Free Family Tree Maker

A family tree is a diagram that shows relationships across generations — parents, children, grandparents, siblings, cousins. The visual format makes it easy to see how a person connects to their ancestors and descendants at a glance, something that is hard to keep track of in a list or spreadsheet.

Traditional family trees branch upward (with the root person at the bottom and ancestors growing up like tree roots) or downward (with the patriarch or matriarch at the top and descendants growing downward). Either orientation works — use whichever reads better for your specific family shape.

Modern family trees often include photos, birth and death dates, locations, and notes. Our tool starts simple and lets you add detail as you go. For a full-featured genealogy study, export the tree and annotate it in the editor.

Start by naming the root person. Then add their parents, children, and spouse. Each person becomes a node in the tree, and the tool draws the connecting lines automatically. Rearrange nodes by dragging them — the lines update in real time.

Unlike genealogy software that requires account setup and data imports, this tool is designed for one-off projects: a reunion poster, a heritage school assignment, a printed gift. Type in the relatives you know, style the tree, export the image, done.

For serious genealogy work with thousands of relatives and source citations, a dedicated genealogy app is still the right tool. For presenting what you have discovered as a clear, shareable visual, GraphMake is faster.

Keep generations on the same horizontal line. Alignment gives the viewer a quick read on who belongs to which generation. When siblings appear at slightly different heights, it makes the tree feel disorganized.

Use color sparingly. Color the outer border of each box based on family line (maternal vs paternal), but keep the text readable in black on a white or light background. Too much color turns the tree into a rainbow and hides the structure.

Show only as much detail as fits. Name and birth year is usually enough for each box. If you want more detail on one person, use a callout or a separate panel rather than cramming text into every node.

Family trees and organizational charts share the same underlying widget — a hierarchy with parent-child relationships. The difference is what the edges mean. In an org chart, the edge means "reports to" or "manages". In a family tree, the edge means "is a parent of" or "is related to". Same shape, different semantics.

Because they share the same widget, any design choices you make for one work for the other. A colored accent stripe on the top of each node, for example, works equally well to color-code generations or to color-code departments.

Our org chart maker uses the exact same hierarchy widget — both tool pages exist because users searching for "family tree" and "org chart" expect the tool to match their mental model.