There are several different ways to chart your family history. My Heritage Family Tree Builder is a program that allows you to explore your history in following ways.

The first way is your basic 5 generation family chart. This is especially useful if you have a large tree. The number of permutations in a large chart can be daunting.

The second way that I like, is a printout of the relationships between you and each individual in your chart. This will not always be accurate because of repeated ancestors and dropped dates or spouses. None-the-less I love it. For example it shows that in my tree Eleanor Aquitaine is my direct grandmother 30 generations back. It's fun to hear your family members sputter with astonishment when you uncover some other famous historical figure and than are able to show it on a printout.

A third way to view your chart is by using a vertical format. Choose an ancestor and than display your chart with you or one of your children as descendants. I like this because it's simple and direct.

A fourth way to view your history is in the horizontal chart. It starts with you and The than shows all the permutations that occur as your family progress from generation to generation. If you were to print out our chart for example it would consist of about 350 pages. Not for everyone. More information than most people need. I happen to like it though because it inspires me to go ahead and read the history of the various eras. I'm especially interested in the early medieval ages and the founding characters of the various European States, many of which are in my family chart.

Finally the fifth way is YOUR WAY! I like art and images so I'm inclined to "gussy up" my various print-outs with interesting references to monuments, literature, historical time line references etc. This is more of a personal and creative approach. I like to view family history in all the ways mentioned though. I highly recommend that you pursue this. The more we know about the past, the more we know about ourselves.

The "My Heritage Family Tree Builder" program is down loadable from the net. If you save your tree in the gedcom format, this program will be able to read it. From the program you can access a huge number of databases and other genealogical sites. It's available for download free, from Http://www.myheritage.com. You also have the option of displaying your results on the my heritage website (beyond a certain point there are paid options). This way you can share your results with your family members and other interested researchers.

Learn more about this author, Leonard Keigher.
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