Horizontal axis doesn't reflect the data

Be gentle. Charting is my weakest area.

I'm simply trying to chart Year Born with Year died for the Patriarchs, so only using three columns. I think I've got everything right except my wonky Horizontal Axis; I don't know where the values come from! For instance the last year died is 2369, which is reflected in the appropriate line in my chart, but in my Horizontal axis the value appears to be in excess of 4500. Can't figure out how to get a proper Horizontal axis, so would appreciate some help.

And did I mention that charting is my WEAKEST area? Please be kind.

EDIT: I added a picture of "Almost" what my final chart should look like, just need to fix the Horizontal axis and do some formatting.

It appears to be a basic stacked bar chart. With a stacked chart, the value of series 1 is charted. Then each successive series "stacks" on top of the previous series. So, in the case of Joseph, series 1 is 2359, so the first bar is 2259 "units" long. Series 2 is 2369, so the second "stack" is 2369 units long. This puts the end of Joseph's stack at 2259+2369=4628.

It looks like you intend for the first series to be represented by the values in column R, then you want the length of the second series to be the "age at death" values in column U so that the overall length of both bars will add up to the value in column S. I think you will get the correct chart if you switch series 2 so that it uses column U instead of column S.

Your sample file did not include the data labels for each series. If you want to have the "year of death" value (column S) show up as the second series's data label, you will need to use the "value from cells" option and tell Excel to use column S for the data labels.

Thanks Mr. Shorty. I went another way, adding a "lifespan" column (how long they lived). Then I plotted "Year Born" and "Lifespan", which gave me the Horizontal axis I was looking for. Then I took the color away from "Year Born", so have my floating bars pretty much the way I want them. See attached. Any tips you have to format it nicer would be appreciated.

Additional tips all depend on who's going to read this and what they want to make it easier to read. Myself, I would often add appropriately spaced minor vertical gridlines to make it easier to read (it gets hard to tell where bars that are in between the 500 year spacing currently used). I would also like something (horizontal gridlines? data labels? a faintly colored year born bar?) so that it is easier to identify which bar goes with which patriarch -- especially as you get lower in the chart. With the "year born" bar made invisible, there is nothing to help my eye correctly connect each bar with the corresponding patriarch (other than tediously counting bars from the top/bottom).

You could scrap the vertical axis and add the category name to the data labels for series 1, as attached.

Rorya,
I like your solution. I thought of the same thing, only backwards, so had the category name with the second series, which worked fine for long lines but lousy for short ones. Your solution covers everything except Adam; notice he's half white and half orange. Do you know of a workaround for that?

You could just give the data labels a solid white fill?

That's a possibility, but I instead changed the boundaries as shown in the attached. I think this works. Only thing I want to do now, and don't know how to do, is add in a solid line at year 1656, which is the year of the Flood (flood began when Methuselah died). Any ideas on how to add such a vertical line?

You could add an XY scatter series like this?

Hmm, having website problems. I'm logged in, but when I try to download the workbook the website tells me I'm not logged in or don't have permission. Weird. I'll come back to it in a few minutes.

Now I see it! Yep, that's exactly right. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Now my only question is how do I get the vertical line to say "Flood Year" or "Global Flood" to denote what it is?

Just change the series name and the data label at the bottom will update.

That changes it in the Legend, and I was thinking about doing away with the legend. I'd rather have some sort of text box or callout to so in the chart itself something said what it was. Any ideas?

There’s a data label at the bottom of the line?

Ah, that's what I wanted! Thanks so much for your help.