Customising your family tree chart can help your research planning and improve the way that you communicate the results of your research.
There are many ways to customise your family tree chart. This article uses Legacy Family Tree software and Ancestry family tree charts to demonstrate the main techniques.
Set your direct line on your family tree chart
What is your direct line?
Your direct line is your direct ancestors, such as your parents, grandparents, great grandparents and so on. Your direct line does not include siblings or family who are related to you via siblings. It also does not include any step family.
Strictly speaking, you have more than one direct line as you have two parents. However, it is usually referred to in the singular.
It is your choice whether you choose to include non-biological relationships in this definition. For example, if someone was adopted they could have a direct biological line and a direct adopted line.
Benefits of marking your direct line
When researching, it is useful if you can instantly tell which people in your family tree chart are on your direct line. This makes it easier to navigate up and down your line, and focus your research when necessary.
In a Legacy family tree chart you can mark the entire direct line in one step by selecting the starting individual (usually yourself) and then choosing ‘Set Direct Line’ from the Tools tab. Legacy marks the names of people in your direct line in bold typeface.
Note that this only marks one direct line, so if you do have adoptions in the family you need to choose which line to mark.
In an Ancestry family tree chart, you set the direct line by marking each individual manually using a ‘tree tag’. The direct line tag is called ‘Direct Ancestor’ and it is under the group called ‘Relationship tags’.
How are people in your family tree chart related to you?
Knowing how someone is related to you is another useful bit of information as you work on your family tree chart.
Ancestry adds that information automatically to individuals as you add them. With Legacy, you can switch it on by choosing ‘Set Relationships’ from the Tools tab.
Divide people in your family tree chart into your grandparent lines
Dividing your people in your family tree chart into groups based on your four grandparents is a great research tool. It helps with navigation, research planning, filing and sharing information with others.
Legacy uses the four-colour scheme and it can be applied by choosing ‘Set Ancestor Colours’ from the Tools tab. This adds a small block of colour on the individual’s screen and colour codes the box for each person in the pedigree chart. The colours can also be applied to a printed family tree chart such as the one below.
Ancestry does not have a specific system to group your family by grandparent. However, you could create four custom Tree Tags for this purpose.
Identify research groups in your family tree chart
You may find it useful to create customised groups of your family members for research purposes, based on common characteristics or common research questions.
Examples of research groups:
- convicts
- everyone who migrated to Australia
- people born in Ireland
- parents not yet identified.
Legacy has both two systems of tagging custom groups. The tag system uses the numbers 1-9 which appear at the top of the individual’s screen. The hashtag system allows a seemingly limitless list of tags.
Ancestry has ‘MyTreeTags’ under the categories of DNA, life experience, relationship and research status, and you can also create custom tags. The tags appear below the person’s name on their screen.
Both Legacy and Ancestry allow you to search your family tree chart for everyone containing a particular tag and create a list. Legacy also allows you to print the list in PDF format or a CSV file. The latter is great for research planning, as the file can be opened and modified in Excel.
Note the status of research in your family tree chart
Noting the status of research on individual profiles in your family tree may help make your research more manageable. It can also help you focus on those individuals who need to be prioritised to progress your research.
Ancestry tree tags have the following pre-set tags: actively researching, brick wall, complete, hypothesis, unverified, verified.
Legacy does not have a specific system to note the status of research. You could use the tags or the To Do List for this purpose.
Even if you do not want to use most of these tags, the unverified tag could be extremely useful because it draws attention to the inconclusive nature of the information which affects the accuracy of your family tree.
Record DNA conclusions on your family tree chart
It is important to establish a system for recording DNA conclusions and both Legacy and Ancestry have tools to assist this process.
More information
For more of my articles on documenting your family history, go to the Document page.
For more of my articles and information about using DNA in family history, head to my DNA in family history page.
Post last updated 17 June 2024
