Living Life

Finding out what your heritage entails is quickly becoming a favorite past time of many Americans. To discover when your family came to this country, the hints at their travels and troubles, who they married, and where the rest of the family tree branches can now bring a great sense of warmth and satisfaction.

Once you know some of the branches of your family tree genealogy, the next step is to choose a family tree design that suits your needs. Below are a few examples of the more popular types of family tree designs that are available today.

The Tree Design

This traditional family tree design is still one of the most popular available today. Shaped just like a tree, it can hold six generations or more, with the ancestors forming the roots and the people in your generations forming the outlying branches of the tree. Perhaps the reason that this design is so popular is because it gives the impression of the family actually growing through the years; the idea that the family in and of itself is truly a living breathing thing.

The Pedigree Chart

Another popular genealogy tree design that many people find a lot easier to read is the pedigree chart. Unlike the family tree chart described above, this chart offers the ease of horizontal reading, with each family branch easily read by simply going across the page. In addition, each examples of this particular family tree design can be linked to each other to give you a more complete idea of where your family’s history will take you.

The Fan Style Chart

If you’re looking for a family tree design that can easily be placed on the wall as a decoration in your family room, you can’t go wrong with the fan style of family trees. In this case, each of the generations is shown in the form of an open fan, stemming from a central location. Each generation has its own level, and the different stages of the fan beautifully arranged.

The Bowtie Chart

Of course, if you want to separate out the paternal and ancestral lines in your fan genealogy charts, another option for a family tree design that you might want to consider is the bowtie chart. This chart is sometimes considered a modified version of the fan chart, but it offers a nice way to truly see where the different parts of the family came from, and where the generations might lead.

No matter what family tree design you chose to use, each one of these offer a great and relatively easy way to allow the information from your research to shine through.