05 October 2021

Free and Easy-to-Use 4-Generation Family Tree Chart

I found a very nice family tree template in a surprising place. It seems perfect for those times when you're building a tree for a friend. Or showing a cousin why family trees are so amazing.

To find this free template, launch Microsoft Excel and click the link for More templates. Search for Family tree generator. (Or download it now.) When you open the template you'll see two tabs: Family Members and Family Tree. When you enter names on the Family Members tab, you're generating a chart on the Family Tree tab. It's pretty cool.

When you're explaining family relationships to someone, this simple visualization is a big help.
When you're explaining family relationships to someone, this simple visualization is a big help.

As an example, I entered a pair of my 4th great grandparents in the Grand Parents fields of the spreadsheet. Here are the steps to follow:

  • Click the spreadsheet's Reset Family button to empty all the sample names from the fields.
  • Enter the names of the ancestor couple you've chosen. For me, that's Francesco Iamarino and Cristina Iapozzuto. While the original template uses only first names, I want to use first and last names.
    • If you use both names, you'll need to turn on Wrap Text for the rows of names, and adjust the row height.
    • To do this, use your mouse to select rows 10 through 50 or so. Select Wrap Text (Home / Alignment section). Then select AutoFit Row Height (Home / Format in the Cells section).
  • Each time you add a descendant, you can pull down a menu to choose their parents from a list. (Look for the arrow beside the Parents field.)
  • Fill in names for each generation.
  • Once you finish the "Third Generation Children," click the Create Family Tree button at the top.
  • The names may appear cut off. If so, you need to turn on Wrap Text and change the Row Height. But you can't yet, because the row numbers and column letters are not visible.
    • Turn on the row and column headings by clicking the View menu and checking Headings in the Show section.
    • Set the Wrap Text as explained above, but this time, start at line 5.
    • Set the row height by clicking Format on the Home tab and choosing Row Height. I found that a row height of 50 worked well for the names I'd entered. You can experiment with different values until you're happy with the result.
Enter names for each generation, select their parents, then fine-tune your easy family tree chart.
Enter names for each generation, select their parents, then fine-tune your easy family tree chart.

When you save your Excel file, you'll see a message about your file containing macros. These macros are the functionality that generates the family tree chart. To keep the functionality:

  • Choose Save As.
  • Select the 2nd option in the list, Excel Macro-Enabled Workbook.

Now you can print the family tree chart as a PDF file to share. I chose the 11" x 17" tabloid setting and selected Fit Sheet on One Page. This way, I can print the tree onto two letter-sized pages and tape them together. Or I can find someone with a bigger printer tray.

Don't have Excel? Download the Family tree generator template and open it with your spreadsheet software. Let me know if that works or not.

The result is simple-looking (no photos or birth or death years). But what an easy way to help a friend or relative visualize their part of the family tree. Think how nice it would be to create a bunch of these charts for the holidays.

28 September 2021

It's Time to Organize All Your Family Photos

I thought my family photos were well organized. My digital photos have file names that include the names of the people in the picture.

Then my uncle died, and I wanted to share a couple of photos of him as a teenager. One photo shows my Uncle Silvio as a teenager, laughing. The other shows Uncle Silvio and his future wife, my Aunt Lillian. In that photo, they seem to be part of a cheerleader squad for their school's football team.

It was awful to discover that I couldn't find either of these precious photos when I needed them!

First I looked in my "Family Tree\photos" folder for any file name that included my uncle's last name. Then I checked any family folders in my separate "Saved Pictures" folder. No luck!

I turned to my favorite search program ("Everything" for Windows) to scour my computer for Silvio's last name.

With this tool, I found the photo of Silvio laughing in a folder called "FamilyTree\etcetera\scans". That's a great way to lose your stuff. Put it in a folder called etcetera! The folder contains pages I scanned from my Aunt Lillian's photo album more than 10 years ago. She had the teenage photo of Silvio. But I still can't find the cheerleader photo. Is it possible I never scanned that one?

This wasn't the first time I had trouble finding a particular photo. It's time to come up with a better system.

My family photos took a big step forward when I placed them all in a safe. But there's much more organizing to do.
My family photos took a big step forward when I placed them all in a safe. But there's much more organizing to do.

Take Stock of Your Collection

In my "Family Tree\photos" folder, image files are generally named for their subject (last name first):

  • IamarinoPasquale.jpg
  • IamarinoPasquale2.jpg
  • IamarinoPasqualeWithGreatGrandchildren.jpg

I'd like to reserve my "Saved Pictures" folder for vacation photos. Each vacation has its own folder (like "California Feb 2016"), plus sub-folders for individual destinations during that vacation ("Santa Barbara", "Hollywood", etc.). But it also has my family's digitized slide collection stretching back to the 1950s.

