drawing up family tree on paper??

[behindthefrogs]

I do my trees horizontally using Excel, starting with my family top left and keeping the direct line at the top.  For each spouse I start a new tree if I want to go beyond the parents.

Printing Landscape using Times New Roman 10 point gives four or five generations on a single sheet of A4.  Families of siblings which don't fit onto the top sheet are dropped down onto lower ones.

On two occasions I have had to take up two "generation columns" with families of more than eight surviving children but usually there are sufficient early deaths in large families to make this unnecessary.

David

[KPM]

I have my trees saved on my family tree programme and on Genes Reunited, but I just cant work without my paper trees.
I use an Artists sketchpad A3 size.  Each family has a page of its own and as I work on each family I pencil my notes on the tree.  Every few months I do have to re-do the tree and include all the recently found info and I'm now on my 5th pad!!!  I know it probably seems like hard work but I just couldn't work without it.  I can carry the book around with me when I visit relatives, libraries etc .  I also get a clear view of the whole family's tree.
Probably not everyone's cup of tea but works great for me
KPM

[Britgirl]

Hi I found this thread using the search facility, and have a  question for Amy K., or anyone else if they know the answer!

How  did you do the Power Point tree? I can only get it to come up with boxes to put the names in.
Unfortunately it takes up too much space as one of my ancestors had 16 children, so it becomes too squished!!

Thanks

[coppernob]

How about Rootsmagic as a family tree prog?? It is the only one I can get on with , you can print out narrative reports & varios trees.

Just a thought    Coppernob

[Britgirl]

Thanks for the reply Coppernob. 

Apparently all you have to do in power point is right click the box, go to Format Auto Shape, then set the fill colour to "no fill", and the line colour to "no line" and the box vanishes!

By staggering them I managed to get all 16 to fit....just! 

[coppernob]

Wow Britgirl  Might give that a go  sounds good

Coppernob

[ludovica]

I have given up on paper representations pretty much. With many many thousands of names on my file I have no choice but to concentrate on  various different types of tree, focussed on individuals rather than attempt anything comprehensive


For paper representations I use this

http://www.cs.williams.edu/~bailey/genealogy/PedigreeFanChart.pdf

or rather, a series of those leading off in whichever direction I choose, but of necessity, leaving a lot out as well.

[Lydart]

A friend of mine has hers drawn out on X number of numbered A4 cards, which all fit together like a jigsaw and she also has a master card with the position of each card marked on it ... like the picture on the lid of a jigsaw box.  The whole thing fits together and covers her sitting room floor, but she can just select various bits of it and join those.  The A4's are all laminated, and hole punched, so they go into a box file. 

[Lynn H]

I printed mine out on the computer, (50 pages) Then i hung black material from a curtain pole that spans the width and length of the wall and pinned the A4 sheets on that, along with old photos and bits of other keepsakes. It looked amazing but unfortunatly when i moved it didn't fit the new walls, so now i have to scale it down. I think this time i will use white material and ink and make it so that i can roll it up when not in use.

                                   Lynn H.