Making a family tree is a fantastic learning experience and a great way to discover more about your heritage, ancestry and family history. Depending on how much time and effort you want to put into making your family tree, it can be very simple and basic, or it can be detailed and involve much more information. How much detail you are able to go into will also depend on the availability of the information you require. While you research the missing links in your family tree and dig around for details, you will uncover all sorts of interesting, unknown facts about your relatives near and far.
This article will get you started by highlighting some major points to think about when creating your family tree and uncovering your family’s history. There are many ways that you can go about creating a family tree, including specialized software or simply drawing it out by hand, but mindmapping software is an extremely efficient and flexible way to map out your family connections. The mind map here shows an example of how you might map out all of the children that were born in your family on one side.
The simplest way to begin on a family tree is with yourself. Start with your name in the centre of your mind map/tree. From your name, create a branch connecting you to your parent. If you have siblings, connect their names to yours, illustrating that you share the same parent. Keep branching out using connecting lines to add your parents’ parents, and their parents and so on. Go back as far as you can. Add all siblings in as you did with your own siblings.
Whenever possible, add birthdates beneath each name on your family tree, and also dates of death when relevant. This is a great way to get a sense of how far back you are able to map out your family tree. Dates provide a point of reference. Once you’ve reached the point that you don’t have anymore names or dates you can fill in, it’s time to begin your real research. Start with family members. Parents, grandparents, and other older family members such as uncles, aunts, and cousins as well as family friends are the best place to start. Try to find out where relatives were born, where they lived, what their surnames were, who they married, and what children they had whenever possible.
Finding out where your ancestors were born and where they lived will provide you with a starting point for further research. You can do some research online, you can search library databases, and birth and death registries. Try searching local newspapers as well. If you hit a wall in your search, you can also considering acquiring professional services, though they may be expensive so make sure to look into all of your options and exhaust all your own resources first.
The best thing about making your family tree using mindmapping software is that you can continue adding information as you go along, and the tree will expand to fit. You eliminate the need to scribble out information and recreate your tree as you go along. And you’ll have the option to add colours and graphics – or photos of your family - too!