How It Works

We create fine art family trees customized with your family history. You will treasure the result. We use the finest art reproduction techniques available today: heavy watercolor paper, giclee printing with inks designed to resist fading for 200 years, beautifully matted with archival materials and framed with your choice of framing style. Your family history combined with a beautiful design and created with the finest materials results in your very own personalized work of art.

You can learn more about our family trees in the following five sections:

What Is A Descendant Tree Versus An Ancestor Tree?

Our descendant tree celebrates a family’s growth. The tree displays a couple and the family that has been created from their union. Each tree starts with a couple, shows that couple’s children, grandchildren, and, if applicable, great grandchildren. It’s perfect for a 50th anniversary gift, birthday or a family reunion.

Our ancestor tree celebrates a family’s history. Each tree starts with a couple, and shows that couple’s children. However, the bulk of the chart would display the couple’s parents, grandparents and great grandparents.

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How We Create Your Family Tree

Each family tree starts with your data and the design you choose, printed with the finest materials and then hand assembled and packaged, as follows:

  1. You provide your family tree information

    If you select the ancestor tree, then you will enter your family history information: names, dates and locations plus family tree title in the “Enter Family Information” section of our web site. We recognize that it may take a couple of sittings for you to gather the correct information, enter and check your information. That’s why we ask you to set up an account to save your information.

    If you select the descendant tree, then you will first purchase your tree design and then we will e-mail you a form to complete with your family information. We will also include details regarding other acceptable methods of sending us your data.

  2. We merge the result with the design that you’ve selected

    If you select the ancestor tree, then we will merge the information that you entered on our website with the design that you’ve selected to create your own unique family tree. Unless we have questions for you when we review your print, we won’t need additional direction from you.

    If you select the descendant tree, then we will custom design the family tree once we receive your family data on our form or in the agreed upon method to communicate your family information. Due to the diversity of sizes of families, each descendant tree is carefully arranged to display your family based on the family tree design that you selected. To make sure that you are pleased with the results, we send a draft of your descendant tree via e-mail for your review and approval before final printing.

  3. We’ll print, mat and frame the result

    We’ve established a simple one page purchase process that asks you standard credit card, shipping and billing information.

  4. We’ll print, mat and frame the result

    Once we’ve combined your selected design with your family’s history, we print the result and, if you selected framing, we will also mat, glaze and frame your print.

  5. Shipped to your location

    And we’ll ship the result to your selected location.

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How To Format Your Family Tree Data - Descendant Tree

You can send us your family data for your descendant tree in one of two formats: Our Form, or a manual list in a spreadsheet, word document, or e-mail.

The specific data that we will use to create your tree includes your family members’ names, birth dates, marriage dates and death dates. You can let us know whether you prefer just years or full month, day and years for the dates.

  1. Using Our Form

    Once you order your descendant tree, we’ll send you a form to capture the data that you want to include in your tree. The data is pretty straightforward: names with birth dates, marriage dates, and death dates formatted so that we understand the relationships among the family members.

  2. Send Us A List in a spreadsheet, word document or e-mail

    Once you order your descendant tree, many folks just send us a list of names with birth dates, marriage dates and death dates. Just indent the names to show who is a child of whom. Sending us a list gives you the opportunity to format everything the way you want it formatted, and identify any clarifying notes that you want to include in the tree.

  3. Special Situations: Multiple Marriages, Step-Children

    It is not unusual for families to include multiple marriages, and step children. We want your family tree to reflect what you want to see. If you don’t want to show the first spouse of one of your children, we don’t need to. If you want to show the step children that joined your family through marriage, we can do that with some appropriate phrase above their names. Let us know where you have questions, and we’ll suggest a solution.

  4. Validation Step

    The Descendant Tree is truly a custom enterprise. We want to make sure that we get it right. Consequently, we’ll send you an electronic proof of your tree to your e-mail before printing it. Please check the data for accuracy and confirm that you are happy with how we have displayed your family members. Once we receive your approval, we’ll print and ship your order.

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How To Format Your Family Tree Data - Ancestor Tree

Our family trees are customized for your family with your data. If you purchase one of our five generation ancestor trees, you will improve your results by following this advice when entering your information on our website:

  1. Character Limitations

    In order to maintain legibility, we’ve limited the number of characters for each field on the family tree. The size should be sufficient for most names and locations, but you may occasionally encounter the limit.

