Right, so I'm working on something of a spoofy parody-y story based on Greek myth, and as part of that I'm picking and choosing and here-and-there-editing from the various accounts (primarily Hesiod) to create a family tree showing the genealogy of the various gods, titans, monsters, heroes and other creatures for the purposes of the story. The issue is that with the Greek deities' proclivity for incest, spontaneous generation, and very-literal-single-parenthood, your average family tree software just doesn't cut it. A family tree like this one will have siblings without parents, mothers without fathers, sons mating with mothers, sisters with brothers, and all that kind of debauchery (but it's okay, because they're gods, ya know). So what I need is a programme that doesn't try too hard to anticipate my needs by, for example, automatically inserting two parents when the deity in question spontaneously came into being from nothing, or insert a father when the goddess in question went and fertilised herself. One in which it is fine for Gaia to give birth to Uranus and then have children with him, and in which it is visually clear that Uranus is both her child and the father of several other of her children. I've searched around and tried several other programmes, but they just don't cut it. GRAMPS and GenJ, for example, both insist on inserting parents as soon as I try to establish that Gaia is the sister of Chaos (as she is in my version of the genealogy), and insist on inserting a blank extra parent when I create a son for Gaia. I know I could work around it by leaving the non-existent parents blank, but the whole thing is enough of a mess already without having a pointless collection of blank just-pretend-they're-not-there parent indicators cluttering the whole thing up even further... Any tips, ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Probably not as artistically pretty as maybe you're looking for (and I understand that need; esthetics is important to me), but maybe the Insert> Smartart function in MS Word could be repurposed to your need? I'm pretty sure the Hierarchy choice allows for the kind of orphan/unorthodox relationships that old-school pantheons seemed to enjoy so much.
The esthetics are secondary for the time being, much as it pains the perfectionist in me to admit it I've given it a shot, but it's a tad too unwieldy - and some options seem to be lacking. Good suggestion though, thanks
I'm wondering if, instead of something that creates genealogy charts, you could adapt something that creates org charts for companies into what you need? An org chart might be easier to tweak for your purposes, because some orgs have many people in the company hierarchy that are equal to each other, or adjacent to each other, and their number would not be so limited, as it would be with something that was accustomed to traditional familial relationships. And I think it would be easier to add new levels of hierarchy, because unlike traditional families, companies grow, merge, etc. so there might be more leeway in the software of an org chart creator. I'm not a corporate person, so sadly I can't offer you a specific org chart creator, but at least it's a start. I just know they exist because a friend was tasked with creating the org chart for his company and described the nightmare of various coworkers coming to him unhappy with their positions on the chart.
Maybe you should give cmap tools a look? It's concept mapping, not genealogy specific but that means you can make the arrows go whatever direction you want (and no need for any blank placeholders). And it's free...
This is gonna be radical, but might just be the solution to all problems. Check this software called Clickteam Studio on Steam. It’s purpose it to allow someone without any knowledge of coding to make games. “Uhm wha...?” you’re probably thinking. While making any actually interesting game is difficult (especially in terms of patience and dedication required), with this program it is very easy to make all sorts of interactive tools. For instance, an interactive map that has tooltips. You could add different modes to show borders, populations, or just geography. When you click on whatever location it brings another, more detailed map of only that location. You could add a side pannel to display relevant, yet as detailed as you desire, information, such as what’s the local quinine. All presented however you want it. In the same way, you could make your family tree. The software only gets complicated when you start toying with mathematical formulas, and need to make graphical assets, but if you’re only intending to make something like the above mentioned map, it’s a child’s play. It might be too much for most projects, but if you’re really going big, as in Big, as in B.I.G, then I can’t imagine a more powerful yet flexible solution.
