Help:Family trees

This help page is a how-to guide. It explains concepts or processes used by the Wikipedia community. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus.

Shortcut H:FT

This page aims to assist Wikipedians working with biographical articles containing family trees.

The most common way is to display a family tree on Wikipedia is as an ahnentafel by Template: Ahnentafel. However, there are other options.

This page originated in examples taken from a discussion on the Village pump in March/April 2005 (see Talk page). It has since been updated to use later created templates.

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. William, Prince of Wales (born 21 June 1982)
2. Charles III (born 14 November 1948)
3. Diana, Princess of Wales née Lady Diana Spencer (1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997)
4. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (10 June 1921 – 9 April 2021)
5. Elizabeth II (21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022)
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. ...

Ahnentafels can be displayed as horizontal trees using Template:Ahnentafel:

{{ahnentafel
|collapsed=yes |align=center
|title=Ancestry of William, Prince of Wales
|boxstyle_1=background-color: #fcc;
|boxstyle_2=background-color: #fb9;
|boxstyle_3=background-color: #ffc;
|boxstyle_4=background-color: #bfc;
|1. '''[[William, Prince of Wales]]'''
|2. [[Charles III|Charles III of the United Kingdom]]
|3. [[Diana, Princess of Wales|Lady Diana Spencer]]
|4. [[Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh|Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark]]
|5. [[Elizabeth II|Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom]]
|6. [[John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer]]
|7. [[Frances Shand Kydd|The Honourable Frances Roche]]
|8. [[Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark]]
|9. [[Princess Alice of Battenberg]]
|10. [[George VI|George VI of the United Kingdom]]
|11. [[Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother|Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon]]
|12. [[Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer]]
|13. [[Cynthia Spencer, Countess Spencer|Lady Cynthia Hamilton]]
|14. [[Maurice Roche, 4th Baron Fermoy]]
|15. [[Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy|Ruth Gill]]
}}

Ancestry trees are usually displayed collapsed; to display them expanded add the parameter: |collapsed=no to {{ahnentafel}}

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

{{Chart top|My family tree}}
{{Tree chart/start|align=center}}
{{Tree chart| | | | GRM |~|y|~| GRP | | GRM=Grandma|GRP=Grandpa}}
{{Tree chart| | | | | | | |)|-|-|-|.| }}
{{Tree chart| | | MUM |y| DAD | |DAISY| MUM=Mum|DAD=Dad|DAISY=Aunt Daisy}}
{{Tree chart| |,|-|-|-|+|-|-|-|.| | | }}
{{Tree chart| JOE | | ME | | SIS | | | JOE=My brother Joe|ME='''Me!'''|SIS=My little sister
       |boxstyle_ ME=background-color: #bfc;}}
{{Tree chart/end}}
{{chart bottom}}

{{Tree chart}} can also be used to create a Continental European style bottom to top layout for an Ahnentafel tree, or just as easily a top down (not shown)

{{Chart top|width=100%|European style family tree bottom to top (William, Prince of Wales)}}
{{Tree chart/start|align=center}}
{{Tree chart| |boxstyle=background-color: #bfc|Ah8|v|Ah9| |Ah10|v|Ah11| | |  |Ah12|v|Ah13| | |Ah14|v|Ah15|
  |Ah8=8. [[Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark]] |Ah9=9. [[Princess Alice of Battenberg]]
  |Ah10=10. [[George VI|George VI of the United Kingdom]] |Ah11=11. [[Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother|Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon]]
  |Ah12=12. [[Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer]]  |Ah13=13. [[Cynthia Spencer, Countess Spencer|Lady Cynthia Hamilton]]
  |Ah14=14. [[Maurice Roche, 4th Baron Fermoy]]  |Ah15=15. [[Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy|Ruth Gill]]}}
| | | | |!| | | | | | | |!| | | | | | | | | |!| | | | | | | | |!}}
{{Tree chart|boxstyle=background-color: #ffc;| | | |Ah4|-|-|v|-|-|Ah5| | | | | |  | |Ah6|-|-|-|v|-|-|Ah7 
  |Ah4=4. [[Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh|Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark]] |Ah5=5. [[Elizabeth II|Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom]] 
  |Ah6=6. [[John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer]]  |Ah7=7. [[Frances Shand Kydd|The Honourable Frances Roche]]
  }}
{{Tree chart| | | | | | | | |!| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |!}}
{{Tree chart|boxstyle=background-color: #fb9;| | | | | | | |Ah2|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|Ah3
  |Ah2=2. [[Charles III|Charles III of the United Kingdom]]|Ah3=3. [[Diana, Princess of Wales|Lady Diana Spencer]]}}
{{Tree chart| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |!}}
{{Tree chart|boxstyle=background-color: #fcc;| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Ah1  |Ah1=1.'''[[William, Prince of Wales]]'''}}
{{Tree chart/end}}
{{Chart bottom}}