    As you enter your data in each field, you’ll see a number next to that field or groups of fields. The number will go down as you add characters. Here are some strategies to live within the limitations:

    • If you have a person with a long first name and last name, you will need to consider either using an initial for the middle name or omitting it altogether.
    • Consider abbreviating well known place names, such as states.

  2. Family Tree Formatting Standards

    There are a couple of genealogy standards that are pertinent to family trees. If you have questions concerning how to handle something, or why we set something up a particular way, refer to these:

    • It is standard for married woman to be listed under their maiden name.
    • It is standard for the marriage date and location for a couple to be listed under the husband.
    • Birth, death and marriage dates will be preceded by a single character (b., d. or m.). If you do not enter any data (date, location) for birth, death or marriage then there will be nothing printed on the family tree for the topic with no data (not even the b., d. or m.).
    • You will need to enter dates in the MM-DD-YYYY format, such as 11-22-1895. We will display dates in the MMM DD, YYYY format, such as Nov 22, 1895.

  3. Missing Data

    It’s OK if you are missing some data for your family tree. The objective of our family trees is to help you to tell your family’s story. You wouldn’t be considering this if you didn’t have the bulk of your family’s details. Complete what you have and leave the rest blank. It still makes a great story.

    Alternatively, you may be single or have only researched your side of the family and haven’t investigated your spouse’s family. If that’s the case, our current format should still work for you. Simply list yourself in the “Children” category and your parents as the husband and wife.

  4. Print Preview

    We encourage you to print out the data that you’ve entered and double check it before approving it. When you are in the “Enter Family Information” tab, look at the upper right hand section. You’ll see a “Display” section. Choose “View Printable” and you can print out your data from that screen. Make sure that you validate the “Husband”, “Wife” and “Children” sections.

  5. Look At The Question Marks For Help

    If you have a question while you’re doing something, put your cursor over the nearest (?) symbol. You should see a pop up with some advice.

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More About Quality

It is important to us that the family trees we produce for our customers be of the finest quality. We’ve focused on a couple of aspects of that quality, including:

  1. Paper Quality

    We use Watercolor Paper that weighs 140 lbs per ream. As a comparison, your typical standard copy paper is 20 lbs per ream. The difference results in a product that is designed to last and display beautifully.

  2. Printing

    We use one of the finest art printers on the market today to create your family tree. The printer uses 12 different inks that are designed to resist fading for at least 200 years. Our images on the web can’t really do justice to the color and clarity that you’ll receive. You’ll be impressed by the end result.

  3. Mats

    We use industry leading archival quality mats to accent your family tree. These mats are designed to protect premium art for museum-level situations. They neutralize acid by-products to protect your family tree from any acid staining. We’ve used dimensions for the mats surrounding the art to create a visually pleasing result.

  4. Framing

    We chose framing materials that would complement your selected family tree design in both size and style.

  5. Plexiglass

    We use 1/8” thick Acrylite plexiglass to protect your family tree. Acrylite actually has better optical qualities than glass, with reduced distortion. We chose Acrylite over glass because of its impact resistance. It shouldn’t break in shipping.

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Unsupported Types of Family Trees

There are lots of different types of families and family trees. We happen to currently support two types of family trees: 5 generation ancestor trees, and 3 and 4 generation descendant trees.

  1. Ancestor Tree

    As far as our ancestor trees go, you could track more or fewer generations than our five generation designs. You could track all the descendents from a common ancestor, rather than all the ancestors of one family. We decided to start with the five generation ancestor design. If you have a strong preference to support another type of chart or a specific family relationship, let us know at service@arborarts.com. The more people we hear from, the more likely we are to address a specific situation. In addition, as we mentioned above, you may be single or have only researched your side of the family and haven’t investigated your spouse’s family. If that’s the case, our current format should still work for you. Simply list yourself in the “Children” category and your parents as the husband and wife.

  2. Descendant Tree

    Our descendant trees are a bit more custom than our ancestor trees. Everyone has a different number of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Because of that, we do more of the work of inserting your family names manually. Consequently, we have more flexibility to accommodate special requests. If you wonder whether we can support your special situation, just drop us an e-mail at service@arborarts.com, and we’ll let you know.

  3. Other Options

    If our designs do not exactly meet your needs, please contact us to see how we can customize our designs for you. You can send an e-mail to service@arborarts.com or call toll free at 1-877-853-7652.

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