XXL Family

Not only can you visualize the primary person’s family – parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, spouses, children – but also all the relatives that might have been around him/her: you’ll get to display a true XXL view!

Persons displayed

Access the XXL Family by clicking on Family tab then XXL Family.

All persons are always displayed clearly distinguishing their affiliation or not to the main line. The primary person has a bigger box, centered on your screen. Background colors of the boxes change according to the affiliation or not of the person to the main line of the primary person. The other ones are usually grayed. The color adapts to the theme chosen for Heredis. Read the article Change Heredis colored theme.

XXL Family View

Around the primary person, you will see, generation by generation:

• In ascendance:
  – His/her great-grandparents,
  – His/her grandparents, their brothers and sisters (great-uncles and aunts of the primary person), their other spouses,
  – His/her parents, their brothers and sisters (uncles and aunts of the primary person), their other spouses (father-in-law, mother-in-law of the primary person).

Note: sometimes the siblings will not be displayed chronologically, unlike in other parts of the tree, because a parent’s sibling(s) cannot be inserted between the two parents – otherwise the tree chart would not be legible.

• In descendance:
  • His/her children, children from another union, his/her nephews and nieces,
  • His/her grandchildren, those of his/her brothers and sisters, half-brothers and half-sisters and cousins
  • His/her great grand children.

Note: You can also display the descendants of other spouses, grandparents and great-grandparents.

• Concerning generation of the primary person:
  – His/her spouses, brothers and sisters, half-brothers and half-sisters, stepbrothers and stepsisters, and cousins,

You can fold the left or right panels to gain more space and reveal the XXL Family.
If one of the ancestors of the primary person (from the generation of grand-parents) has had several spouses his/her box and that of his/her spouses are marked by a colored band, except the one in direct-line of the primary person. For a question of clarity of the tree, the other spouses are staggered. So you quickly see the direct ancestors of the primary person. 

The revealed tree includes persons you do not want to display? Click on the cogwheel  button to hide some persons: the great-grandparents, relatives, children unrelated to the primary person’s bloodline, the descendants of cousins or grandchildren.

Available information

“Focus” or “unfocus” in this dynamic tree for more or less details for each displayed person. In order to do that, use the mouse wheel, press the + or – button on your keyboard or click on the + and – buttons in the upper right corner of the window.

According to the focus level, Heredis display every person:
– his/her main media,
– his/her surnames and given names,
– his/her occupation,
– his/her birthdate, birthplace, deathdate and deathplace and age at the death,
– the icon indicating if the person is part of the Ahnentafel line.

If the displayed person is an additional spouse that you found, the information on the main union event will be displayed in the banner at the bottom of the box.

Note: Heredis memorizes all your settings to allow you to display the XXL Family format that satisfies you the most.

Navigation

From XXL Family, a simple click on a displayed person allows you to put this person as the primary person or to navigate to his/her relatives.
As everywhere in the software, you can also navigate from a person to another thanks to the Navigation panel or from the Person’s index by double-clicking on one of them.

If all family members are not shown on the screen, you can navigate in the tree by pressing and holding down the left mouse button and by moving the cursor to the right or the left, up or down, then let go of the mouse button.

You can also move in that tree thanks to the preview displayed at the right bottom of the navigation thumbnail. Select the pink frame with the left mouse button, by moving it, you navigate in the tree.

Adding spouses and children to the primary person

Heredis allows you to add spouses and children to the primary person directly from the XXL Family view. To do so, click on the + sign located below the primary person’s box.

If a tick appears, you have chosen to display them; if there is no tick, they will be hidden.

Display options

Click on the cogwheel to access the options.

Hide or show media and silhouettes

The XXL Family displays the main media for each person in the tree. You can decide to hide the media by clicking on the cogwheel button , then Show all media. If some persons are without a media, Heredis is defaulted to display a silhouette instead. You can choose to hide them or to display them again at any time from the cogwheel by clicking on Show Silhouettes.

If a tick appears, you have chosen to display them; if there is no tick, they will be hidden.

Show or hide confidential persons

You can indicate in Heredis that persons are confidential using the label proposed by Heredis in the person’s entry form.
Starting with Heredis 2025, you can display or hide confidential persons in the XXL family.
Click on the cogwheel .
Click on the Show confidential persons.

If a tick appears, you have chosen to display them; if there is no tick, they will be hidden.

Show or hide personnalized flags

Starting with Heredis 2025, you can add personalized flags to persons. See the article Personalized flags.
The XXL family allows you to show or hide personalized flags for persons in the tree.
Click on the cogwheel .
Click on the Show flags.

If a tick appears, you have chosen to display them; if there is no tick, they will be hidden.

Mark persons

You can mark persons in the XXL family, for example to exclude them from a GEDCOM export.
Click on the cogwheel .
Click on the Mark persons > Declare marked.

In the same way, you can unmark them.

The other actions in the contextual menu

When you click the right button on a person, you can also:

• move to primary person
• print his/her individual sheet.
• define him/her as the Root person.
• add him/her as a favorite in the bookmarks.
• see his/her relatives

To add membership at this family, click on the add button from the toolbar or directly in the tree, or click on the  button displayed in this view, to complete the direct ascendance.

Starting with Heredis 2025, the XXL family has made it possible to export persons from the tree to a new Heredis file, to create a custom reports of these persons or to mark them.
It can also be printed. See the article Export and print the XXL Family.