
Choose the number of generations, counting the person at the centre: 6, 7 (the default) or 8.

Generations	Outermost ring	Ancestor places
6	3× great-grandparents	62
7	4× great-grandparents	126
8	5× great-grandparents	254

The heading gives how many of those places are filled.

Reading the chart

Order: going clockwise from the left, each ancestor’s father comes just before their mother. So the father’s father’s line starts at the far left of the top half, and the mother’s mother’s line ends at the far left of the bottom half.
Text: in the inner rings names run across the wedge; in the narrow outer rings they run out along the radius, always the right way up. In an 8-generation chart the outermost ring shows surnames only.
Hover over any wedge for the full name and dates; click to open the record.
Empty wedges are places in the pedigree not yet filled.
Colours are by generation, the same as the Fan Chart.

Zoom and printing

The chart opens scaled to fit the window. The zoom slider enlarges it up to 400%; scroll to move round. To print, open the report in Safari and use File › Print › Save as PDF; A3 suits 8 generations.

Which chart? Fan Chart — one person, half circle, 6 generations, with a DNA version. Ancestor Circle — one person, full circle, up to 8 generations. Couple Circle — a husband and wife, each with their ancestry in one half.

Things to bear in mind

Only each person’s first parent family is followed.
Where relatives married (pedigree collapse), the same person appears in more than one wedge, as they should.
Years are read from qualified and range dates too (ABT 1850, BET 1850 AND 1855).

Version history

Date	Notes
31 OCT 2026	First version, developed from the Fan Chart: full circle, father above and mother below, 6–8 generations, hover names, zoom, packaged as an extension.