Family Historian can display 5 different types of boxes. These are:
| Ancestor | Any box that is linked to the tree root as a direct ancestor. In Ancestor trees, all of the boxes are Ancestor boxes. In Descendant trees there are no Ancestor boxes. |
|---|---|
| Descendant | Any box that is linked to the tree root as a direct descendant or any box that is linked as a descendant of any ancestor of the tree root. There are no descendant boxes in Ancestor trees. |
| Spouse | Spouse boxes only appear when the Spouse Display Option is Spouses in Own Boxes (see the General tab of the Diagram Options dialog). The ‘spouses’ in questions are spouses of Descendants and (in the All Relatives tree only) non-ancestral spouses of Ancestors (your grandmother is your grandfather’s spouse, but her details are displayed in an Ancestor box, not a Spouse box; but if your grandfather had other spouses, they would be displayed in Spouse boxes). |
| Remarriage | When a person is married more than once, you can, if you wish,
opt to display an extra box for that person, for each of the extra
marriages. This is what happens if you choose the One Box Per
Marriage Spouse Display option. The extra options are called
‘remarriage boxes’. A remarriage box is one kind of duplicate box.
Using this approach you can still show marriage details in boxes,
and see who were the parents of any given child, without having to
show spouses in their own boxes.
Remarriage boxes never occur in Ancestor trees, but can occur in other types of tree. |
| Proxy | Proxy boxes only ever occur in All Relatives tree, and only direct ancestors of the tree root ever have them. You can configure when and how Proxy boxes are used (if at all) using the Proxies tab of the Diagram Options dialog. Proxy boxes are used to show where an Ancestor fits in amongst his siblings in the context of his or her parent’s family. They are never needed, but sometimes they improve the look of a tree and make them easier to understand. |