Interesting Facts About The Family Tree

A family tree is generaly a chart that visually represents family relationships, and is designed in a conventional tree structure. A family tree is also called a geneaology chart. Family trees are often made in such a way that the oldest generations are located at the top, while the younger or newer generations are located at the bottom. 

There are different family tree designs, from ancestry chart to descendancy charts, and more. In an ancestry chart, the person appears on the left side, whil his ancestors are placed on the right. In a descendancy chart, a person’s descendants are all depicted narrowly on the top. Here are other equally interesting facts about the family tree.    

Different Family Tree Themes

There are different type of family tree themes, from Pedigree, Direct Lineage to ascendancy family charts. One type of tree will include all the descendants of a single living person, while others will include all the members of a specific surname. Some family trees for example, will include family members who hold certain positions or titles, such as the descendants of the Spanish Royal family, or the German kings, or members of British royalty and others.   

Where The Image of The Family Tree Originated

The first family tree design was thought to have originated with a medival art that depicted the Tree of Jesse, or the illustrated the geneaology of Jesus Christ, as revealed in a prophecy made by by Isaiah. The othe rnotable family tree illustrations depicted Boccaccio’s Geneaologia Deorum Gentilum, or the “Geneaology of the Gods of the Gentiles, which dates back to 1360.

The Confucius Family Tree – The World’s Longest Family Tree

According to geneaology experts and researchers, the family of famed Chinese philosopher Confucius (551 – 479 BC) is considered to be the longest family tree in the world. Confucius was a descendant of the great King Tang, of the Tang dynasty, and his family tree spans more than eighty generations. It also includes more than two million members. In 1998, a global undertaking was initiated to retrace, as well as revise, this very famous family tree.  

If you wish to start tracing your family’s geneaology, you can start by developing a simple family tree chart. The problem with first-time geneaologists is that they often get excited about the whole thing, and they usually end up losing track of what the’re actually looking for. Althugh a first-time geneaology researcher may find interesting facts or tidbits, they may get frustrated if don’t find the ancestors they were hoping to look for  in the allotted time frame. Always remember to keep track of all the data you collected for your family tree, from the names, dates, places and related data, so that you’ll be less confused with the search for family members.   
