Track Your Ancestry With Your Own Family Tree Template

A family tree might be something you've done in class before. It's a fact that almost everyone has made it during their academic career at least once. It may be both fascinating and confusing to trace your family's genealogy, which is why family trees were developed to make things a little clearer. There is no need to explain or teach your child about your ancestors if they have already seen the family tree.

While we are all familiar with our immediate ancestors, the ones that came after them can get a little confused. If you, too, are perplexed by your ancestors' past, comprehending a family tree is critical.

For instance, suppose you're at a party and a woman sits alongside you; she's the daughter of your grandmother's sister, but you're not sure how she's related to you or vice versa. Willn't it be unpleasant for you if you tell them honestly that you don't know them?

To minimize any awkwardness or discomfort, here is everything you need to know about the family tree template.

What Is A Family Tree?

A family tree is a simple hierarchy that organizes and displays all of the family members. It establishes how they are related to one another. Nowadays, the younger generation is completely unaware of their ancestors, relatives, and distant family members; this is why a family tree can be one of the most effective ways to teach them about the family and clan. The nicest thing is that the younger generation is interested in learning about their ancestors. As a result, the family tree might serve as a resource for them to become acquainted with distant relatives.

A family tree can even help children learn about their ancestors' backgrounds. When they learn about their family members, they will most likely recognize distant cousins, relatives, and people they rarely see. Schools include a family tree in their curriculum to assist students to improve their knowledge and become more acquainted with their complete family. Teachers in schools utilize a variety of creative and unique family trees to assist students to grasp the complete family tree by highlighting members of the family. Starting with the family's head, then the siblings, and so on, the family tree is extremely simple to construct.

The Advantages Of Understanding Your Family Tree

Learning about your ancestors' lives isn't enough to comprehend family history. Instead, it strengthens bonds. A family tree and history might assist you in knowing more than simply the names of family members. The following are some of the reasons and benefits of family tree analysis.

Brings You Closer Together

Knowledge, as they say, comes comprehension. Therefore, learning about your ancestors' names and tales brings you closer to them, no matter how far they are from you. When you get insights and lessons from the people of the past, the names from the past become real and living. Not only that, but you have a proclivity to learn from your ancestors' stories and are more likely to emulate their great traits while ignoring their flaws in order to avoid making the same mistakes they did.

A Sense Of Calm

You acquire mental serenity when someone enlightens you with profound insight and expertise. This tranquility is due to the fact that you both share the same land and blood. It also builds a sense of belonging and peace when you see your family heroes committing to a worthy cause. Instead of focusing on conflict, more emphasis should be placed on creating and understanding relationships. They likely learn from them and follow their productive and beneficial methods when the present generation encounters earlier generations with comparable personalities or experiences.

Sense Of Belonging

Your heart melts as you learn about the difficulties one had in their relationships and the sacrifices they made to better the lives of their families. When you realize this, you're more inclined to forget about your disagreements and differences, making it simpler to focus on common ground and attributes that are passed down from generation to generation.

Love Boost

As you become closer to your clan's family members, your love for your family is likely to grow, perhaps to a level you've never felt before. For example, you may have felt far from your grandparents as a result of different experiences, yet understanding can bring you closer together, thereby growing your love for each other. By giving familiarity in the first place, the gap between generations and their experiences fosters an appreciation for one another.

Discovering Long-Distance Cousins and Relatives

When you look into your family history, you're bound to come across distant cousins and relatives you've never heard of. A family tree template, as previously said, is a hierarchical depiction of your entire family. As a result, it will be easier for you to locate distant cousins and relatives. For example, one of your high school acquaintances is actually a relative, but you were unaware of this. Understanding the family tree can assist you in determining their identity and will bring you both closer together, strengthening your bond even more.

A family tree might help you understand relationships you never knew existed. A person's relationships can be easily understood through bonding with distant family members.

Science And Family Tree Templates: What's The Connection?

Family trees not only influence inheritance but also aid medical experts. Individuals can benefit from family trees since they can provide hints to healing genetic and hereditary diseases.

You can probably resolve your hereditary disease or diagnose how likely it is that you have the disease or that it will pass down to your future generation if you make a family tree chart. If your spouse, for example, suffers from high blood pressure, it's likely that they'll pass it on to your children. Making critical life decisions requires understanding the health issues in the family tree.

