Recording Nontraditional Family Trees
A. The answer depends whether youre putting together a family tree for research purposes or for another reason, such as a decorative display.
For genealogy research, youd record all this information, but not on one chart. On your five-generation ancestor chart, you record only your biological ancestorsparents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. No aunts, uncles, cousins or siblings. Spouses or partners who arent your ancestors arent listed, either.
That means youd put your moms biological parents on a five-generation chart even if they divorced and remarried other people. Also, because no siblings are listed on a five-generation chart, you dont have to worry about any half- or step siblings your mom may have.
Youll record siblings and other spouses on a family group sheet (also available on FamilyTreeMagazine.com) for each family. Here, you write the parents and children of a nuclear family; this form also has spaces to name each parents previous or subsequent spouses. If your grandmother was widowed before she met your grandfather, youd make two family group sheets for her: One for your grandmother with her first husband and their children, and another for your grandmother with your grandfather and their children.
You may be thinking that five-generation charts arent very adaptable to blended, adoptive and other nontraditional families. In a purely genealogical sense, ancestors are biological parents, grandparents, etc., whether or not they lived with their children. But if you want to trace your adoptive or step family, you can find charts designed for nontraditional families, such as our adoptive family tree. You also can record people on a traditional five-generation chart, though we recommend clearly indicating the step or adoptive relationships.
If youre filling out a decorative family tree for display or a baby book, rather than one for your personal research, how you handle relationships is really up to you. We do recommend that to prevent confusion for future family historians, you indicate relationships clearly and/or also keep a five-generation pedigree chart with biological relationships.
If youre designing your own tree, you can use dashed or colored lines (similar to those on a type of family map called a genogram) to indicate various types of relationships.
Leave a Reply