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.

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

Ahnentafels can be displayed as horizontal trees using a number of templates. See Template:Ahnentafel/doc. For example, with {{Ahnentafel-compact5}}:

16. Ansegisel

8. Pepin of Herstal

17. Begga

4. Charles Martel

18. Dodo

9. Alpaida

2. Pepin the Short

20. Warinus

10. Leudwinus

21. Kunza of Metz

5. Rotrude of Trier

22. Chrodobertus II

11. d. of Chrodobertus II

23. Doda

1. Charlemagne

24. Ansegisel (= 16)

12. Martin of Laon

25. Begga (= 17)

6. Caribert of Laon

13. Bertrada of Prüm

3. Bertrada of Laon

7. Bertrada, Countess of Laon

Ancestry chart (left to right)

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

Ernest Frederick, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

Duchess Sophie Antoinette of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

Heinrich XXIV, Count of Reuss-Ebersdorf

Countess Augusta of Reuss-Ebersdorf

Countess Karoline Ernestine of Erbach-Schönberg

Albert, Prince Consort

Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg

Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg

Princess Charlotte of Saxe-Meiningen

Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg

Frederick Francis I, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Duchess Louise Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg

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

Alternatively you can render it using box drawing characters:

                   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 properly on all browsers.

Image file

Complex families can be displayed in an image file. You can use an imagemap to create links to the individuals displayed in the family tree (see Counts of Hainaut family tree, for example).

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.

Template

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

Grandma

Grandpa

Mum

Dad

Aunt Daisy

My brother Joe

Me!

My little sister

See also Template:Chart which has a few more features.

Family trees on Wikipedia

See: