Family Tree

rebelchick2

Hope this is the right place to post this- If not please move, Thanks.

I am looking to give my sister and her new husband a family tree printout with a frame as a present. Can you get some sort of software to do this or just use excel?

Thanks

jingx3

I haven't used any of these, but there's a nice list of software on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_genealogy_software

pinkypinky

I know Ancestry does a chart - you send them the details and they print it up. I haven't used it myself. The problem with printing it yourself is that these documents get beyond a4 very quickly. My own tree is on about 8 A4 pages printed out landscape with all the names quite small.

http://ancestry.mycanvas.com/Default.aspx?pageName=MyCanvasHomePage&pageArguments=SOURCES%3dZNWF%252bDI1QUaP4ma5Mgbaxmt2%252bEu5UXNG%252bj4Iq12JIaFi%252boIjlbuC%252btGWY7uzc4yRmYY3Df%252byI24%253d%2cpartnerId%3d5%2catt%3d2eeNLN6-z_wYQdglxOdgbG*CvPw0vyEAcMTDBE#app=f867&f919-state=1248186457062

Dr Pepper

In my experience, the trees created automatically by Family Tree software programs are very limited and ugly! As a programmer, I can understand why. It's just too variable a task and one of those things that computers can't do very well!

I always just make them up in PowerPoint. I started off doing them in Excel but found the cell structure a bit too rigid and limiting. Although, as others have said, the A4 page is a major limiting factor. I usually just move particular 'branches' to new pages (e.g. start a new branch/page for each of my great-grandparents with him/her at the bottom/root).

If you like, I can post an example of one of mine whenever I get home in the next day or two. ??

rebelchick2

That would be brilliant Dr Pepper if you could.
Thanks a mill!

Dr Pepper

Sorry, completely forgot about this until tonight when I started thinking about Family Trees again! Hope it's not too late.

I've attached that example family tree. As you can see, it's quite a lot of info squashed onto a small page. I have used different colours for the different generations (because I couldn't squeeze them all in horizontally across the page). You can see that on page 1 where I have run out of space I have added 'links' to pages 2 and 3. Takes quite a lot of work. Most of the work for me was trying to squeeze as much in as possible and still make it look neat(ish).

Hope it's of some use to you!
Brian

jojo86

hey, Just wondering if people can help. I'm interested in doing a family tree and full (or as much as I can) anthology of my family on my dads side and maybe my mums side so I can give it to them as a gift.
I want to get more information than just names on the family tree so I'd like you know to find out some interesting stuff and be able to write it all up, think along the lines of a simpler "who do you think you are?"
If anyone can help me with how to go about finding things out it'd be great. I don't know about some of the websites you have to pay for etc but if anyone can help give me advice on how you did your family tree or how to go about it it'd be great, thanks a million!:D

jojo86

hey, Just wondering if people can help. I'm interested in doing a family tree and full (or as much as I can) anthology of my family on my dads side and maybe my mums side so I can give it to them as a gift.
I want to get more information than just names on the family tree so I'd like you know to find out some interesting stuff and be able to write it all up, think along the lines of a simpler "who do you think you are?"
If anyone can help me with how to go about finding things out it'd be great. I don't know about some of the websites you have to pay for etc but if anyone can help give me advice on how you did your family tree or how to go about it it'd be great, thanks a million!:D