If you know only your grandparents’ names but are totally in the dark about the names of your great-grandparents and their professions, you are not alone. Most people tend to share the same situation, unable to tell exactly where they came from and what their ancestors did, and that is why a family tree is to each family. A family tree is simply a chart wherein all the names of past and present generations are displayed, and that chart shows a particular relationship in connection to each other. Should your parents have a family tree, you would be amazed to see how much more information it can give you regarding their lineage. It will tell you how many uncles and aunts your parents had, what your grandparents did for a living, and how many siblings they had. With this same tree, you will have enough information about your family to trace its origin.
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Uses and Importance of a Family Tree in Daily Life
You have probably heard it thousands of times that there is nothing more important than your family and that’s true. There is in fact nothing more important than your home and your family members and they should come before anything else in your life. The common problem with the young generation is that they are never given the opportunity to know their ancestors and find out how they looked, what they did and what problems they had, and how they lived their lives. A family tree is essentially a tool that tells your kids all about your family history and your great-grandparents. Greater chances are that your kids will only get to meet their grandparents which means there will be only 3 generations living together at any given moment. When you know the history of your family members and you want to share the greatness of your ancestors with your kids and their kids and so on, preparing a family tree that goes back to as many as 10 generations would keep them interested in the family background.
If you have a family with all the relatives that make us what we are today, you will never understand how an orphan thinks of himself and what he feels. When you feel you don’t have enough information about where you and your family came from and how you ended up in the present, it can give you a sense of being lost in the world and somehow it can result in a little depression that doesn’t only affect your personal life but also professional life as well. In simple words, a family tree gives you awareness of your family background and enough identification that you can relate to other people around you somehow.
Then there is the feeling of excitement, pride, or a little arrogance when you know all the great things your family members did in the past. You feel proud of your grandfather who built an empire from scratch with just the technical education in the era when people used to do farming. Just imagine how you will feel when you get to know that your great-grandfather or his father fought in a war that changed the history of the country that you live in. This gives a family tree more importance to educate your upcoming generations about all the great things your ancestors did to form the perfect future for the next generations.
Download Free Family Tree Templates
Here are several free Family Tree Templates to help you prepare and print your very own Family Tree Diagram easily.
Useful Tips for preparing a Family Tree
Decide how Many Generations you want to Add:
Although we all would love to find out about our family’s history going to back to hundreds and thousands of generations but that’s not realistic. There are some tools and techniques available that test your DNA and let you know about your origin and family history if it pops up in the record. In reality, most of us only know up to 2 or 3 or maybe 4 generations in some cases but if you are thinking of preparing a family tree, it has to start somewhere and then you can tell your kids to add further details on the tree and keeps this tradition going in the family in future generations. For a family tree, you should decide how many generations you want to include and then start gathering the information.
Gather all the Relevant Information:
Once you have decided that you will go 2 or 3 or any number of generations back in the past and include them in the family free, it’s time to get the required information. A family tree doesn’t only provide the names of the family members but it can also portray their relations with each other, their occupations and the achievements and struggles they had. At this stage, you might need to contact your distant relatives and find out what they have to say about family history. Gather all of these details and prepare a record sheet with family members’ names and their details.
Decide how Deeper Details you want to Add:
Adding a picture of a deceased family member on the family tree along with their name and occupation is easy but you can add more details if you want. For instance, you know that your great grandfather was once worked in Ford motors when it started or your great grandmother helped your country and deciphered the codes of enemy forces in World War I. These are the crucial details that should be added on the family tree. Additionally, you can add their relations with each other, what differences they had in between the family and how they overcame those differences.
Start Designing the Family Tree:
Once all the information is gathered, it’s just the matter of time to complete a family tree. There are many formats and designs of family trees that you can use. First there is the hierarchical diagram that shows the first member of the family at the top and then each generation underneath and then there is the actual tree with each family member on end of each branch.
Ask your kids to help out to get their Interest:
Kids love to help and prove that they can do various duties. How many times you saw your little daughter helping her mother with cleaning the house even if she is so tiny that she can’t hold a broom? You can remember your son asking to help you in mowing the lawn when he doesn’t even knows how to operate a lawn mower? This is the reality that kids want to learn quickly and they ask dozens of questions and take interest in tasks they find exciting. If you want to get your kids’ interest in the family tree and actually keep it as a tradition in the family, you need to include them in the tree-making process. It can be something simple like putting glue on pictures to paste them on the family tree to spelling their occupations and finding their meanings in the dictionary.
