Free Family Tree - How to Begin Building a Free Family Tree

Begin building your free family tree once you’ve accumulated all of the data you’ll need to fill it in. Once you’ve acquired that information, you can start to organize it into a free family tree, using that data to decide which genealogical step you’ll take next. This could be; verifying the information you are not quite sure about, looking for new ancestors, or developing the story of your family in more detail. Such are the choices you have when creating a free family tree.

Beginning Your Free Family Tree

A free family tree is basically an illustration depicting how your ancestors are related to one another. This is the genealogical foundation that you will build on, incorporating all of the biographical data that you’ll find in archives, online and in libraries. You can begin building your free family tree at the very outset of your genealogical study, but always remember that it is vital to continue updating it after every discovery. Doing so will make it clear what the next step will be in researching your free family tree.

FAMILY TREE TEMPLATES: Free, professionally designed, high quality family tree templates
BUILD FAMILY TREES ONLINE: What everyone needs to know about building family trees online

It is easy to get a little confused when trying to figure out how to draw your free family tree, but it’s not as complicated a process as you might believe. With today’s booming interest in genealogy and the modern technology available, many family tree software packages have come into existence. These genealogical tools can make the process of developing a free family tree relatively painless. Most of them have the capacity to help you develop a family tree report, upload photos to your free family tree, and print out personal biographies of your ancestors. However, if you’re a beginning genealogist, you may want to familiarize yourself with some of the basics of building a free family tree, by constructing a simple drawing with a large piece of paper and a pencil or downloading a free family tree template.

Understanding the Family Relationships in a Free Family Tree

Understanding the various abbreviations used in genealogy and the terms incorporated into the science is critical to building a comprehensible free family tree. You may have seen family trees published by other genealogists and noticed the terminology used, so some of it may be familiar. The terminology used in constructing a free family tree is designed to show the relationships between your family members and how to efficiently record their vital data. It is therefore vital that you have a good grasp of it before beginning your free family tree.

FREE FAMILY TREE REPORTS: See how easy it is to get free family tree reports
FREE GENEALOGY FORMS DOWNLOADS: You don’t have to be a professional genealogist to use these free professional genealogy forms.

You’ll begin your free family tree with yourself; it is your family tree, so whatever you generate should begin with you. Place your name right at the center of your piece of paper, thereafter describing everyone else in the context of their relationship with you. You’ll write the names of your parents above your own, with the names of any siblings placed to the side of yours. If you have children, you will write their names below yours; their children below them, and so on. Above your parents you would place the names of their parents, and alongside your parents; the names of their brothers and sisters. This may take you a few attempts to master, but it is the basic foundation for showing family relationships in a free family tree.

Each group of people on the same horizontal line in your free family tree represents an individual generation. These are all close family members, so the beginning is the easiest part of constructing a free family tree. You will however be delving deep into the past, where it becomes harder to keep track of distant relationships. In our next article we’ll discuss some of the terms used to describe extended family members and ancestors in your free family tree.