Have you scrapped a Family Tree?
 

Have you created and scrapbooked your family tree? That’s my next project and I need SO much help!

My older grandsons are my stepson’s stepsons. When we introduce them to extended family members, they want to understand how everyone connects. I’d like to create a big chart for them, but I’m not sure how to merge it all together.

I guess what I’m asking is, what’s the best way to represent a blended family in a family tree?

I have a huge blended family, too. Probably why I have never done anything like it, but it probably would help my husband who after 8 years still confuses my siblings and their families. lol

My dad and father-in-law both did the family trees, so I am so lucky in that regard. That being said, though, I'd have to look at how they represented stepchildren. All I know is that the line structure would be different with blended families, since stepchildren only have the one parent on the tree. Have you tried searching online for family trees?

I have, and it's a little like standing in front of a mountain as an avalanche comes down on your head.

My problem is I'm trying to represent the join of three or four trees, and there's not a good way to do it in a single chart. It looks like the solution most genealogists have come up with is to create an electronic chart that expands and contracts through hyperlinks. Great online, not so much in a printed scrapbook.

I was just hoping someone here had tackled this before. Oh well!

You may have to do a separate "tree" on several pages. Use color coding/photo on the first page to connect to the person on the next page and so on. So it may take several pages. In my mind this would be a lot like the electronic chart you mention with hyperlinks.

Yeah, it's not one layout but trying to get that much information on one layout would IMO be unreadable.

Even if the information was put into a genealogy program, the steps would not show on a report for the descendants of the root person. Believe me, my dad's family has lots of steps in the family (17 kids in his family). Between his siblings getting married/divorced and same with grandkids that bring children to a marriage, I gave up a long time ago trying to print reports that showed everyone! Over 50 years ago my mom typed up an outline type of list that we gave Grandma to remember birthdays. That was the only way we could show the steps in the family. I kept it up until about 20 years ago when family members quit giving me information no matter how many times I asked.

For scrapbooking, you could do it with colors and dashed or dotted lines and have a small key somewhere on the page. Put the person under their family member ie. Stepson under his father, but you connect to him with a different line or color and then put his stepson under him with a solid connection to the mom and a dashed line from him to the dad. It will be more lines, but it should clearly delineate the relationships. The only other way to do it is to have the first marriage on the same line with the husband with the dashed line and (div) over it, then put the kids under it. That is a good way to do it if you are passing it on to the kids, because it is more accurate and includes their "whole" family.