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Family tree
A family tree, also called a genealogy or a pedigree chart, is a
chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree
structure. More detailed family trees, used in medicine and social
work, are known as genograms.

Representations of family history

Example of a family tree. Reading
Genealogical data can be represented in several formats, for left to right Lucas Grey is the father
example, as a pedigree or ancestry chart. Family trees are often of three children, the grandfather of
presented with the oldest generations at the top of the tree and the five grandchildren and the great-
younger generations at the bottom. An ancestry chart, which is a grandfather of three siblings Joseph,
John and Laura Wetter.
tree showing the ancestors of an individual and not all members of
a family, will more closely resemble a tree in shape, being wider at
the top than at the bottom. In some ancestry charts, an individual
appears on the left and his or her ancestors appear to the right.
Conversely, a descendant chart, which depicts all the descendants
of an individual, will be narrowest at the top. Beyond these
formats, some family trees might include all members of a
particular surname (e.g., male-line descendants). Yet another
approach is to include all holders of a certain office, such as the
Kings of Germany, which represents the reliance on marriage to
link dynasties together.

The passage of time can also be included to illustrate ancestry and Family tree showing the relationship
of each person to the orange
descent. A time scale is often used, expanding radially across the
person, including cousins and gene
center, divided into decades. Children of the parent form branches share
around the center and their names are plotted in their birth year
on the time scale. Spouses' names join children's names and
nuclear families of parents and children branch off to grandchildren, and so on. Great-grandparents
are often in the center to portray four or five generations, which reflect the natural growth pattern of a
tree as seen from the top but sometimes there can be great great grandparents or more. In a
descendant tree, living relatives are common on the outer branches and contemporary cousins appear
adjacent to each other. Privacy should be considered when preparing a living family tree.

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The image of the tree probably originated with that of the Tree of
Jesse in medieval art,[2] used to illustrate the Genealogy of Christ
in terms of a prophecy of Isaiah (Isaiah 11:1). Possibly the first
non-biblical use, and the first to show full family relationships
rather than a purely patrilineal scheme, was that involving family
trees of the classical gods in Boccaccio's Genealogia Deorum
Gentilium ("On the Genealogy of the Gods of the Gentiles"), whose
first version dates to 1360.[3]

Common formats
In addition to familiar representations of family history and
genealogy as a tree structure, there are other notable systems used
to illustrate and document ancestry and descent.
Three generations of ancestors

Ahnentafel (born from 1824 to 1916)[1] placed

on a Swedish kurbits tree
An Ahnentafel (German for "ancestor table") is a genealogical
numbering system for listing a person's direct ancestors in a fixed
sequence of ascent:

1. Subject (or proband)

2. Father
3. Mother
4. Paternal grandfather
5. Paternal grandmother
6. Maternal grandfather
7. Maternal grandmother An ahnentafel family tree displaying
an ancestor chart of Sigmund
and so on, back through the generations. Apart from the subject or
Christoph, Graf von Zeil und
proband, who can be male or female, all even-numbered persons
Trauchburg
are male, and all odd-numbered persons are female. In this
scheme, the number of any person's father is double the person's
number, and a person's mother is double the person's number plus one. This system can also be
displayed as a tree:

4. Paternal grandfather
2. Father
5. Paternal grandmother
1 Subject (or proband)
6. Maternal grandfather
3. Mother
7. Maternal grandmother

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Fan chart
A fan chart features a half circle chart with concentric rings: the
subject is the inner circle, the second circle is divided in two (each
side is one parent), the third circle is divided in four, and so forth.
Fan charts depict paternal and maternal ancestors.
An ahnentafel family tree, showing
three generations of the Kennedy
family
Graph theory
While family trees are depicted as trees, family relations do not in
general form a tree in the strict sense used in graph theory, since
distant relatives can mate. Therefore, a person can have a common
ancestor on both their mother's and father's side. However,
because a parent must be born before their child, an individual
cannot be their own ancestor, and thus there are no loops. In this
regard, ancestry forms a directed acyclic graph. Nevertheless,
graphs depicting matrilineal descent (mother-daughter
Screenshot of Gramps (v. 5.0.1)
relationships) and patrilineal descent (father-son relationships) do displaying a fan chart and the given
form trees. Assuming no common ancestor, an ancestry chart is a name cloud gramplet on the bottom
perfect binary tree, as each person has exactly one mother and one
father; these thus have a regular structure. A Descendant chart, on
the other hand, does not, in general, have a regular structure, as a person can have any number of
children or none at all.

