Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

In praise of the family fan chart

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Ancestry has added a fan chart as a way to view your pedigree and navigate to direct-line ancestors in your tree. It’s in Beta now and when I checked it out, I really liked what I saw.

In my opinion, the fan chart is so much cleaner and less cluttered than the pedigree charts (horizontal or vertical) offered by Ancestry. (It doesn’t offer green leaves or Thrulines alerts however.) I can click on any ancestor in the chart and be taken to that ancestor’s Ancestry profile.

As an illustration, I’ll share my family chart on Ancestry, from me through my second great grandparents.

Here’s the fan chart:

And here’s the vertical pedigree chart, which had been my preference.

I love how fan charts provide an attractive and easy-to-understand progress of generations. The family-tree software I use on my Mac, Reunion, offers a fan chart too, but it’s not clickable like the Ancestry chart. Here’s what my Reunion fan chart looks like:

I’d be willing to bet that your family-tree software offers a fan chart. In my opinion, it’s worth looking for!

It just occurred to me to see whether Family Search has a fan-chart view and it does! I simply logged in and clicked Tree and there it was. Each ancestor is clickable and you can put a person in the middle of the fan chart by hovering over their section and clicking the fan icon. (I have not connected my husband on the Family Search family tree and rather than ignore that, it looks like Family Search included a blank grid for my husband and our non-existent children.)

Here’s what my Family Search fan chart looks like.

This is getting repetitive, so I’ll stop. I just wanted to take a moment to express my appreciation for fan charts!

Early Bird registration for RootsTech 2024 is open!

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Next year’s RootsTech will be held in Salt Lake City, Utah, February 29 to March 2, 2024. As in the past few years, the conference is also being offered virtually.

That’s five months away, but registration has just opened for both versions of the conference.

As in the past, the virtual conference is free, but you do have to register. Why not register now? Then it will be on your calendar and you can plan around it.

If you’re up for traveling to Salt Lake City, registration is also open for the in-person conference. And right now it’s at an early-bird rate: $99 for a three-day pass and $69 for a one day pass. (I’m not sure what the rate will be going up to.) I’m always amazed and impressed at how inexpensive genealogy conferences tend to be. My professional organization charges $750 to register for its three-day conference!

Why pay $99 plus travel when you can watch from the comfort of your home? I can think of a half dozen reasons off the top of my head:

  • 250+ sessions are offered only in Salt Lake City (though there are 200+ new online sessions).
  • The Expo Hall allows you to learn about genealogy products and services and meet those offering them.
  • You get to really focus on genealogy, rather than trying to wedge it into your day (watching at home is very distracting).
  • You have the opportunity to make friends with other genealogists.
  • You can go to the Family History Library and do your own research!

If you have the budget for it, I encourage you to give attending in person some serious consideration. I attended in 2014, 2016, 2017 (I was a speaker!), 2018, and 2020. (I was a speaker again in 2020…about two weeks later the world shut down). I obviously love this conference, since I keep going back. I’m not planning to go next year, because my priorities have shifted. But I’m sure it will be a terrific conference.

September 30 x 30 mid-month check in

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It’s already September 18, so we’re more than half-way through the September 30 x 30 challenge, in which folks committed to their version of doing 30 minutes of genealogy research every day for 30 days. How’s it going? Please let us know in the comments.

As I said in the post establishing this month’s challenge, I’m not focusing on genealogy research as much right now. So my goal for this challenge was simply to do something (anything) around genealogy research every day this month. I haven’t fully succeeded–some days went by where I did not touch my genealogy. But I can tell you this: So far this month I’ve done more genealogy work than I would have if this challenge weren’t going on. So I’m really grateful for that.

How about you? If you’re participating in the challenge, how’s it going?

If you’re not participating but you’re intrigued, feel free to jump in right now and have a 13 x 30 challenge. I’ll post again on the last day of the month so everyone can report on how they did.

Genea-fiction recommendation: Ellie McClellan Genealogy Mysteries

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I just finished reading the fourth Ellie McClellan Genealogy Mystery, Family Crimes, by Beth Farrar. Way back in 2014, I wrote a post about how I had just discovered genea-fiction and requested recommendations. I’ve read many since and I’m especially enjoying this series. Ellie McClellan is a professional genealogist living in Canada who leads a weekly group of senior citizens in learning how to tell their family stories. It’s sweet and cozy and the characters are so likeable. I love that so many of the characters are older. I love the attention to detail. And I love that author Beth Farrar sneaks in lots of genealogy tips!

I learned about the Ellie McClellan Genealogy Mysteries in the Genealogical Crime Mystery Book Club Facebook group, of which Beth Farrar is a member. I subscribe to Kindle Unlimited (it has an $11.99 a month fee) and I can read the Kindle version of these books at no additional charge. They’re also available for purchase in hardback or paperback versions.

If you like genea-fiction and you’re not a member of the Genealogy Crime Mystery Book Club, I encourage you to join if you’re on Facebook. And if  you’re a genea-fiction fan and you haven’t read this series yet, I encourage you to give it a try. I can’t wait for the next one to come out!