In some pre-contact Native American civilizations, genealogical records of ruling and priestly families were kept, some of which extended over several centuries or longer. Here too, pedigrees are recited by griots attached to the royal courts. Meanwhile, in Nigeria, many ruling clans-most notably those descended from Oduduwa-claim descent from the legendary King Kisra. Members of the Keita dynasty of Mali, for example, have had their pedigrees sung by griots during annual ceremonies since the 14th century. The genealogy of Ancient Egyptian ruling dynasties was recorded from the beginnings of the Pharaonic era circa 3000 BC to the end of the Ptolomaic Kingdom although this is not a record of one continuously-linked family lineage, and surviving records are incomplete.Įlsewhere in Africa, oral traditions of genealogical recording predominate. Through this claim, the family traced their descent back to the House of David. In Africa, the ruling dynasty of Ethiopia claimed descent from King Solomon via the Queen of Sheba. įamily trees have been used to document family histories across time and cultures throughout the world. This example dates from the sixteenth century. A Descendant chart, on the other hand, does not, in general, have a regular structure, as a person can have any number of children or none at all.įamily trees are an age-old phenomenon.
Assuming no common ancestor, an ancestry chart is a perfect binary tree, as each person has exactly one mother and one father these thus have a regular structure. Nevertheless, graphs depicting matrilineal descent (mother-daughter relationships) and patrilineal descent (father-son relationships) do form trees. In this regard, ancestry forms a directed acyclic graph. However, because a parent must be born before their child, an individual cannot be their own ancestor, and thus there are no loops. Therefore, a person can have a common ancestor on both their mother's and father's side. While family trees are depicted as trees, family relations do not in general form a tree in the strict sense used in graph theory, since distant relatives can mate. Fan charts depict paternal and maternal ancestors. 5.0.1) displaying a fan chart and the Given name cloud gramplet on the bottom.Ī fan chart features a half circle chart with concentric rings: the subject is the inner circle, the second circle is divided in two (each side is one parent), the third circle is divided in four, and so forth. In addition to familiar representations of family history and genealogy as a tree structure, there are other notable systems used to illustrate and document ancestry and descent.
#Genealogy art view full
Possibly the first non-biblical use, and the first to show full family relationships rather than a purely patrilineal scheme, was that involving family trees of the classical gods in Boccaccio's Genealogia Deorum Gentilium ("On the Genealogy of the Gods of the Gentiles"), whose first version dates to 1360. The image of the tree probably originated with that of the Tree of Jesse in medieval art, used to illustrate the Genealogy of Christ in terms of a prophecy of Isaiah (Isaiah 11:1). Privacy should be considered when preparing a living family tree. In a descendant tree, living relatives are common on the outer branches and contemporary cousins appear adjacent to each other. Great-grandparents are often in the center to portray four or five generations, which reflect the natural growth pattern of a tree as seen from the top. Spouses' names join children's names and nuclear families of parents and children branch off to grandchildren, and so on. Children of the parent form branches around the center and their names are plotted in their birth year on the time scale. A time scale is often used, expanding radially across the center, divided into decades. The passage of time can also be included to illustrate ancestry and descent. Yet another approach is to include all holders of a certain office, such as the Kings of Germany, which represents the reliance on marriage to link dynasties together. Beyond these formats, some family trees might include all members of a particular surname (e.g., male-line descendants). Conversely, a descendant chart, which depicts all the descendants of an individual, will be narrowest at the top. In some ancestry charts, an individual appears on the left and his or her ancestors appear to the right.
An ancestry chart, which is a tree showing the ancestors of an individual and not all members of a family, will more closely resemble a tree in shape, being wider at the top than at the bottom. Family trees are often presented with the oldest generations at the top of the tree and the younger generations at the bottom. Genealogical data can be represented in several formats, for example, as a pedigree or ancestry chart.
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