My mother has given me tons of old family photos that I keep in a fireproof safe. I can't guarantee that I've scanned every single one of them. And I know I have a thick 1980s–1990s photo album somewhere in my house, but I can't find it.

Determine Your Goals

To organize any digital photo collection, start by asking yourself what you need from it. I would like to have only one or two places to look for any given photo.

Rename your digital photo files with descriptive names. This will help you organize and locate them later on.
Rename your digital photo files with descriptive names. This will help you organize and locate them later on.

When I want to pull up a photo from Lyon, France, for example, I go to "Saved Pictures", open "France-Italy Sept 2015" and find the Lyon folder. I'll continue to keep all the destination photos in one place. But I'm going to review them and give them more descriptive file names. This will make specific photos easier to find.

Rather than sifting through 132 images of Paris, I can give them descriptive names, like:

  • Versailles-exterior-front.jpg
  • Versailles-Hall-of-Mirrors.jpg
  • Notre-Dame-Rose-Window.jpg

These descriptive names will make similar photos group together in the folder. Plus, I can use "Everything" to search for that famous rose-window.

Goal #1: Make all destination photo names more descriptive than IMG_1569.JPG.

In my case, it's the family photos that need more urgent attention. There's the folder I found called "scans" hiding on my computer. Its images don't follow my usual LastnameFirstname.jpg format. I'll begin by renaming them.

Like most genealogy fans, I'm going to wind up with TONS of family photos in one folder. They'll need some separation. Which organization method would you choose?

  • Put a date in the file name (whether it's general [1940s] or specific [1949])
  • Use sub-folders for each decade (1940s, 1950s, 1960s)
  • Use sub-folders for place (Ohio, Bronx, California)
  • Use sub-folders for family groups. I would need to include the name of the head of the family for this to work (IamarinoPasquale, IamarinoPietro, IamarinoFrank).
When you gather up and rename your family photo files, look for one or more of these ways to further organize them.
When you gather up and rename your family photo files, look for one or more of these ways to further organize them.

As you examine your collection, one or more of these filing methods may make the most sense to you. I know, for example, I have tons of photos from the Bronx. I could divide them by decade or exact location (mom's apartment house, dad's apartment house). But I know my California family photos are only from the couple of years my family lived there. They can all stay in one folder with descriptive file names.

Whichever method you choose, the purpose is to help you more easily find a particular photo.

Goal #2 has two parts:

  • Bring all digitized family photos into one location, improving their file names as you go.
  • Assess the entire collection for how best to divide them up.

Once your digitized photo collection is in good shape, it's time to take stock of your paper photos.

If you had to find a particular old photo of yourself and two of your best friends, could you find it? This happened to me last month. I needed a specific photo so my friends and I could recreate our funny pose 23 years later.

The photographs I've taken over the years are in a few cardboard boxes. They have dividers to separate them by time or place. I didn't see any photos from around 1998 in the boxes. I checked my "College" section, but the photo I wanted wasn't there. In the end, I found a forgotten 1990s photo album sitting in my safe. And there it was, along with a ton of photos of my sons as little kids. I need to digitize all these photos!

I also have two boxes of old photos from my mother, along with a stack of larger format photos. Are they all digitized? How should I organize them?

Goal #3: Go through your paper photo collection. Make sure you digitize and sort everything.

When you digitize your photos, remember to scan at the highest resolution available. This will allow you to zoom in and see details more clearly. If you have photo editing software, you can work to undo creases and spots on your photos.

This is a big project, for sure. In my case, it's long overdue. And I still need to find that cheerleader photo with my aunt and uncle!

As with any big family tree project, it's best to divide and conquer. Here's how I'll start:

  • Enhance the file names already in my "Family Tree\photos" folder. Those 700+ file names will group similar subjects together alphabetically.
  • Search for other photo folders on the computer. Then rename and bring everything into the main folder.
  • Check the digitized collection for natural breaks. Will organizing by time, place, or family group work best?
  • Check paper photos to see that you've got them all digitized.
  • Organize the paper collection to make future searches easier.

My family often turns to me to produce a certain photo. I want to make dead sure I am the family historian who can meet that need.

