How to Print Your Family Tree: Home Decor with Significance

One of my favorite things that I have at home is my family fan chart.

To see this fan chart in full detail click here. 

Do you ever want to feel connected, cared for, watched over, or like you are a part of something meaningful, lasting and significant? This does that for me. This is my "team-family" and we are all in this together. Through it I feel connected to something more than just what is around me in the here and now; but more so, it gives me a sense of permanence, of belonging, of being loved, cared for and even cheered for by a "fan section" so to speak, on the other side of the veil. (Fan-chart, Fan-section. Haha...) I love how it visually reminds me that I am connected. It also helps me see clearly how I am related to each of them.

More than being organized and color coded, what greater visual is there of the eternal influence of relationships, marriage and family? When I look at this, I see men and women who chose one another, who love one another, who serve to and with one another. I see parents, I see children. I see the perpetuation of influence. I see family - in essence, influence: charity, love, sacrifice, forgiveness, character formation and so much more carried throughout years and beyond. No visual is a greater reminder to me of the lasting influence one man and one woman can have when they choose to create a family together. As Julie Beck said, "That is influence, that is power."

HOW TO MAKE THEM:
To create a family fan chart, simply go to treeseek.com and sign in with your familysearch.org username and password or your lds.org username and password if you have one of those. If you don't have a family search.org username and password go here to create one. If you are LDS and you don't have an lds.org username and password, click here to set one up. Once you've logged in click on the simply chart you would like to make.

First Name Word Cloud
Great for getting to know ancestors on a "first name basis" ;)

Here are some of the other great charts and word clouds treeseek generates and all of them are provided for free! BIG thanks to Treeseek for that.

Full Name Word Cloud

Last Name Word Cloud

4, 9 or 10 Generation Pedigree Charts

FamilySearch.org Fan Chart
This is where the info is generated from that TreeSeek.com uses to create the charts.
Family Search is the information hub and TreeSeek is the printing hub.

Potential Uses:
Home Decor: I love decorating with things that have significance. These are perfect for me in that regard.
Gift: One year I printed the Tree Seek fan chart poster sized for my siblings and my parents as a Christmas gifts - kind of like "the gift of family." Another great family gift idea is giving your immediate family members copies of your direct ancestors' Patriarchal Blessings. (I'll post directions on how to order those in a few days.)
Family Reunions: Another year at a family camp out, cousins, aunts and uncles drew the chart and tried to fill in as many names as they could from memory. It was a fun activity and a great way to bring a little "healthy competition" into the campout. :) *Disclaimer: Family history gurus will always take the trophy on this one, leaving youth in the dust, wanting to "up their game" and learn the names better for a possible rematch.

Whether it is home decor, something in your study journal or simply a screen saver on your computer, for me, having it around helps me see and remember some of the most important and longest lasting influences in my life, past, present and with the prediction of those to come sometime further in the future as well.

Go team-family,
Ali~

"And He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers."
Malachi 4:6