Notable examples
Family trees have been used to document
family histories across time and cultures
throughout the world.

Africa
In Africa, the ruling dynasty of Ethiopia
claimed descent from King Solomon via the
Queen of Sheba. Through this claim, the
family traced their descent back to the House
of David. Family trees are an age-old phenomenon. This example
dates from the sixteenth century.[4]
The genealogy of Ancient Egyptian ruling
dynasties was recorded from the beginnings of
the Pharaonic era c. 3000 BC to the end of the Ptolomaic Kingdom; although this is not a record of
one continuously-linked family lineage, and surviving records are incomplete.

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Elsewhere in Africa, oral traditions of genealogical recording predominate. Members of the Keita
dynasty of Mali, for example, have had their pedigrees sung by griots during annual ceremonies since
the 14th century. Meanwhile, in Nigeria, many ruling clans—most notably those descended from
Oduduwa—claim descent from the legendary King Kisra. Here too, pedigrees are recited by griots
attached to the royal courts.[5]

The Americas
In some pre-contact Native American civilizations, genealogical records of ruling and priestly families
were kept, some of which extended over several centuries or longer.

East Asia
There are extensive genealogies for the ruling dynasties of China, but these do not form a single,
unified family tree. Additionally, it is unclear at which point(s) the most ancient historical figures
named become mythological.

In Japan, the ancestry of the Imperial Family is traced back to the mythological origins of Japan. The
connection to persons from the established historical record only begins in the mid-first millennium
AD.

The longest family tree in the world is that of the Chinese philosopher and educator Confucius (551–
479 BC), who is descended from King Tang (1675–1646 BC). The tree spans more than 80 generations
from him and includes more than 2 million members. An international effort involving more than 450
branches around the world was started in 1998 to retrace and revise this family tree. A new edition of
the Confucius genealogy was printed in September 2009 by the Confucius Genealogy Compilation
Committee, to coincide with the 2560th anniversary of the birth of the Chinese thinker. This latest
edition was expected to include some 1.3 million living members who are scattered around the world
today.[6]

Europe and West Asia

Before the Dark Ages, in the Greco-Roman world, some reliable pedigrees dated back perhaps at least
as far as the first half of the first millennium BC; with claimed or mythological origins reaching back
further. Roman clan and family lineages played an important part in the structure of their society and
were the basis of their intricate system of personal names. However, there was a break in the
continuity of record-keeping at the end of Classical Antiquity. Records of the lines of succession of the
Popes and the Eastern Roman Emperors through this transitional period have survived, but these are
not continuous genealogical histories of single families. Refer to descent from antiquity.

Many noble and aristocratic families of European and West Asian origin can reliably trace their
ancestry back as far as the mid to late first millennium AD; some claiming undocumented descent
from Classical Antiquity or mythological ancestors. In Europe, for example, the pedigree of Niall
Noígíallach would be a contender for the longest, through Conn of the Hundred Battles (fl. 123 AD); in
the legendary history of Ireland, he is further descended from Breogán, and ultimately from Adam,
through the sons of Noah.

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Another very old and extensive tree is that of the Lurie lineage—which includes Sigmund Freud and
Martin Buber—and traces back to Lurie, a 13th-century rabbi in Brest-Litovsk, and from there to
Rashi and purportedly back to the legendary King David, as documented by Neil Rosenstein in his
book The Lurie Legacy.[7] The 1999 edition of the Guinness Book of Records recorded the Lurie
family in the "longest lineage" category as one of the oldest-known living families in the world
today.[8]

Family trees and representations of lineages are also important in religious traditions. The biblical
genealogies of Jesus also claim descent from the House of David, covering a period of approximately
1000 years. In the Torah and Old Testament, genealogies are provided for many biblical persons,
including a record of the descendants of Adam. Also according to the Torah, the Kohanim are
descended from Aaron. Genetic testing performed at the Technion has shown that most modern
Kohanim share common Y-chromosome origins, although there is no complete family tree of the
Kohanim. In the Islamic world, claimed descent from Muhammad greatly enhanced the status of
political and religious leaders; new dynasties often used claims of such descent to help establish their
legitimacy.