Types Of Family Tree Templates

Ancestor Chart

This is one of the family tree types that shows a person's ancestors. It usually starts with the pro-band (person who wishes to know their ancestral chart) and works its way up to parents, grandparents, forefathers, etc. The hierarchy is ascending.

Descendants Chart

This is an example of a family tree that has a descending structure. This template shows the pro-descendants. band's It usually begins at the top, with all of the children and forefathers' children.

Sandglass Diagram

This is a hybrid of the previous two types: an ancestor and descendant family tree. It depicts the pro-band in the center, followed by their ancestors, children, and relatives above and below their name.

Other Types

While the three forms of family trees listed above are the most common, there are additional sorts of family trees that can be used to trace your relatives and conduct research on them. The following are a list of them:

• Five Generation Ancestor Family Tree—This is a type of family tree that emphasizes the statistics of your ancestors over the course of five generations.
• Stepfamily Tree—This is another style of the family tree that emphasizes the information on your ancestors' stepfamily members.
• Biographical Family Tree—For the current generation, this type of family tree is also a source of information. Education, marriage, children, and military duty are all highlighted.
• Family Group Sheet—The family group sheet is the next in line, and it is specifically designed to record all of the relevant information on a nuclear family.
• Relationship Chart—This diagram will assist you in determining and comprehending how one is related to the other.
• Adoptive Family Tree Chart—This type of family tree chart shows the adoptive and biological parents of the individual.

What Is The Best Way To Create Family Tree Templates?

After recognizing the critical nature of creating a family tree, you must also educate yourself or your children about previous generations. If you want to create a family tree template on your own, here are the simple steps to take:

Step #1: Collect Data From Family Members

Gathering information from family members is the first step in writing or developing a family tree. Make a list of everyone in your family, including:

• Parents
• Brothers
• Sisters
• Step or half-siblings
• Children
• Grandparents
• Cousins
• Aunt
• Uncles
• Nephews
• Nieces
• Yourself (most importantly)

You must provide information about their medical history and health in addition to their names (to consult about gene-related issues if one desires).

Step # 2: Create Symbols To Denote Relationships

After you've acquired all of the information about your relatives and family, it's time to create symbols to denote the various family relationships. The most effective method of drawing your family tree is to utilize symbols to denote the links. The following are the symbols you can use to distinguish between genders, alive or deceased individuals, identical twins, and so on.

• Square for males
• Circle for female
• Triangle for unknown gender
• A diagonal line through a square for a deceased person
• Dashed line through a square for adopted child
• Rectangle for identical twins
• Diagonal line through a rectangle for non-identical twins

Other shapes or your own creations can be used to help distinguish between the relationships.

Step 3: Create A Family Tree

After deciding on the shapes, draw the family tree chart. It is easy to start with yourself. You can either be in the center or at the end of the page. If you are in the middle, the older generation will move over you and the younger generation will go below you. Also, your half, step, and adopted siblings will be there.

Also, your parents will be placed above you, while their siblings will be painted next to them, forming your aunts and uncles. Also, your cousins' children will be drawn under their names. While this is the pattern you must follow for both your maternal and paternal sides until you have drawn over all your parents' siblings, you must also draw your grandparents. This will form a family tree.

Is There A Family Tree Template In Word?

To create a family tree in Word, simply follow the instructions provided below.

Step 1 – Open MS Word And Select Smartart Graphics

On your PC, launch Microsoft Word. In Microsoft Word, SmartArt visuals may be used to generate family trees. Go to the SmartArt Graphics in the Illustrations section of the Insert menu. A hierarchy template can be used to represent a family tree; select an appropriate template from the Hierarchy SmartArt Graphics.

Step 2 – Enter The Names

Fill in the names of family members in the editing box. Decide how many generations to show and make sure that each generation stays at the same level.

Is There An Excel Template For Family Tree?

It is possible to conduct ancestry research using online resources. These templates are great if you want to create your own family tree with the information you already have and then add to it with your research.

For both adults and children, here are some fantastic family tree templates for Microsoft Word and Excel.

Family Tree Templates For Adults

Five-Generation Family Tree Chart

Create a family tree with this blank family tree template. Use this family tree chart to trace your roots. This family tree template offers space for five generations of relatives and their titles.

