Re: desgining a family tree schema

[David Komer]

Thank you for such a clear reply.

Do you know of a good solution if I were to limit it to only biological parents?

FYI: My naive attempt so far, with no consideration for speed or resources, is to have two tables:

1) Stores the individuals, with a link to family_id
2) Stores families, with links to father and mother individual ids

From this I think I am able to accurately generate a list of generations (vertical placement), but I'm baffled how to organize it horizontally. I'm using a LEFT INNER JOIN and recursive/multiple queries plus some program logic (for example, to place a node on the same level as their spouse or partner) in order to get my generations list.

It seems I'm in over my head, and I really appreciate your leads and advice.

Thanks again,
David