It is sometimes best to use a family tree chart to display your ancestors. These charts give an instant picture of the parents, grandparents, or children and grandchildren. Sometimes these charts show more than a dozen generations, but we will concentrate on displaying 3 or 4 generations of your ancestry. Blank printable charts are available on many websites, some you buy, others are free. Most family tree software programs provide the ability to print roots charts. However, we will provide the details here to create your own tailored charts for your family needs.
There are many different ancestry charts available. Some ancestor or pedigree charts show the roots, the parents and grand parents of one individual. While others are descendant charts that show the children and grand children of one individual. Both types of charts are useful in displaying your roots and you can develop either type of printable blank forms on your own.
A blank, printable family tree chart can be made using any word processor or spreadsheet software. These roots charts are as simple or complex as you like. Simple forms will contain several generations, but the size is usually dependent on the number of children and grandchildren. Only include a reasonable number of generations of your ancestry in your chart so that it can be read easily by your family members. Here's an example of what each record in an ancestor tree chart should contain:
- Subject's full name
- Date of birth
- Place of birth
- Date of marriage
- Place of marriage
- Date of Death
- Place of death
Now this subject will have his/her parents defined. As before, each blank should be filled in the forms for his/her ancestry - the parents with the father's record containing the marriage information and the mother's record looking like:
- Spouse's full Name (use her maiden name as her surname)
- Date of birth
- Place of birth
- Date of Death
- Place of Death
Now each subject in the forms will have as much information as possible recorded for them. Ideally, the names would be highlighted and the other information recorded in smaller text. The printable chart will look like this:
This chart is over simplified, but the idea is to demonstrate graphically the parents and grandparents of the subject so that we can visualize your ancestry as branches of a tree. Each type of chart has strengths and weaknesses. But overall these blank printable forms will help you display roots. We know that a picture is worth a thousand words when it comes to documenting your family tree.
