Family tree maker

Because everything stays in your browser, none of it is uploaded to a genealogy service. That matters more here than on most diagrams, since a family tree is full of living people's details.

The mistake worth avoiding: running out of room

Family trees grow sideways faster than anyone expects. Four generations back, a single person has sixteen great-great-grandparents, and a tree that shows every sibling at every level becomes too wide to read long before it becomes wrong.

Decide at the start which kind of tree you are drawing. An ancestor chart follows one person's direct line back and stays narrow; a descendant chart starts from one couple and fans out. Mixing the two on one page is what produces the sprawl, so pick one and draw the other on a second page.

Drawing the tree

1. Open the template, which has grandparents, parents and two children.
2. Put the name on the first line and dates on the second, using Shift+Enter between them.
3. Join partners with a plain horizontal connector with no arrowhead.
4. Drop children below and connect them up to the partnership line.
5. Add photos with Insert image if it is going to be printed.
6. Export a PDF at the size you want to print it.

Who makes a family tree

• A few generations for a family occasion or a school project
• Sketching what you know before you start researching properly
• Showing how a branch of the family connects to another
• A printed keepsake

Conventions people expect

Generations on one line

Everyone in the same generation sits at the same height. Align middles does it in a click.

Partners joined horizontally

A plain line between two boxes, with children hanging below it.

Dates in brackets

b. 1948, d. 2021 is compact and unambiguous. Circa as c. 1890 if you are not sure.

Mark the uncertain parts

A dashed box or a question mark is more honest than leaving a gap that later gets read as fact.

Family tree questions