Heritage Album

How do I get started on making an ORGANIZED family tree?

I have a very large, very complicated family (including adoptions, divorces, and half siblings). I have tried making one one a free website but there was no option for divorce or half siblings (or even adoptions for that matter). So how do I get started on making an organized family tree with all of my (huge) family's confusion?

Public Comments

1. Download PAF fro free from the Mormons: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp Enter the data. It will print out family Group sheets, pedigree charts, and more. Any genealogy program worth the name will collect and display significant facts; birth, death, marriage, military service, graduation, divorce, immigration, emigration. You can have as many marriages for a given person as you want, and they can have children with many different partners, either before or after they marry them. Printing this all out gets complicated. Adoption is the hot button topic in our little world. Some strict people would have you add the adoptee to your data with "Unknown" for father and mother, and a note on John Trueheart and his wife, Betty Goodfellow Trueheart, that they had room in their homes and their hearts for another child. Some programs let you show the adoptive parents as if the adoptee had sprung from their loins. Just be aware - it is a controversial subject.
2. If by "family tree" you are thinking of a pedigree chart, only one's direct ancestors are shown on that. If you are referring to family group sheets, only one specific family goes on each sheet. Children from two marriages are never shown on the same record. If you are thinking of a descendancy chart, all descendants of a given person/couple can be shown there, including adoptees, though that relationship should be noted. Brother's Keeper has a good chart for that. I'm sure other programs do, as well, but I don't know what those programs are. Though PAF is my main program, it is very inadequate for this particular purpose.
3. if your goal is a VISUAL "tree" style.. then reality is that it may be past feasible. Genealogy bases standard forms to show several things.. one, your ancestry. That includes a limited number of persons.. only the direct line (not aunt/uncles, etc). Family group sheets are a chart to provide father/mother and immediate children only.. if there is a 2nd marriage, that is distinct as far as a chart. Descendent charts pick a person/couple, and ALL the people "down". With extensive research back, your tree (meaning.. anyone connected by any means) can be hundreds of persons. Programs are set up for those.. all that is required is to "link" a person in some way to another. With a program, you actually don't have to do that.. the program just keeps the data, and for those who are linked.. will print STANDARD formats. The formats are designed for the organized end of things. When you try going beyond the standard, there can't be set "rules" because no one can predict that there will be 2 children or 17, plus all what you mention. Of course.. the ones who have never done the research.. will seldom understand that putting all on a huge wall chart for display.. becomes simply not feasible at some point. You can use google for family tree and click on "images" to get ideas.. but I still urge you to consider if it is what you really want to attmept.