Fifteen years ago, I got immersed in genealogy and our family tree. Although my parents had done some initial research 10 years prior, online tools were starting to become available that I could utilize.
I spent about 40 hours of online research to learn about where we came from and when we came to the United States. Delving into the history of our family uncovered branches of our tree that made me realize we were from some unexpected countries!
From Spreadsheet to Art Piece
Once I had all this information in a spreadsheet, it was a joy to give my parents the tour of all that I discovered.
But I wanted to do more. Then it came to me: design a family tree to showcase where we came from originally. I wanted it to look like a custom piece of art that could hang in their home.
One of the big decisions was what were the important elements to include. Personally, I did not want a traditional tree graph, but something artistic. That type of decision is personal to everyone, but for me, it was more about the countries we came from and showing a snippet of the lineage rather than every single individual.
What’s Important to You?
In my case, I chose to highlight the names of the people who decided to come to the US as well as the few generations before my parents. The image above is what we produced.
It’s been my hope to create these for other families, so I thought I’d start by sharing how we decided to design the gift I gave my parents. And if this is something you’d like us to create for you, please give me a call and let’s talk about next steps. It would be a wonderful gift to you and your family!