Note: any letter number combination that is not reserved as a tile descriptor in {{Tree chart}} can be used. In this example Ah1...Ah15 is short for Ahnentafel1...Ahnentafel15

Trees using {{Tree chart}} are usually displayed collapsed to alter that so they display expanded add the parameter: |collapsed=no to {{Chart top}}

A similar use of {{Tree chart}} can be used to construct a top down tree, but there is a template ({{Ahnentafel-chart}}) that can be used to display bottom-up or top-down family trees using {{Tree chart}} that is simpler to construct:

{{Chart top|width=100%|European style family tree bottom to top (William, Prince of Wales)}}
{{Ahnentafel-chart|top_down=1
 |1=1. [[William, Prince of Wales]]
 |2=2. [[Charles III|Charles III of the United Kingdom]]
 |3=3. [[Diana, Princess of Wales|Lady Diana Spencer]]
 |4=4. [[Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh|Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark]]
 |5=5. [[Elizabeth II|Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom]]  
 |6=6. [[John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer]]
 |7=7. [[Frances Shand Kydd|The Honourable Frances Roche]]
 |8=8. [[Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark]]
 |9=9. [[Princess Alice of Battenberg]]
 |10=10. [[George VI|George VI of the United Kingdom]]
 |11=11. [[Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother|Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon]]
 |12=12. [[Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer]]
 |13=13. [[Cynthia Spencer, Countess Spencer|Lady Cynthia Hamilton]]
 |14=14. [[Maurice Roche, 4th Baron Fermoy]]  
 |15=15. [[Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy|Ruth Gill]]
}}
{{Chart bottom}}

For documentation and more examples see the documentation for {{Ahnentafel-chart}}.

Each branch of the tree is built using nested lists:

{{hidden begin|border=1px  #aaa solid|title=Demonstration tree|ta1=center}}
{{Tree list}}
* A first level branch
** A second level branch
*** A third level branch
*** Another third level branch
** Another second level branch
{{Tree list/end}}
{{Hidden end}}

which produces

For an example see the following template link {{Houston family tree}}. For more details on this method see the following template link {{Tree list}}. The templates examples include "Descendants of Herny VII of England" and "Ancestry of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge".

Trees using {{Tree list}} are usually displayed collapsed to alter that so they display expanded add the parameter: |expanded=true to {{hidden begin}}

The template {{ahnentafel-tree}} uses {{Tree list}} and will handle up to an ahnentafel of 511 places (9 generations), but will also display as little as one generation.

{{Ahnentafel-tree
|title=Parents of subject
|1=''subject''
|2=''father''
|3=''mother''
}}

Main Help:Table

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:

To fully understand how it works, this is the same table with all table borders:

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

Although this method was common on Wikipedia in the past, ASCII trees are deprecated for two reasons. Large fix-width ASCII templates can cause formating problems on small screens. Secondly because the tables rely on fixed width fonts, their alignment is easily broken by inexperienced editors removing some of the leading spaces, or by characters having different widths. For example in the second tree above although it uses characters in the same place as those in the first one in this section, and there are slight misalignments because the charter widths of "=" and "─" are slightly different.

When this section was originally written an example in article space provided: Family tree of the Greek gods. The last ASCII version of that table had problems with alignment (see Revision of 19 December 2006). It was replaced with one based on the familytree templates (the forerunner of {{chart}} templates) on 31 December 2006.

If you wish to add a family tree to an article but only feel that you could do so using an ASCII layout then add it using ASCII. However it you add one, or come across an ASCII table in an article that has not been converted, then please ask for help at the Help desk for an editor to help you convert it to one of the alternative formats presented on this page.

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).

A major disadvantage of this method is that if the initial image does not meet the requirements of the Verifiability Policy it can be extremely difficult to add the necessary in-line citations to meet those requirements. This means that the whole tree may be removed and under the Verifiability Policy can not be restored to an article unless it meets the requirements of the policy (see Responsibility for providing citations).

Category:Genealogy templates

See:

• List of family trees
• Category:Family trees

• Wikipedia:Graphs and charts
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy