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Help building your tree

Getting your family into the tree, and getting it out again as something you can hold.

The hard part is never the software — it’s the remembering. Almost everything you need lives in the memory of one or two elders. Here’s the easy way to draw it out, gently and completely. Most people are surprised how far one phone call gets them.

1
Start with yourself
Add your own name first, then work outward. It’s the one branch you’ll never get wrong.
2
Call the eldest
One good conversation with a grandparent fills more of the tree than an afternoon of guessing.
3
Rough dates are fine
“Around 1955” beats a blank. You can always sharpen it later.
4
Grow it slowly
It’s saved as you go. Add a name whenever one comes back to you — no need to finish in one sitting.

Start with the oldest person you can ask

Grandparents and great-aunts and -uncles hold the most, and it’s the most at risk of being lost. Ask them first. Begin with what they know best — their own brothers and sisters, their parents — and work outward.

Ask these questions

  • What were your parents’ and grandparents’ full names?
  • Who were their brothers and sisters — and who did they marry?
  • Roughly what year was each person born? (“Around 1940” is enough to start.)
  • Who has passed away, and roughly when?
  • Are there names that repeat across generations? (Very common — note who’s who.)
  • Which side of the family does each person belong to?

Where to find dates and spellings

  • Old photographs — often dated or captioned on the back
  • Wedding invitations and cards, kept for decades
  • School and college certificates, service records, passports
  • The flyleaf of religious books, where families recorded births and deaths
  • Gravestones and memorial notices

A few practical tips

  • Record the conversation. Ask permission, then record on your phone — you’ll miss things in notes, and the voice itself becomes a keepsake.
  • Don’t stop for gaps. Enter what you know and move on; you can even print the poster with blank lines to fill in by hand at a gathering.
  • Keep the sides separate. Your father’s family and mother’s family are two different lines — build them as two trees.
  • Names as they were written. Enter each name in the spelling and script the family used. We never translate a name.

Don’t know every name? Build it with your cousins

Nobody remembers the whole family alone. Invite cousins, uncles and aunts to work on the same tree with you, so each of them can add the side they know.

  1. Go to My family trees and click Share under your tree.
  2. Enter their Google email and choose Add & edit people. Choose View if they should only look.
  3. Let them know. They get access as soon as they sign in with that Google account.

Everyone works on the one tree, so there is nothing to merge later, and the records show who added each person. Only the tree’s owner can share it or delete it, and you can remove someone’s access at any time from the same Share window.

Typing in Marathi or Hindi

You don’t need a Devanagari keyboard. In a Marathi or Hindi tree, just type the name the way it sounds in English — raghunath deshmukh — and we’ll suggest रघुनाथ देशमुख underneath. Press Tab or click the suggestion to use it. It’s only ever a suggestion; if the spelling isn’t right, type over it.

If you’d rather type Devanagari directly, your device already can:

  • Windows: Settings → Time & Language → Language & region → Add a language → Marathi or Hindi. Switch with the Windows key + Space.
  • Mac: System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources → add Devanagari. Switch from the menu bar.
  • Android / iPhone: add the Marathi or Hindi keyboard in keyboard settings, then hold the globe key to switch.
  • Chrome: the Google Input Tools extension lets you type phonetically in any browser.

Printing and framing

The Print Studio recommends a paper size for you — it’s the smallest sheet on which every name stays comfortably readable at arm’s length. Printing smaller than that is what makes a family tree squint-worthy.

  • Paper: 200gsm or heavier, matte or satin art paper. Glossy fights the type and catches glare behind glass.
  • Tell the shop to print at 100% — no scaling, no “fit to page”. Scaling is the usual reason a printed tree comes back soft.
  • Framing: ask for a 2–3cm border so the mount doesn’t crop the oldest generation.
  • Check the proof for spellings before it’s framed. A name is easy to fix now and expensive to fix later.
  • Colours may vary with the printer’s settings, type and quality. Print a small section first before you print the large poster.

Common paper sizes

  • A4 — 210 × 297 mm (8.3 × 11.7 in)
  • A3 — 297 × 420 mm (11.7 × 16.5 in)
  • A2 — 420 × 594 mm (16.5 × 23.4 in)
  • A1 — 594 × 841 mm (23.4 × 33.1 in)
  • A0 — 841 × 1189 mm (33.1 × 46.8 in)

Printing a large tree

A big family gets small on one sheet. In the Studio you can print it as split branches — every branch on the same framed sheet, laid out in numbered panels so the names stay larger — or choose a single branch and give it the whole sheet.

Keeping it up to date

A family tree is never finished. Add a birth, a marriage, or a newly discovered ancestor whenever it happens, and re-generate the poster to match. A good habit: revisit it once a year — perhaps at a festival, when everyone’s together and memories are fresh.

Ready? Start your tree →

Help building your family tree — FrameMyRoots