Family Tree Chart: Make and Print Your Family Tree

How to make your family tree

1. Start with one person. Most people start with themselves or a grandparent. Type a first and last name and, if you know them, the years of birth and death. "c. 1890" or "1890s" are fine when you aren't sure.
2. Add relatives from that person. + Parent, + Partner, + Child and + Sibling each add an empty card next to the right person and put the cursor in its name. Pick anyone from the Person list, or tap their card in the chart, to add their relatives in turn.
3. Let the layout do the work. Every change redraws the tree: one row per generation, partners side by side, children centred under their parents, and each side of the family above the person who married in.
4. Pick a chart and a style. Family tree shows everyone; Descendants, Ancestors and Fan chart start from the person you choose. Classic, Modern, Kids and Decorative tree change the look, not the people.
5. Print or share. Download PDF on Letter or A4, Download PNG, or Print. Share result sends a link to a small tree.

Building a tree for a holiday gathering

Thanksgiving and Christmas are when most families have the people who know the answers in one room. Start the tree before the day with what you know: you, your parents, your grandparents on both sides, aunts, uncles and cousins. Print the Ancestors chart with Empty boxes for unknown ancestors ticked and put it on the table: every unknown great-grandparent is an empty box with lines to write on, numbered so you can type the answers into the right place afterwards.

For the wall, print the whole Family tree as a poster. The PDF picks the number of sheets that keeps names readable and marks each sheet with its row and column; print at actual size and tape the sheets together. Kids like the Kids style, which gives each generation its own colour, and photos make a tree much easier for small children to read.

Reading the chart

• Rows are generations. Everyone in a row belongs to the same generation, so cousins line up with each other even when they were born years apart.
• Lines between partners: solid for married, dotted for partners, dashed for divorced or separated. A key appears at the bottom when your tree uses more than one kind.
• Remarriage: someone with two partners sits between them, and each couple's children hang from that couple's line, so half-siblings are easy to tell apart.
• Pedigree numbers: on the Ancestors chart the starting person is 1, their parents 2 and 3, and the parents of any number n are 2n and 2n+1. It's the usual way to number an ancestor chart (Ahnentafel), handy for notes and for asking relatives "who is number 13?".

Your tree stays on your device

Everything happens in your browser. Names, years and photos are saved in this browser only, so nobody else can see them and there's no account to lose. That also means clearing your browsing data deletes the tree: use Save file (.json) now and then, and open the file on another device to carry on there. Photos are reduced to a small square before they're saved, and they never go into a share link.

Coming from a genealogy website or program? Export your tree as a GEDCOM file (.ged) and open it here. Names, birth and death years, parents, partners and children come in; places, sources, notes and pictures don't. Very large files are fine for the Ancestors and Descendants charts, which show one branch at a time.

Tips

• Not sure of a year? Leave it empty or write "c. 1920". The chart only shows what you type.
• Living people: leave Died empty and only Born shows ("b. 1985"). You can turn years off for a printed copy.
• Fictional families: it works the same for an OC family tree, a book series or a game's royal house; years and labels are free text.
• Made a mistake? Undo steps back through every change, including a removed person.

More for the holidays: draw names with the Secret Santa generator, print bingo cards for the family table, or line up the cousins on a height comparison chart.