How to make a genealogical tree?

Interest in the history of a kind existed among people at all times. But in different epochs different estates treated their own pedigrees also in different ways. The nobles traced their pedigree almost from the creation of the world and carefully stored any available documents and family relics. The merchantry imitated them, and often the merchant family represented several generations of a glorious and respected profession. In the "lower" classes - among the philistines and peasants - most often information was passed from generation to generation orally in the form of family legends.

Under Soviet rule, people avoided publicizing the noble lineage, and many genealogical reasons for this reason have sunk into oblivion. The connections between generations were interrupted everywhere. And it was only in our times that interest in the lives of previous generations broke out again. Many people are interested in the question - how to create a genealogical tree? Where to begin? What documents are needed? This article is designed to help in this painstaking and extraordinarily fascinating activity - compiling your own genealogy.

Before you create a family tree of your own family, you need to collect as much information from all possible sources as possible. These sources can serve, in addition to the available official documents, old photographs, letters, diaries, publications in the press, as well as oral stories - memories of older relatives.

At the preparatory stage of the creation of a family tree, it is necessary to gather together, review and streamline all existing documents. It is advisable to create a diary, which will be updated with new data. Documents (certificates of birth and marriage, diplomas, certificates, work books, etc.), photographs, letters, newspaper notes should be arranged in separate envelopes. Such an envelope or file must be made for each relative. Valuable documents for security better scan or remove from them photocopies, the originals put in a safe place.

For each member of the family, a leaflet with a detailed list of data should be created. First and foremost, the surname, name, patronymic, for women - names before marriage and in marriage, date and exact place of birth, date of death and burial place, title (if any), places of work (services) and profession, positions and ranks . It should be mentioned all the possible professional achievements, awards, published works and inventions.

It is useful in the questionnaire of each member of the genus to include information about religion, the date and place of baptism, class belonging, the origin of the spouses and their relatives, as well as the availability of real estate (house, estate), places of residence in chronological order. Premarital surname of spouse, date, place of wedding, birth and baptism of children - all this information will be useful and necessary when considering the question of how to compile a family tree.

An invaluable source of information will be the oral memories of relatives. You can consistently interview the representatives of the older generation or organize a family meeting, timed to any important event in the life of the family. Having started talking about the events of the past days, you can get a lot of important information - relatives will remember the detailed details of past events, clarify and complement each other. In order not to lose information, often described chaotically and scrappy, it is most convenient to use a dictaphone. Later, it is necessary to sort the records, arrange on paper and add to the available informal information about this or that relative.

After questioning relatives, go for more information in the public archives. These are, first of all, reading rooms of local libraries, where there are binderies of newspapers over the past years. Archival documents can also be found in museums and various departments. Having found the necessary information, ask to make a photocopy or a certified extract from the document. Keep in mind that there are specialists who know how to make a family tree competently and with all the nuances in mind. For a fee, they will work on your archival application, which can be made in free form.

After collecting all the possible information, proceed to the registration of the search results on paper. Determine how to make a genealogical tree - ascending (from descendants to ancestors) or descending (from ancestors to descendants). You can represent your own genus in the form of a tree, the trunk of which is a common ancestor of the genus, and the crown is the descendants. You can take the actor as the "trunk" - the originator of the genealogy, and "branches" make his relatives on the paternal and maternal lines. The pedigree can also be made in the form of a table.

Variants of how to make a genealogical tree are set. You can, for example, lead a genealogy (to trace only the lines of men - the successors of the genus, or only women), can be mixed. Graphic images can be vertical or horizontal, generations can be numbered for clarity. In recent years, also appeared pedigrees in the form of essays containing a text description of each person with the addition of the necessary materials (photos, letters, notes, etc.).