Genealogy Forum UK

A Family Tree to me means an approximation of an oak tree, upside down that I can hang on the wall. With the most ancient ancestors as the trunk at the top and the branches spreading downwards.

Ever since I started researching my family history some fifteen years ago, I have had the desire to print a wall chart of manageable size. Maybe just a couple of sheets of A4, or better still just one.

Over the years I have looked at a number of pieces of software that purport to produce attractive family trees but each time I looked they didn't do what I wanted, or even if they did come close, the print produced would have covered a wall as big as a house, using dozens of A4 sheets.

Above all, most of them cost MONEY!

Many charts call themselves family trees but appear to me sideways, or seem to run off into twigs that I am not really interested in showing.

I would like to discover some FREE software that will produce what I want.

Basically something that shows my wife and me, with our parents, grandparents, great grandparents 2 - 4 - 8 - 16 and so on, with our children and grandchildren descending. Aunts, uncles, cousins etc., could be omitted

Faces would be nice but are not necessary.

I appreciate that even the length of a person's name could make a difference. Osbert Nathaniel Humphrey-Smythe, is obviously going to take up more room than John Smith

At the moment the most obvious way to produce this would be to do it myself as a spreadsheet.

Any suggestions?

Jackienock

Hi Jackie nock moving this to General Discussion section
i think we looked at this before
there are companies that do it based on your gedcom...I think....others will know

easiest way would be to download your tree into another gedcom and delete the one you didnt want printed then send that gedcom for printing then you will only get and get charged for what you want

This is one of the threads were it was discussed.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1491&p=15183&hilit=printing+trees#p15183

Jo

Happy New year

Sorry to repeat a topic, I guessed that it could well have been queried before. I have already tried a number of suggestions over the years but just wondered if anyone might have a positive answer.

Being a miserable old git I thought there might be a free solution that someone had discovered.

Better start preparing an Excel sheet I think, might be the best in the end, at least I can control the spacing and size.

Thanks for the help anyway

Jackienock

Hi Jackie

Another miserable old git here thinking along the same lines as you!

I agree with you the upside down tree idea seems more realistic as I, too, get confused by some of the other "sidewways" Family Trees I have seen elsewhere.

What I have done so far is created little slips of paper of each member of my family as I go along finding them. Blue ones for the men and pink ones for the ladies. Each "label" has the basic birth, marriage and death info on them. I then pin each one onto a noticeboard which means I can move them around if need be. Each family member is/are also listed seperately onto individual A4 sheets of paper in the plastic see through wallets in a file along with their relevant information i.e. BMD/census certs, etc.

Eventually they'll all go into some sort of "final" Family Tree to be printed out but might be a bit larger than A4 size? I won't do that for a while yet as my existing tree is not yet complete as several of my family members seem to be SO elusive - most in the UK but several in Denmark, a few in the USA and one in France!

Good l,uck with your growing tree in 2010!

David aka Vikinghunter

poss the cheapest way to print your tree say in A0 or A1 is to go to your local high st priters that do card posters etc and ask him how much he would charge to print a one off and ask him what format would he need the info in to produce it and take it from there

While the traditional layout of a family tree is obviously a logical one, it is an awful one for use with computers. Try adding a few more people high up a complex tree on a spreadsheet to discover how much messing about you have to do. Also try laying out a family of 6 children, each one having 6 children - it just works so much better with the parents on the left as a "sideways" tree without having to use multiple pages. It is just a case of getting used to it and for anyone thinking of doing trees on a spreadsheet, I would definitely suggest you try it.

Must say that the idea of slips of paper is a good one, even if a little fiddly.

It strikes me that a large ready made picture frame, with white backing could be used in a similar manner and being under glass would be less liable to damage.

I am thinking more in terms of perhaps doing it as a one time project, rather than adding each one as I went along, though obviously the odd new baby could still be added.

It would need to be planned and measured out pretty accurately before setting out and the names and details printed ready to be cut up.

I think that perhaps we get so dependent on our computers that we tend to forget that there are still manual ways of producing really good results.

Thank you Vikinghunter, for giving me an idea.

Jackienock

Jackienock wrote:Better start preparing an Excel sheet I think, might be the best in the end, at least I can control the spacing and size.

Just a thought if you are using Excel - do you realise that you can turn it from sideways to downwards by using paste transpose? - would that help?

Family tree maker prints out with the oldest generation first and then in boxes downward.
you can save it and take to a printing company and they should be able to print it out?
Or in big sizes?
or not?

Maths girl wrote:Just a thought if you are using Excel - do you realise that you can turn it from sideways to downwards by using paste transpose? - would that help?

I can see why you call yourself Maths girl

Must confess that command is a new one on me, been using Excel for years but never come across that before. Sounds a good idea and just tried it on an ordinary list out of curiosity. IT WORKS. Guess I might have found out if I had ever needed to do it?

Thinks: You're never too old to learn.

Jackienock

Jackienock wrote:

Maths girl wrote:Just a thought if you are using Excel - do you realise that you can turn it from sideways to downwards by using paste transpose? - would that help?

I can see why you call yourself Maths girl

Must confess that command is a new one on me, been using Excel for years but never come across that before. Sounds a good idea and just tried it on an ordinary list out of curiosity. IT WORKS. Guess I might have found out if I had ever needed to do it?

Thinks: You're never too old to learn.

Jackienock

Glad I could help - think of the fun you are going to have with that command in 2010

Maths girl wrote:

Jackienock wrote:

Maths girl wrote:Just a thought if you are using Excel - do you realise that you can turn it from sideways to downwards by using paste transpose? - would that help?

I can see why you call yourself Maths girl

Must confess that command is a new one on me, been using Excel for years but never come across that before. Sounds a good idea and just tried it on an ordinary list out of curiosity. IT WORKS. Guess I might have found out if I had ever needed to do it?

Thinks: You're never too old to learn.

Jackienock

Glad I could help - think of the fun you are going to have with that command in 2010

Makes you wonder how many other things there are that you never use on Excel. I have often wondered if there is anyone in the whole world, even at Adobe, who knows EVERYTHING about Photoshop? That's another application that has some amazing hidden treats.

Is this completed?
Jo:)