The Ultimate Vanderbilt Family Tree
Cornelius Vanderbilt built one of America’s largest fortunes, and a very large family too.
How to make a family tree with 3 generations or more
As you make your family tree, you’ll quickly realise that making more than two or three generations can lead to problem. Learn exactly why it’s not always possible to make the family tree you want and what to do about it.
Discovering one's roots and understanding the intricate tapestry of family history can be an incredibly enriching and fulfilling endeavor. Building a family tree is like embarking on a captivating journey through time, tracing the lineage and connections that span multiple generations. Whether you're driven by a sense of curiosity, a desire to preserve familial heritage, or simply a longing to strengthen family bonds, creating a family tree can provide invaluable insights and create a lasting legacy for generations to come.
But as your family tree grows, you quickly run into a problem.
How do I make a family tree with 3, 4 or even more generations?
In this article, I’ll talk you through some of the difficulties with making a three-generation or even larger family tree, and how to go about it, so that you still end up with something you’re proud to share with your family.
A three-generation family tree
First off, let me explain what I mean when I say a three-generation family tree. If you’re interested in making a pedigree chart, then you can do an infinite number of generations without any problem, and I recommend looking at our tutorial on how to make a great looking tree using Google Docs.
In this article, I’m essentially talking about a standard family tree like the one below, and I’ll be using the same example we made in our MS PowerPoint tutorial.
On this tree, I’ve labelled the different generations as follows:
- Generation 1: You, your siblings and your cousins
- Generation 2: Your parents, and their siblings
- Generation 3: Your grandparents
Of course. if you have children or grandchildren of your own, there will be more than those three generations. But to keep it simple let’s start here.
The problem with adding to Generations 3 and 4
In the example tree above, you can see that I only included four individuals in Generation 3, and they are the paternal and maternal grandparents of Melanie, Oscar and Christine (remember, this tree has been made from the perspective of those three individuals).
If you’ve managed to get your family tree to this point, I think the question many of you would have next is: for each of the individuals at Generation 3, how do I show their siblings to complete that generation, as well as include their parents? The not so obvious answer to that question is that you normally can’t - at least not in a 2D drawing.
Let me explain.
When people first encounter this problem, I always hear them say something like, “Just make the tree wider”. That normally doesn’t work and it’s easy to see with a simple example.
To illustrate, I’ll add two parents to Helen and Viktor, since they’re the grandparents on the inside of the tree.
Now, if Helen and Viktor are both only children, then we actually don’t have a problem, because Bernard’s siblings can go to his left, and Marie’s siblings will go in the space to her right. If this is what your family is like, you’re one of the lucky few.
A more likely scenario is that at either Helen or Viktor, or both, will have at least one sibling. If even one of those siblings has children, we run into a problem. This time, let me illustrate by adding a sibling to Helen, a partner, and their child (who would be the cousin of Max, Rachel and Gerard). Helen’s sibling cannot go to her left, because if Bernard has siblings, they will already be occupying that space. That means Helen’s sibling can only go on her right. To make this even clearer, I’ve also added some additional family members for Bernard.
The ‘crossing lines’ problem
Here we have the problem and hopefully it is clear from the image above. I call it the ‘crossing lines’ problem and describing it for this scenario goes something like this. The child of Helen’s sibling, who currently overlaps with Gerard, belongs in Generation 2. However, there’s no way to place them in line with the rest of Generation 2 without leading to crossing lines on the tree. Even if we shifted Gerard over to the left, you would end up crossing the line between Gerard and Monica, which is probably an even worse option.
You might be able to shift all of Generation 2 down to make space. Sure, that might work if it’s just for one person. But what if that person has their own family going down a few generations? It would be a mess.
The problem is compounded if Helen has other siblings with children, or Viktor has siblings who have children. Either way, you end up with a mess and, whether you like it or not, you’re probably going to face this problem as you expand on Generations 3 and 4.
The solution
The reality is that when you make a family tree, you’re trying to display an incredibly complex web of relationships on a 2D format. Since we’re likely to be using 2D formats for the foreseeable future, that means we need to make the tree dynamic. It needs to be able to hide some parts of the tree in order to make way for others.
Dedicated family tree software
This is exactly what dedicated family tree software tools like Kintree have been designed for.
I’ll illustrate using the same example above. Here’s the same tree, made in Kintree.
The green border around Melanie represents the ‘root’ of the tree - in other words, this whole tree has been developed from Melanie’s perspective. It’s the reason this tree doesn’t show the extended trees of people who are related to Melanie by marriage and not by blood, like Erica, Bryan, and Anna.
To show Gerard’s extended family (i.e. Bernard and Helen’s families), we need to hide Monica’s family so that Helen’s siblings and their families can occupy that space. Kintree does this really easy, by allowing us to navigate up the tree from Melanie to Gerard, which will remove Monica’s family automatically and instead show Helen’s family. The red border around Gerard represents that we have navigated from Melanie to him.
We could even navigate from Gerard to Monica, which would hide large components of Gerard’s tree, to allow space for Monica’s extended family, like below.
Hopefully it’s pretty clear that there’s no way we could have neatly shown both Monica and Gerard’s families on the screen at the same time. Even if you could, it would be far too difficult to understand what you’re looking at because lines would be crossing and you would need to spread family units out to try to fit everyone.
Build your own family tree in Kintree
By now you should understand how to make a three generation family tree and the limitations of trying to make one using simple design tools. Make your own family tree in Kintree for free by creating an account and going to your profile to start a new tree.
Related Posts
How to make a family tree in MS PowerPoint
Whether you're a genealogy enthusiast or simply want to preserve and share your family history, MS PowerPoint offers a user-friendly platform to design and customise your family tree. Learn how to leverage the tools and features in PowerPoint to create a visually appealing and informative representation of your family.
How to make a family tree in Google Docs
Google Docs can be a useful tool for building simple family trees that look great. This guide takes you through the steps required to take advantage of these tools.
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