How to make a family tree for a school project

A family tree for a school project usually needs three generations: the child, their parents, and all four grandparents, with the child's siblings and the parents' siblings added where there is room. Collect names, relationships and one fact per person from the family, choose a tree or chart layout, and write the relationship beside every name. The whole thing takes one evening of asking questions and one evening of drawing.

This guide is for Indian parents and students in class 2 to 8. It covers what teachers normally expect, a five-step method, a sample layout, ways to make the project personal, the mistakes we see most often, and how to keep the tree alive after it has been marked.

What does a school family tree project usually ask for?

The wording changes from school to school, but the task is nearly always one of these:

• Class 2 to 4: "Draw your family tree" or "My family" chart. Usually parents, siblings and grandparents, with pictures or drawings. The aim is to learn relationship words.
• Class 5 to 6: A three-generation family tree chart with names and relationships, sometimes with a short paragraph about one family member.
• Class 7 to 8: A family tree with dates, places and occupations, often as part of a social science or language project (a "family tree in Hindi project" is common here).

Read the instruction sheet twice before starting. Check three things: how many generations, whether photos are required, and whether it should be on chart paper, A4 or a notebook page.

How do you make a family tree in 5 steps?

Step 1: Decide who to include

Start with the child and work upwards. The minimum set is the child, siblings, both parents and all four grandparents. If the project asks for extended family, add the parents' siblings (chacha, bua, mama, mausi) and their children (the cousins). Leave out great-grandparents unless the sheet asks for four generations.

Step 2: Fix the number of generations

Three is the usual answer. Each generation is one row. Grandparents on top, parents in the middle, the child and siblings at the bottom. If the family is large, three generations with aunts and uncles can easily reach 20 people, so decide early whether cousins are in or out.

Step 3: Collect names, dates and photos from grandparents

This is the step that makes the project worth doing. Sit with a grandparent, or call them, and ask:

• Full names of their parents and siblings (the child's great-grandparents and grand-uncles, even if they do not go on the chart).
• The native place: village, town or city.
• Year of birth, and year of marriage if they remember it.
• What they did for a living.
• One small story: how they came to the city, a festival they remember, a recipe only they make.

Write everything in a notebook, or type it into the family tree on FamRoot as you go, so nothing is lost between the call and the chart paper. Ask for photos at the same time. A phone photo of an old print is fine.

Step 4: Choose a layout

Three layouts cover almost every project:

Draw in pencil first. Count the boxes in each row before inking, and leave the widest row (usually the parents' siblings) the most space.

Step 5: Write beside each person

Each box needs three things: the name, the relationship to the child, and one line. The one line is what turns a chart into a story. Keep it short: "Born in Kumbakonam, 1952. Taught mathematics." is enough.

What should you write beside each person?

Use this pattern for every box, in the same order so the chart looks consistent:

1. Name as the family uses it, with the full name below if different (Paati, then "Lakshmi Ammal").
2. Relationship to the child in English, with the Hindi or home-language word beside it if the project allows: "Grandfather (Dada)".
3. One line: native place, year of birth, occupation, or something they are known for.

A note on Hindi. For a family tree in Hindi, or a project where the teacher wants relationship names, these common words cover most charts: dada and dadi (father's parents), nana and nani (mother's parents), chacha (father's younger brother), bua (father's sister), mama (mother's brother) and mausi (mother's sister). They can be written in Devanagari or in Roman letters beside the English names. Keep to these common words; the chart is for the class, not a linguistics exam.

What does a sample 3-generation family tree look like?

Here is a layout described for a child called Aarav, in text and as a simple table. The top row is grandparents, the middle row is parents and their siblings, the bottom row is Aarav and his sister.

On chart paper, draw a line from each married couple down to their children. Vikram and Neha's line comes down to Aarav and Ira. Chacha, Bua, Mama and Mausi hang from their own parents' line, beside Vikram and Neha. If cousins are included, they go in the bottom row under their parents.

How do you make the project personal?

Teachers see dozens of charts. The ones they remember have something only that family could have written. Try one of these:

• Native place map. A small hand-drawn map of India with a dot for each grandparent's native place, and a line to the city where the child lives now.
• A family recipe. One short recipe from a grandparent in a box at the corner, with the name of the person who makes it best.
• A story from grandparents. Three or four sentences, in their words, about something they remember: the first train journey, the house they grew up in, how the parents met.
• A family word. A nickname or phrase everyone in the family uses, and where it came from.
• Languages. Which languages each generation speaks at home. Many Indian families go from one language to three in three rows.

What are the common mistakes?

• Mixing up the rows. An uncle placed in the grandparents' row because he is old. Rows are generations, not ages.
• Forgetting the spouse line. Grandparents drawn as four separate boxes with no sign of who is married to whom.
• Nicknames without full names. "Paati" alone is fine in the box, but add the full name below, because the teacher does not know her.
• Running out of space. The widest row needs the most room. Count boxes before drawing.
• Only one side of the family. Both sides, equally. Nana and Nani deserve the same space as Dada and Dadi.
• Guessing dates. If nobody remembers, write "about 1950" rather than inventing a precise year.

What happens to the family tree after the project?

Most school family trees are submitted, marked and lost. That is a pity, because the evening spent with grandparents is often the first time a child has heard those names and places. The chart is the project. The information deserves a longer life.

A simple fix: while collecting the names, a parent types them into a family tree on FamRoot. The tree holds multiple generations, spouses, adoptions and multiple marriages, which is useful for real families that do not fit a neat diagram. The tree is private, with no public link, and only relatives connected within seven relationship levels can see it. When a relative is added, an invite is selected by default, so grandparents, chacha and mausi receive an SMS link, join, and keep their own branches current. Next year's project, or a cousin's, starts from a tree that already exists.

FamRoot is free, works on the web today, and the Android app is launching shortly. Nobody under 18 can hold an account, so the parent owns the tree and the child helps fill it. The printed chart goes to school; the living tree stays with the family. For a longer walkthrough, read how to build your family tree, or see how FamRoot works.

Keep the project alive. Add the names you collected to a private family tree, invite the grandparents, and let the family keep it current. Start building your family tree.