Basic Family Tree
When making your basic family tree your first step is to decide how you are going to design it. Will you be designing it by hand? Designing it on the computer? Designing it online? If you aren’t too creative you can even purchase a fill-in-the-blank family tree from your local bookstore!
If you decide to go online for your tree, there are many templates that you can download to make your basic family tree special. You also have the choice of displaying it online for the world, or keeping it private. You can even make it so family members from anywhere can go online and add to information to the tree it they like.
You should start with a basic tree. You want to keep things simple so just start with your side of the family. You can always branch out more and include more family members later on. Here are some tips for creating your basic family tree.
People to Include
When starting out as stated before you just want to start with your side of the family beginning with yourself, siblings, and children. After that, move on to your parents, followed by your grandparents. You can continue with this generational pattern as far back as you can go. However, for the most basic of trees all you need is your immediate family.
Pictures
Adding pictures of each family member is a great touch for tree. This helps to personalize the tree and makes it seem more professional. Family members will be very impressed by the effort.
It can be more difficult to obtain pictures of older relatives, such as great-grandparents. Should you choose to include them in your basic family tree you can usually obtain photographs of these people from older family members. If you are doing your basic family tree online, then the photos can be scanned in without damage. If you are going to be doing this sort of chart manually you will probably want to make photocopies of each image.
Adding On
If you want to go further back in your history after creating your basic family tree, adding on usually isn’t a problem. This is especially true with online trees that grow with you. You can even go in later to add your spouse’s side of the family. This is a great keepsake for children as it clearly outlines both sides of their heritage.
Making one is a great way to get an idea of who and where you come from. Most people who start out with a basic tree become very interested in their history and want to know more. The internet offers a wealth of genealogical information, sometimes going back hundreds of years. You can gain access to birth, death, and military records through several ancestry sites. You can even connect with distant relatives and search for your family’s official crest. Just a few surnames and birthdates is generally all you need to add more information to your basic chart.