21 September 2021

How to Be a Family Tree Myth Buster

I've been building a robust family tree for my son's girlfriend since August. She lost her father in late July, and my son told her, "I'll bet my mom can build your tree for you."

It's been easy because her family has been in one corner of Pennsylvania for centuries. To someone like me, whose first immigrant ancestor set foot in America in 1892, that's amazing.

Proving or disproving family lore should be a fun challenge for any genealogy fan.
Proving or disproving family lore should be a fun challenge for any genealogy fan.

At first I struggled with how big I wanted to make this family tree. There's so much documentation, and each couple seems to have had ten children. To get this done, I shifted my focus to her direct line. I especially wanted to identify the country of origin for each immigrant ancestor.

She doesn't know what (as in, what nationality) her last name is. I can't imagine not knowing. I discovered her last name was originally French—possibly with a different spelling. Plus she has Austrian, Irish, and English ancestors.

I've generated a few large family trees and descendant reports so far. Then I remembered a memory she shared with me.

Myth #1: This Acclaimed Artist is My Relative

As a student, she visited a local museum and saw a painting by a man with her last name. She pointed to it and said, "That's my family." The tour guide or teacher gave her a look that seemed to say, "Sure, kid. Whatever you say." But her mother had told her that this famous artist was her relative.

I set out to discover the artist's relationship to her family. Wikipedia told me who his parents were, and Ancestry helped my find the rest. Now I can prove this artist is her 2nd cousin 5 times removed. Interestingly, his death certificate says he poisoned himself due to "melancholia."

As I worked to place the artist in the family tree, I saw that his parents were not yet in there. But this Quaker family left behind many records. The artist's grandfather, who was already in the family tree, had 10 children listed on a church record. The 9th child was the father of the artist.

Myth #1: TRUE

It's great when the facts and documents come together. This bit of family lore is TRUE.
It's great when the facts and documents come together. This bit of family lore is TRUE.

Does your family have its own myths about notable relatives?

Myth #2: The Captain of the Titanic is My Relative

My sons' paternal grandfather told us his great uncle was Captain Edward Smith of the Titanic. As a great nephew, he became a member of a Titanic historical society. His mother Lillian felt ashamed that her father's brother was the captain.

Years later, when I caught the genealogy bug, I decided to document my sons' famous ancestor. Immediately I hit a dead end. Not a brick wall. A dead end that made the captain's relationship to my sons impossible.

The captain had no brothers. He had a half-sister and a daughter. The captain was born in Staffordshire, England. He married in Lancashire, and lived with his wife and child in Hampshire.

Meanwhile, the Smith family in my tree is very incomplete. I haven't found Lillian's father Walter Smith's town of origin in England. (To keep things straight, Lillian is my sons' great grandmother who said she was the captain's niece.) But Walter married a woman with a long history in Derbyshire.

I'm not familiar with all the shires in England, so I turned to a map. The captain's place of birth (Staffordshire) is a one-hour drive from Lillian's mother's place of birth (Derbyshire). (One hour on today's modern roads.) I'm going to ignore Captain Smith's professional time in:

  • Lancashire (he moved there because it's a northern port)
  • Hampshire (he lived there because it's a southern port).

I wondered if Walter Smith was Captain Edward Smith's 1st cousin, since he had no brothers. To prove that, I need to trace Walter Smith further back to see if he ever lived in Staffordshire. It won't matter that their name is Smith, will it?

I know Walter Smith sailed to America in 1891 from the northern port of Liverpool in Lancashire. I know he returned to England because he married his wife Elizabeth Merrin in Derbyshire in 1896. I hoped to find his U.S. arrival in 1897 with his wife.

Derbyshire records have helped me a lot with Elizabeth Merrin's family already. Now I see a marriage record for Walter Smith and Elizabeth Merrin. It seems they lived at the same street address in Derbyshire when they married.

Of course I went straight to Google Maps with the address. I wondered if it was a big apartment building. Nope. It's a store with an apartment or two above it. Maybe their families were close (literally).

Looking at the suggested records for Walter Smith on Ancestry, I found an 1871 census. His age and the name of his father are a match, but I need many more documents to prove this is Walter. Right now it seems as if he was born and raised in Derbyshire.

My working conclusion: There's no reason to think Walter Smith from Derbyshire is a close relative of Captain Smith from Staffordshire.

Myth #2: FALSE

This family myth was easily proven false; the belief of great grandma Lillian will forever be a mystery.

When trying to prove or disprove some bit of family lore, be sure to investigate both sides. Gather as many documents as possible on family members. And research the famous person who somehow worked their way into your family's story.