Elsewhere
Elsewhere, in many human cultures, clan and tribal associations are based on claims of common
ancestry, although detailed documentation of those origins is often very limited.

Global
Forms of family trees are also used in genetic genealogy. In 2022, scientists reported the largest
detailed human genetic genealogy, that unifies human genomes from many sources for insights about
human history, ancestry and evolution and demonstrates a novel computational method for
estimating how human DNA is related via a series of 13 million linked trees along the genome, a tree-
sequence, which has been described as the largest "human family tree".[9][10][11]

Other uses
The author Pete Frame is notable for having produced "family trees" of rock bands. In this instance,
the entries represent a membership of certain groups, and personnel changes within them, rather
than family relationships. Several books have been produced with his family trees,[12] which in turn
have led to a BBC television series about them, including interviews from the bands depicted in the
trees.[13]

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Another common use is in the creation of episcopal trees in Christian traditions that believe in
apostolic succession. In this case, the connection is not made through blood, but through the order of
succession of bishops.

See also
GEDCOM
Genealogical numbering systems
Genealogy software
Genogram
List of family trees
Pedigree chart
Tree of life (biology)
WikiTree

References
1. GRENSTAM (http://libris.kb.se/bib/r4m4g4jcplrlwbc9) pp. 490-491
2. Simon Julian Gilmour (2000) Daz Sint Noch Ungelogeniu Wort: A Literary and Linguistic
Commentary on the Gurnemanz Episode in Book III of Wolfram's Parzival. Universitätsverlag
Winter, 2000. p.64
3. Boccaccio, Giovanni (14 October 2020). The decameron (http://worldcat.org/oclc/1155486357). W.
W. Norton, Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-393-42788-2. OCLC 1155486357 (https://www.worldcat.org/
oclc/1155486357).
4. "Stambomen van de families de Cordes, de Langhe, Bouckaert, Berquyn en Steelant
[manuscript]" (https://lib.ugent.be/viewer/archive.ugent.be:91DB5610-F70D-11DF-AECD-543B9B
E017E0#?c=&m=&s=&cv=23&xywh=-5,0,7683,4289). lib.ugent.be. Retrieved 2020-08-27.
5. "What Is A Griot And Why Are They Important" (https://theculturetrip.com/africa/mali/articles/what-i
s-a-griot-and-why-are-they-important/). theculturetrip.com. 24 May 2018.
6. Confucius family tree has two million members (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-02/16/co
ntent_6460522.htm) from China Daily, unknown date, updated February 16, 2008
7. Neil Rosenstein, Ranan R. Lurie. The Lurie Legacy: The House of Davidic Royal Descent.
ISBN 978-1-886223-17-2.
8. Bill Gladstone (October 24, 2004). "The oldest family in the world" (http://www.jta.org/2004/10/24/li
fe-religion/features/the-oldest-family-in-the-world). JTA.
9. Guy, Jack. "DNA reveals biggest-ever human family tree, dating back 100,000 years" (https://editi
on.cnn.com/2022/02/24/world/unified-human-genome-scli-intl-scn-gbr/index.html). CNN.
Retrieved 10 March 2022.
10. Wong, Yan; Wohns, Anthony Wilder. "We're analysing DNA from ancient and modern humans to
create a 'family tree of everyone' " (https://phys.org/news/2022-02-analysing-dna-ancient-modern-
humans.html). Retrieved 21 March 2022.

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11. Wohns, Anthony Wilder; Wong, Yan; Jeffery, Ben; Akbari, Ali; Mallick, Swapan; Pinhasi, Ron;
Patterson, Nick; Reich, David; Kelleher, Jerome; McVean, Gil (25 February 2022). "A unified
genealogy of modern and ancient genomes" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1002
7547). Science. 375 (6583): eabi8264. bioRxiv 10.1101/2021.02.16.431497v2 (https://doi.org/10.1
101%2F2021.02.16.431497v2). doi:10.1126/science.abi8264 (https://doi.org/10.1126%2Fscience.
abi8264). ISSN 0036-8075 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0036-8075). PMC 10027547 (https://ww
w.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10027547). PMID 35201891 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go
v/35201891). S2CID 247106458 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:247106458).
12. Amazon – Even More Rock Family trees. ASIN 1844490076 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/18444
90076).
13. "BBC Four : Rock Family Trees" (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0070y2d). Retrieved
20 September 2012.

External links
Media related to Family trees at Wikimedia Commons

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