How Draw a Family Tree

Putting together a family tree can be a fun activity for your children as well as a way for all of you to learn more about your family history. These trees can be altered throughout the years as new members enter your family. Your family tree can even become an heirloom of sorts that is passed down from generation to generation. Creating a standard family tree is a fairly simple process that doesn't make much time to complete.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Begin by creating a key for your family tree. Basically, you only need to define which shapes you will use to depict males and females in your family tree. For example, you could use circles for females and squares for males.

2. Decide who you want at the top of your family tree. Many people will simply start with their grandparents and the grandparents of their spouse. Others will go further back to great-grandparents or even further back into family history. How far back you want to go will be determined by how large you want your tree to be.

3. Draw a very light straight line down the middle of a piece of paper. This will help to separate between your side of the family and your spouse's. You should do this in pencil so that you can erase it once you have created your family tree.

4. Write the names of the oldest relatives you've chosen for your side of the family at the top of the paper. This should be done on the side of the paper that is for your relatives. Remember to write the names in the shapes you've chosen for males and females. Once you have done so, draw a line connecting the two people to show that they are together (married).

5. Draw a straight line down to indicate that they had children. Then, draw a horizontal line. This is where you will write the names of the next relatives (the children of the people you wrote down). How long this line is will be determined by how many children those people had.

6. Write the names of the children directly underneath the horizontal line. Remember to leave some space between the children so that you can draw vertical lines underneath them in order to add their children to your family tree.

7. Repeat Steps 5 and 6 until you get to you and your siblings. When this happens, you should write your name on the side that is closest to the middle of the paper. This is because you will be connecting your name to the name of your spouse, which will be found on the other side of the paper.

8. Continue the process until you have finished with your side of the family.

9. Write the name of your spouse on the other side of the paper. His name should be level with your name on the paper. Then, connect both of your names with a straight line.

10. Add the relatives of your spouse the same way you did with your family members. To make things easier, start by writing the names of your spouse's siblings. From here, you will be able to work both up (to your spouse's parents, grandparents and so on) and down (to your spouse's nieces and nephews).

Tips & Warnings

• If you're not married, you can stop after step 8. You can also write your name where you want to on your family tree. Some people like to start the tree with their grandparents and then work their way up. Others will start with their own names and work up and down. Play around with a few different methods until you find out what works best for you. Draw a diagonal line through the names of any relatives who are deceased. If you want, you can also write the cause of death and the person's age when she passed. This can be written either above or below the name.

[FrazzledNanny]

on 1/27/2009 Thanks, I've been wanting to this for a while. 5* RRC