Help for the Compact Ahnentafel (cAt)

The Compact Ahnentafel (CAt) is a report that lists the entire ancestry of an individual on a single page, at least up to 14 generations. (I don't know what the limits might be.) Each member is listed on screen together with the Ahnentafel Number. When the cursor hovers over a member, additional information is shown.

The width of the chart is indeterminate: no matter how many generations, a column is generated for each generation. Often too many columns are rendered to see them all at once, but one can scroll right and left, down and up, to find members.

There are no lines to link an individual to the parents, but parents can be located through the Ahnentafel (AT) numbers: double the AT number to get the father and double plus one for the mother.

When a full-size chart is needed, it can be generated as a PNG image file which can be printed or embedded in other documents. In the top menu, click on "Draw the cAt Image". A spinner icon will appear followed by a button to download the image file. A 5-generation example of an image is shown below.

Printing options: The large and indeterminate size of the chart can present challenges getting a useful printout. For many cases with hundreds of ancestors, there are so many rows and columns that this chart will be unreadable on a single page of a desktop printer. One such case is shown at the end of this page.

However, this image file can be suitable for your local office-printing shop or even a sign shop. (My local shop will print it in B&W, over a meter high, for under $10. -- klr)

If you want to print from your PC to your desktop printer, there are apps that will break up the image into "tiles." These pages can be printed and trimmed so that they can be taped together for a larger chart. One option for creating tiles is https://aspose.app.

See tips for saving or printing.