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How to make a family tree

Eight steps, about ten minutes for the first three generations. Free, quick, and you can print it or send it as a picture whenever you want. No account needed to start, and the tree keeps growing as relatives add what they know.

  1. Start with your own name

    Not with the oldest ancestor you know of. A tree drawn from you stays readable: every relative gets a name from where you stand (Grandma, Uncle, cousin; or Nani, Tau, Mauseri behen), and the branches you know best are nearest. In Bargad, Start your tree asks for your name first, then your parents.

  2. Add your parents, then their parents

    Two names, then four. Birth years are enough; exact dates can come later. If a grandparent’s name is uncertain, write what the family calls them (“Grandpa”, “Babuji”) and fix it when someone remembers. Four generations from you is where most families run out of certain names, and that is fine.

  3. Add every marriage, not just the one that lasted

    A second marriage, a widowed grandfather who remarried, a divorce: add each marriage to the person it belongs to, and the children under the parents they actually have. Most apps make you pick one “preferred” spouse and hide the other family; here both marriages stay on the page, with the ended one drawn dashed.

  4. Brothers and sisters, and their families

    Add siblings in birth order, then each one’s spouse and children. This is where a tree grows fast: a parent with four siblings is twenty people in a few minutes. An aunt, an uncle, a cousin once removed: all of them are just another card on the page. Cousins who married cousins are fine; the tree draws the person once and shows both relationships.

  5. No account needed to start. Your parents’ and grandparents’ names are enough.

    Start your tree

  6. Keep exactly what you know about dates

    “About 1940”, “between 1940 and 1945”, “14 March, year unknown”: a family tree should store the date the way the family remembers it, not force a guess. Write what you know; the card shows it the same way.

  7. Add photos

    One photo per card is enough to make the tree feel like your family. Phone photos of old prints work. On a family link, living relatives show with their names and birth year at most, never their photos, so adding a photo never exposes anyone.

  8. Share it where your family already is

    Send one family link to the WhatsApp group: anyone can look without an account, and relatives who find themselves can claim their card and add what they know. Or send a picture of a branch, which carries a code that opens the tree.

  9. Already have a tree somewhere else?

    Skip the typing: bring a GEDCOM file from Ancestry, MyHeritage or FamilySearch and the whole tree, every marriage included, is drawn at once. Photos don’t travel in GEDCOM files; add them afterwards. Not sure which app to use? See the free and paid family tree apps compared.

On paper, in Word, or online?

Paper or Word works for a small, finished snapshot: one family, a few generations, nothing left to add. Online is better when the family keeps changing, because a drawn tree is out of date the moment a cousin has a baby, and a family of a hundred does not fit on a page.

With Bargad you get both. Draw it online, then print it on A4 or A3, or save a picture or a PDF to send round. Big branches can print as a register, a list of the family that runs over several pages. It is free, private to the people you invite, and yours to download as a standard GEDCOM file at any time, so nothing is locked in.

For a school project, a tree of three generations from your own name is printed in a few minutes, or use the free printable family tree template, blank or filled in, and write it in by hand. Want to see a finished one first? Look at a famous family tree, such as the British royal family or the Mughals, then come back and start yours.