Pull -out & keep bow-tie chart
There’s nothing like a family tree chart for visualising your family history research so far. Turn the page to find a bow-tie chart to pull out, keep and – most importantly – fill in!
For the ancestors who you have identified there is a great deal of satisfaction seeing their names and key dates recorded in their appropriate place on the family tree chart. Likewise, the ‘gaps’, of those yet-to-be discovered forebears, are clear and visible on a family tree, pointing you to where to focus your research next.
While our family history certainly is so much more than names and dates, the names and dates that we add to our family charts are the pinpoints.
Ways a ‘tree’ can help
Seeing them displayed on a family tree is useful for so many reasons. For instance, it can help you not to confuse several people, from different generations, who may share the same name. A family tree is a great conversation starter, excellent for enticing your family members into the topic of family history. And – your family tree chart is also essential for making sense of your DNA research.
The magic generations
We’ve created a 5-generation bow-tie chart (not including the root person), as this takes you near to the outer reaches of autosomal possibilities. The outer arc of your bow-tie chart overleaf includes the space for your 3x great-grandparents.
The odds are off that you will share DNA with your fifth cousins (ie those DNA matches with whom you share a pair of 4x great-grandparents) – see https://isogg.org/wiki/ Cousin_statistics. The odds of you matching a fourth cousin (ie someone with whom you share a pair of 3x great-grandparents) improve dramatically, however (50% probability of matching, if they have tested). When it comes to your third cousins (with whom you share a pair of 2x great-grandparents), there is a pleasing 90% probability that you will match with a third cousin.