Three-Generation Family Tree Chart

Another Microsoft Office for Excel template, this one creates a family tree for you. On the Family Members tab, you'll first enter three generations of spouses, parents, and children.

Click the Create Family Tree button once you've finished filling in your information. Then go to the Family Tree page to see what you've made. Because you can simply alter your tree with the press of a button as your family grows, this is a useful template and family tree generator.

Six-Generation Family Tree Template

Check out this template from Vertex42 if you want to go back six generations on your family tree. This basic Microsoft Office template is designed similarly to the first and includes space for names, dates, and other information. The Example page has a nice sample, and you'll see that it also contains each person's state of residence.

You can also include a little photo next to each family member as an added benefit. Although the photographs will display tiny in the Excel sheet, if you plan to print your family tree, this is a fascinating choice.

Four-Generation Family Tree Generator

The following template from Free PowerPoint Templates takes this assortment of adult templates to a new level. In addition to the family tree generator, the template is for Microsoft Excel (not PowerPoint).

Fill in the names of your maternal and paternal relatives in the tabs. Those names will populate your family tree in the same tab. Apart from the fact that it fills in the names for you, this family tree template stands out since each tab contains attractively displayed facts. Each child can have images, notes, and information added to them.

You may also go straight to that person's tab by clicking the Details icons on the family tree. You may also go directly to a person's location on the tree by clicking the Back to Tree icon on a tab.

This is it if you're looking for a nice family tree template and generator with extra features.

Family Tree Templates For Kids

It could be a school assignment or a family project. These cool family tree templates are great for kids. They don't go back as far as those for adults, but they let your child see the family tree in a pleasant way.

12- and 20-Member Family Trees

TemplateLab features a massive range of family tree templates for adults and kids.

There are 12 spaces for family members in the apple design. You can fill in everyone's name or use the spaces for photos instead with a lovely apple for each person.

If your clan is a little larger, the other tree has room for 20 family members. Rather than photographs, this family tree template is created for textual names.

How Do You Show Divorce On A Family Tree?

In genograms, family trees highlight patterns in a family's relationships. Your family tree may provide information on your health, conflicts, and spirituality. Drawing a family tree may appear simple unless you have divorced, remarried, or children born or adopted by other spouses. Using the right symbols and lines helps generate a family tree that accurately depicts relationships.

Marriage Illustrations

Relationships are depicted as one long horizontal line connecting two people who are on the same genogram level. People sometimes write the marriage date just above or below the line joining the couples. Other pertinent information, such as the city, state, and nation where the marriage took place, could also be included. Include a small photo next to each person's family tree symbol to add even more detail.

Separation And Divorce Diagram

It is critical to indicate when two married people separate or divorce on the line that connects them. Divorce is generally signified by two slashes in the line connecting them, whereas separation is normally indicated by one slash across the line. A family tree with many marriages may utilize color-coding to make it easier to follow the relationships between different spouses and relatives.

Remarrying And Forming New Relationships

New relationships and remarriages are common after divorce. To add a new partner to the family tree, stretch the line past the first spouse to make room for a second or third. Instead of a solid line, a dotted line connects romantic partners who are not married but live together or have children together. A solid line with no dashes or slashes denotes a new spouse. Color coding and dates become increasingly useful as a family tree grows in size and includes more partners and marriages.

Children's Illustrations

A vertical line is formed from the spouse who gave birth to or adopted the child to the child on the family tree. When children are the result of several marriages, biological offspring are drawn with a solid line that may be color-coded. Foster children are represented by a dotted line, whereas adopted children are illustrated by a dashed line. The year of birth or birthday of each child is sometimes listed above their genogram symbol in a family tree.

Conclusion

In every family, there are people and a history to learn about one another's. Therefore, what is yours? Allow your generation to comprehend and investigate inspirational stories by comprehending your family tree charts. If you're eager to learn more and delve into the recesses of your family, you may easily get free family tree templates from the internet. Blank family tree templates in Word format may be found online, allowing you to rapidly create a family tree by simply modifying the template and feeling proud of your ancestors!

About The Authors

Steve Martins- I am a certified graphic designer and I earned my bachelor’s degree in Communication Design. I worked with many brands like Uniqlo and Huawei but also independent smaller Barcelonian brands like Caravelle and Madrid’s Hola Coffee and I have completed over 2000 projects in the last 5 years.