Help:Family trees

There are several ways to create family trees for display on wikipedia. These examples are taken from a discussion on the Village pump in March/April 2005 (see Talk page).

Ahnentafel

The simplest way to include a list of ancestors is the Ahnentafel. This is a standard for genealogists, but it is hard to understand for people who have not seen it before.

1. HRH Prince William of Wales (born June 21, 1982)
2. HRH The Prince Charles, Prince of Wales (born November 14, 1948)
3. Diana, Princess of Wales née Lady Diana Spencer (July 1, 1961-August 31, 1997)
4. HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born June 10, 1921)
5. HM Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom (born April 21, 1926)
6. Edward Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer (January 24, 1924-March 29, 1992)
7. The Hon Mrs Shand Kydd née The Hon Frances Burke Roche (January 20, 1936-June 3, 2004)
8. HRH Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (January 20, 1882-December 3, 1944)
9. HRH Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark née HSH Princess Alice of Battenberg (February 25, 1885-December 5, 1969)
10. HM King George VI of the United Kingdom (December 14, 1895-February 6, 1952)
11. HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother née Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (August 4, 1900-March 30, 2002)
12. Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer (May 23, 1892-June 9, 1975)
13. Cynthia Spencer, Countess Spencer née Lady Cynthia Hamilton (August 16, 1897-December 4, 1972)
14. Edmund Burke Roche, 4th Baron Fermoy (May 15, 1885-July 8, 1955
15. Ruth Burke Roche, Baroness Fermoy née Miss Ruth Gill (October 2, 1908-July 6, 1993

Ancestry chart (left to right)

This is how ancestry charts are often displayed in the U.S.:

{{tree|Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha|Ernest I von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha|Louise of Saxe-Coburg-Altenburg|Franz Friedrich of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld|Augusta von Reuss-Ebersdorf|August II of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg|Louise Charlotte of Mecklenburg|Ernst Friedrich of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld|Sophia Antonia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel|Henry XXIV Reuss zu Ebersdorf|Karoline Ernestine zu Erbach-Schönberg|Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha|Maria Charlotte Amalie of Saxe-Meiningen|Friedrich Franz I of Mecklenburg-Schwerin|Louise of Saxe-Gotha}} produces:

Ernst Friedrich of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

Franz Friedrich of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

Sophia Antonia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

Ernest I von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

Henry XXIV Reuss zu Ebersdorf

Augusta von Reuss-Ebersdorf

Karoline Ernestine zu Erbach-Schönberg

Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha

August II of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg

Maria Charlotte Amalie of Saxe-Meiningen

Louise of Saxe-Coburg-Altenburg

Friedrich Franz I of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Louise Charlotte of Mecklenburg

Louise of Saxe-Gotha

Ancestry chart (bottom to top)

In (continental?) Europe, ancestry charts are more often shown bottom-to-top.

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ASCII art

Here is the family tree of House Baratheon:

                   Steffon==+==? Eastermont
                            |
                   +--------+------------------+
                   |        |                  |
     Cersei==+===Robert  Stannis==+==Selyse  Renly
   Lannister |     |              | Florent 
             |     |              |
   +----+----+     +------+       |
   |    |    |     |      |       |  
Joffrey | Tommen  Mya   Edric  Shireen
     Myrcella    Stone  Storm

(And see Family tree of the Greek gods).

Tables

And another attempt. This time I have tried to use tables, for House Tully:

Hoster Tully *242?

Minisa Whent †273? in childbed

Brynden Tully ‘The Blackfish’ *247?

Eddard Stark *262

282

Catelyn *268

Lysa *270

282

Jon Arryn *222? †297

Edmure *272

Robb *283

Sansa *286

Arya *288

Brandon *290

Rickon *294

Robert *291

To understand how I did this, let me switch on all table borders:

Hoster Tully *242?

Minisa Whent †273? in childbed

Brynden Tully ‘The Blackfish’ *247?

Eddard Stark *262

282

Catelyn *268

Lysa *270

282

Jon Arryn *222? †297

Edmure *272

Robb *283

Sansa *286

Arya *288

Brandon *290

Rickon *294

Robert *291

Note that this does not work porperly on all browsers.

Image file

The houses of Lancaster and York during the Wars of the Roses

Family tree of House Targaryen, from George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series.

Complex families can be displayed in an image file.

Template

Template:Familytree can be used to construct simple table-based family trees using an ASCII art -like syntax:

Grandma

Grandpa

Mom

Dad

Aunt Daisy

My brother Joe

Me!

My little sister

Family trees on Wikipedia

See:

• List of family trees
• Category:Family trees