For many of us, the main thing is Family. People who are deeply related to us, who form our Family, whose deeds we are proud of and whom we remember with love. In the process of daily upbringing of our children, we try to instill in them love and respect for our Family, for which the creation of a family tree will be an excellent tool. In the creative process, the child gets to know his family and friends better, learns to associate himself with his family, and becomes one organic whole with it. How to create a family tree, where to get a template of pictures on which you can write, what are the specifics of this process? We will talk about all this in our material.
What is a family tree?
A family tree is a drawing that displays the family ties of your family members in the form of a tree and its branches. The family tree template displays the hierarchical structure of the family, its history, and is a visual expression of the image of the Family. In addition to the first and last names of relatives, the tree often includes their dates of birth and death, photographs, and other background information.
A clear example of a structured family tree
Creating a family tree has many benefits. Among them:
- An excellent way to organize and structure information about ancestors and current relatives in a particular family;
- Improving understanding of family ties that bring family members closer to each other;
- Opportunity to study family history;
- Teaching children to understand heredity. Informing about the life path of their ancestors, instilling pride in life’s achievements and difficulties passed through;
- A good opportunity for adults to restore connections with relatives with whom they had previously lost contact.
As you can see, this process has many advantages. But how to depict the family tree?
Video: DIY family tree
To see in practice that creating a family tree is quite simple, it’s worth watching a video of how others cope with the task. From the videos you will learn where to start compiling a family tree and how to design it so that it turns out beautifully. Perhaps watching video tutorials will give you food for thought, and you will be able to create something completely original, unconventional, and interesting. For example, you will introduce into the family tree such an element as the occupation of each character, describe his successes, regalia, etc.
Possible forms of family tree
There are several forms of building a family tree from which you can choose to your liking. These are the following forms:
- Traditional - the scheme starts from the bottom. The basis of the tree is the founder of the clan or one of the distant ancestors. In many cases, the child is the basis, and the branches are members of his family (parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers);
- Descending - the tree starts at the top. The role of the top point can be either the child himself or one of the ancestors (for example, a grandfather). In the latter case, one of the lower branches will be the child himself drawing the tree;
- Lateral - the pattern starts on the left side and develops to the right or vice versa.
Examples of lateral trees growing to the sides
After we have dealt with the forms of family pedigree and chosen the one we prefer, we will deal with the steps of creating it.
What is a family tree?
As you know, under the term “family tree”
understand a pedigree (genealogical) tree, which schematically represents family ties between members of the same clan. A family tree is the most common form of visual representation of a person's ancestry. It usually includes a field for each person and their relationship to other relatives, expressed in the form of connecting lines. In addition to the person's name, such a field may also contain associated dates, place of birth, and other useful information.
As a rule, one generation in a family tree represents one level. Thanks to this, it is clearly visible which ancestors preceded each generation.
A horizontal line between two fields indicates a defect. The downward arrow from the couple indicates the children from that marriage. Although most family trees grow vertically, they can also grow sideways. Later in the article I will present several family tree templates for schoolchildren.
The founder of the clan (ancestor) is often represented in the form of a tree root. Trunk - representatives of the main line of the clan (usually the male line). The branches of the family tree are the genealogical lines, and the leaves of such branches are their descendants.
Many people often mistakenly call a “family tree” a family “tree,” which is completely wrong. Genealogy recognizes precisely the term “family tree,” and the name “family tree” is a distortion of a professional thesaurus.
We also previously discussed how to register the TRP on the official website.
How to create a family tree with your own hands from templates
Creating a family tree is not a one-time process. It consists of performing a series of sequential steps that can take its author some time. These steps are approximately as follows:
- Gather information about your family members. Contact your relatives (especially older ones) and try to get as much information as possible about the family hierarchy. Old photographs, documents, videos and slides, public archives, Internet resources and other sources will help you collect the necessary information.
- Decide how many generations your family tree will include. Typically, the scheme includes only a couple of generations (children, their parents, and grandparents). But if you have the opportunity to display your great-great-grandparents, as well as second cousins, why not take advantage of it?
- Organize and structure the collected information. Break down all the data you receive separately to avoid confusion. Structured information can be easily transferred to your family tree.
- Select a sheet of paper that is large enough. If you are planning a large diagram, you should use an A3 sheet, which is usually used in drawing.
- Start drawing your family tree. First draw a thick trunk, then write an inscription at its base (for example, the name of a child). Draw branches a little higher for the rest of the relatives.
- Maintain the sequence, arrange the branches of relatives sequentially.
- Draw the planned number of branches of your relatives. If necessary, add additional information - their years of birth (and death), place of birth, and so on.
- Once the tree is created, use colored pencils to color it.
This may be useful: Crop photos in circles online.
