I love beautiful, informative charts. I love them even more when they are free! That lovely fan chart up there was created for free at TreeSeek.com, using information from FamilySearch.org.
In the center of that chart is Adeline Perrault, my 4th great grandmother straight up my maternal line. I wanted to look at my tree based on only her ancestry to see where my holes are and make some decisions about where I may choose to research next.
Now, if you are thinking to yourself that you don’t use FamilySearch so creating that lovely chart is not an option for you, guess what? TreeSeek has you covered. You can create a chart from a gedcom file. If you don’t use a genealogy software program, but you do use an online tree service such as the one found at Ancestry.com, you can download a gedcom file of your tree to use on TreeSeek.
Let’s take a quick tour of TreeSeek and the chart options you have. When you go to TreeSeek.com you will see a landing page like this:
Notice that in the center gray box you have two options: “Login now to create your chart” and “New! We now support creating charts with a GEDCOM file. Try now.” The login option will take you to a FamilySearch sign-in page.
Before we log-in, I want to point out that if you scroll down you will see some of the chart options available:
After clicking the log-in option I am taken to a FamilySearch sign-in page. If you are not a FamilySearch user, you will need to upload a gedcom file, your chart choices will be limited, but that beautiful 9 generation fan chart is available to you.
After logging in I am given some quick options. Under “Starting Person”, there is a drop-down menu that currently has my name, Amberly Beck, showing. The other options I have automatically are: my husband, children, and parents. I can also choose anyone I like based on their 7 character PID number in FamilySearch. I simply type that PID number into the empty box to the right of my name. After selecting the start person, I choose my chart.
Here is the complete list of chart types to choose from:
I can name my chart if I like and select whether I want to include the siblings of the start person on the chart. Once I have made my selections, I click the green “Create Chart” button.
Next, I will see this message as the chart is being created.
Once the chart is complete it appears in a window like this:
I can click the green “Download Chart” button to download this chart as a pdf. Once I have the file, I can save it as a jpeg if I like.
If you are not a FamilySearch user, you will click on the “New! We now support creating charts with a GEDCOM file. Try now.” button.
That will take you to this page:
You will click the white “Choose File” button and then select your gedcom file from your computer. After your file has uploaded, you will see this:
In the dropdown menu you will see a list of people in your gedcom file. They are organized generationally starting with you. I chose my great grandfather and a 9 Gen Fan, and then clicked “Create Chart”.
Again, my chart shows up and I have the option to download the pdf file of the chart.
Here are a few other cool charts I was able to make. These options are only available to FamilySearch users at present.
Mixed first names in a name cloud from FamilyTree on FamilySearch, using me as the starting person. This means this comes from my portion of the tree on FamilySearch. Remember, no one has their own tree on FamilySearch.
Female first names in a name cloud.
Male first names in a name cloud.
Surnames in a name cloud.
I think this chart is my favorite of all. It uses the profile photos I have selected for each person on FamilySearch. My parents are in the center with my brother and I beneath. I removed the names of anyone who is living, but those are also on the chart. I want to go in and update each person with the best photo of I have and create this chart again and frame it. It’s such a lovely visual for my children to really get to know our family tree. I also need to either remove my brother or add my other siblings. 😉
One last note, these charts print up beautifully in very large sizes. They can be printed at any copy store. If you live near BYU, the BYU Family History Library has a wonderful fan chart printing service available for anyone to use. You can print a full color 24×18 poster print for $3.50 or a full color 24×36 poster print for $7.00. They are printed on a high quality, thick paper.
Have you used TreeSeek to create any charts? Do you have another favorite service for creating charts?
Happy Wednesday, I hope you make a fantastic genealogy discovery today!
I really love the wordcloud. I use it to show the name changes from one year of research to another. Nice goodies which lighten up the genealogy a bit 🙂
What a great idea Barbara! Mine would show interesting changes that would make me look far more French than I am. I’m mostly British, but their records aren’t nearly as good as the records in Québec so the Québec portions of my tree grow the most while my English portions just barely make progress.
Have a look at my blog http://www.connectingtheworlds.de and search for namecloud. I think it is time to do it again 🙂
I will!
Awesome. I love the wordcloud too; I created one ages ago (manually, while my tree was smaller) but knowing there are tools to make it easier makes it so much more attractive to do again.
Thank you Su. 🙂
This is really really gorgeous. It does look like it would take a lot more time than I could ever carve out. Do you have an estimate on how much time it takes so I know if I am right about that? Not to put you on the spot–if you can’t or don’t want to answer, don’t feel obliged!
Thank you Luanne!
Well, it depends on what it is you want to create. The fan charts take just a few minutes – download gedcom, upload gedcom, select chart, click create. For me, I experienced very little wait time based on my internet speed and computer. So I would say, if you know how to do each of those steps already, 5-10 minutes tops.
The picture pedigree is a lot more work. Because I use FamilySearch and have uploaded photos over time, I have no way to estimate the total time spent. That chart in particular relies on FamilySearch photos as the basis for the photographs being plugged into the chart.
Does that answer your question? Feel free to ask more questions. I’m an open book. 😉
This is very helpful! I can’t do anything right now, but I hope to remember this later. Maybe I need to save your post into my to do folder.
🙂
These are very pretty! But can you read them? I am always looking for a chart that will show how non-direct ancestors are related to me or to others. The relationship chart on Family Tree Maker is okay, but it is fairly limited in its scope and not very attractive.
Yes, you can read them but they don’t show relationships with anyone but direct line ancestors. I wonder if you could create a simple template in a word program and then use that for yourself?
Um, no! My computer skills are quite limited. I am good at the researching, but not the technology!
🙂 Maybe I will make you a template. Do you use google docs at all? Or have a google email account?
I have gmail and I have used Google Docs. See—I am not that much of a Luddite!
Okay! I’m going to see if I can figure out how to make a user friendly template. 🙂
Thanks! And good luck!!
🙂
Amberly,
I want to let you know that your blog post is listed in today’s Genealogy Fab Finds post at http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2017/05/janas-genealogy-fab-finds-for-may-19.html
Have a great weekend!
Thank you Jana!
Most comprehension post that will help attempting to make these charts.
Thank you Fran, and thanks for stopping by. 🙂