Wikipedia: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.

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

Ancestry chart (left to right)

This is how ancestry charts are often displayed in the U.S., using {{Ahnentafel4}}:

									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 Reuss of Ebersdorf
						Countess Augusta Reuss of 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 (1756–1808)
									Frederick Francis I, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg
						Duchess Louise Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
									Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1800–1831)

Ancestry chart (bottom to top)

In 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

A family tree can also be displayed using tables, by showing borders on selected cells (note that this does not work properly on all browsers).

This is a family tree using 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 fully understand how it works, this is the same table with 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

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

Template

Template:Chart can be used to construct simple (or incredibly complex: see Japanese imperial family tree) table-based family trees using an ASCII art-like syntax:

Grandma

Grandpa

Mum

Dad

Aunt Daisy

My brother Joe

Me!

My little sister

Note: Template:Familytree has been deprecated in favor of Template:Chart, which has more features.

Other templates

Category:Genealogy templates

Family trees on Wikipedia

See:

• List of family trees
• Category:Family trees

See also

• Wikipedia:Graphs and charts