How to correctly fill out a family tree?
Drawing up a family tree is quite an interesting, but at the same time responsible procedure, which must be treated with increased attention. So, you will first have to study all the features of the biography of your ancestors, find information about the origin of the surname and the entire clan in general.
Thus, anyone who is thinking about drawing up this important document should be patient, since its process can last more than one year. In the course of performing this difficult work, you will need to systematize a large amount of information, so it is best to create folders with files where the relevant documents will be stored.
Also, do not forget about the possibilities of the State Archive , in which you can find a lot of information about relatives who lived in years distant from our time.
You can download family tree templates to fill them out yourself using the following links :
Template or your own layout?
To get started, you can use a template that can be freely found on the Internet, in particular on our website using the links above.
First of all, all information about yourself is entered into the table, then about your closest relatives (parents, their sisters and brothers). At the same time, it is a good idea to supplement the text information with photographs.
Particularly interesting will be the work associated with interviewing grandparents, but in order for the meeting to be productive, it is necessary to prepare a list of questions in advance, since the older generation can delve into memories and devote a lot of time to this.
So, you can simply create a sample questionnaire, placing the following points there:
- where and when this or that relative was born;
- in which educational institution did you receive your education?
- place of work and position held or profession;
- who he was married to;
- what were the names of the children and their dates of birth;
- who is still alive (if this is information about the last century), and who is no longer in this world (with the date of death);
- what facts from your personal biography were the most significant historically.
When using information from regional or city status archives, it should be carefully checked, since there are many namesakes, and incorrect information can be entered into the template. This will create considerable problems in future work.
Scheme for filling out a family tree template
After all the material has been collected, you should correctly build a system for filling out the template prepared in advance with the information found. To do this, it is necessary to identify priority “branches” in the family tree, one of which is the scheme on the father’s side, and the second – on the mother’s side. You can also use the following pedigree building systems:
- ascending (a descendant is placed in the center of the tree, from which the chain goes to all ancestors), quite convenient for those who have just started working on compiling a genealogical list and have a minimum of information;
- descending (the main figure is a well-known ancestor, and lines diverge from him to all descendants), used in the case when the compiler has a large amount of information and knows for sure almost all of his relatives.
It is also worth considering the corresponding lines of inheritance:
- straight, which is a chain of the originator, his parents, the parents of the father and mother, and so on;
- lateral – brothers, sisters, nephews, cousins and second cousins of all generations;
- mixed type, when all branches are combined in one template (this work is more voluminous and requires a lot of effort and time and can last more than one year).
The method of placing information can be specified in the form of a table or tree, which is first recommended to be made in draft form on whatman paper.
So, we start filling out the template with ourselves, placing our name in the center of the sheet of the selected format. Accordingly, on the right and left are the relatives of the father and mother, headed by them. To make it easier to record male relatives, they can be placed in squares, and female relatives in circles.
This will help you quickly navigate which line to enter information on. There are often situations when only his first and last name, or only his first name, is known about a person. Then it is better to leave room for later filling of the empty space.
Building a family tree is not only complex, but also a labor-intensive process. So, if we take only direct branches as a basis, then the number of relatives up to the “seventh generation” will need to include at least 120 people.
If you choose a mixed type, you can get confused among several hundred close people. That is why it would not be a bad idea to resort to the help of specialized computer programs that allow you to do such work on one of the services in the online system in a short time.
Programs and services for creating a family tree
In addition to the listed images on which you can draw, there are also many tools for creating a family tree. These include both stationary programs and network services available to us online.
Among the inpatient programs it should be noted:
- Family Tree Builder
- "SimTree"
- "GenoPro" - https://www.genopro.com/ru/
- "GRAMPS" - https://gramps-project.org/introduction-WP/
- “Tree of Life” - https://genery.com/ru/
Network services for creating a family tree online:
- "Ancestry: Online Family Tree";
- "My Heritage: Family Tree";
- "Findmypast: Family Tree";
- https://www.familytreenow.com/
- https://familyalbum.me/tree/
Most of these programs are free, allowing you to create a family hierarchy for your family, and then save the result on your PC. Network services often have shareware functionality, in which all the richness of their capabilities is available only for an additional fee.
Family tree: Template of pictures on which you can write
For many of us, the main thing is Family. People who are deeply related to us, who form our Family, whose deeds we are proud of and whom we remember with love. In the process of daily upbringing of our children, we try to instill in them love and respect for our Family, for which the creation of a family tree will be an excellent tool. In the creative process, the child gets to know his family and friends better, learns to associate himself with his family, and becomes one organic whole with it. How to create a family tree, where to get a template of pictures on which you can write, what are the specifics of this process? We will talk about all this in our material.
