Annual Favorites 2022-Cultural and Geographical Homelands

We love helping our users show of their heritage in unique and engaging ways.  And one of the things that most ties people to their heritage is their cultural and geographical heritage.  It is one of the ties that binds us back to our ancestors--that sense of belonging we have

 

Each family has a unique history and spreads throughout the world in a unique way.  The people who came together to create the family you have now may have come from many different places or just a few.  And the descendants of your ancestors may have spread out to many different places or they may have stayed in mostly the same place.

Expressing that geographical heritage through the places your family lived tells a unique story about their history.  If you find a family from Europe in the 20th century, you will have a very different history to tell then another family from say Africa or Asia or Latin America. 

Each heritage has unique circumstances and triumphs and tragedies to tell.  And each family has a rich heritage to be proud of.  Each of us have ancestors who survived against adversity and lived to tell about it.  If you haven't found your hero ancestors yet, you just need to keep looking. 

 

 And one of the things I love about family history the most is that it teaches us that we each have a little bit of the heroic and a little bit of the tragic inside ourselves.  The best kind of genealogy is the stories that are honest, and show the complicated nuances of our history.  There in that--that is something worth knowing and worth taking pride in. 

 

Annual Favorites 2022--Telling the Whole Story

Undoubtedly, our most spectacular charts are the ones that tell more of the story of a family.  These are a great way to share your family history with the people in your family who will never sit down and open a book or look at a computer with you.  And once again, we did some amazing charts last year that tell more of the story of a family.  Take a look at these:

This amazing chart shows the descendants of a Hungarian family.  The text in the top left describes the area they are from as well as the photo in the background.  The map in the top right has the village labeled and the town crest is included as well.  It fuses the branch of the family who immigrated to the US and their cousins who still live in Hungary into one amazing heritage. 

You don't even have to be related to this family to be engaged in the history of these people. With illustrations related to where and when they lived, maps, stories and color coding to show different branches of the family, this chart explains the synagogues, and religious artifacts of their history.  This type of chart would leave anyone asking to hear more about the stories of this family. 

If you want to tell the story of your family, let one of our designers help you.  It's super easy.  Just send the family information you have for a free consultation at http://familychartmasters.com/consult.  Our talented designers have lots of ideas about how to illustrate your past and tell all the details in a simple chart.  Let us help you get your amazing family story out where people can see it in a beautiful engaging way
 

Annual Favorites 2022--Beautiful and Unique Color Coding

One of our favorite things to do to make a chart more understandable and put more information, understanding and life into your family history is to add some color.  There are so many ways we can color code a chart.  And we can use bright colors or muted--whatever strikes your fancy.  Take a look at some of the amazing charts we color coded this year. 

This bright chart was color coded by place of birth.  With the vibrant colors, it engages the viewer to learn more about the history of this family.

 

This beautiful chart is color coded by country, but the countries are subtly explained on the bottom right under the title.  With its soft colors and tree imprint, this family tree is an eye-catching addition to the family's decor. 

The descendants of this amazing couple would have normally charted out to 24 feet wide, but by wrapping their descendants into three layers, we were able to get the chart down to 9 feet wide and 3.5 feet tall.  We color coded each child and their family so that the chart would be more understandable.  A great tribute to a large family and their ancestral beginnings.

This cute grandmother created three beautiful charts for her three beautiful grandchildren.  So engaging.  Now they have something to remind them of all the stories she tells them about their ancestors. 

This chart was exceptional, not only because of its bright colors but also because of its left to right descendancy format.  Color coding by generation makes its unique diamond format even more interesting. 

We loved this chart for its cool tropical colors and the integration of the map and places that the family lived.  With the palm trees in the back, you can almost feel the ocean breezes. 

 

These two charts were a fun new take on a fan chart.  The circles and contemporary font are perfect for a more modern decor.  Do you see how changing up the colors changes the whole look and feel of the chart?  Which one do you like better?

Finally, this chart is a simple left to right color coded by country and labeled by the flags of each country.  A simple, clean representation of the ethnicity of a person. 

You can get your own specially designed chart by sending in your information to us for a free consultation at http://familychartmasters.com/consult.  As you can see, we can create anything you can dream up.  And in any color too!  Let us help you create beautiful, engaging chart for your family and your home.

 

Annual Favorites 2022-Direct Line Charts

 We've been launching our 2022 Annual Favorites on social media, in our gallery and over our newsletter.  I'm going to take some time here and show you why we chose these for our favorites.  To start with, let's look at some of the awesome direct line charts that we were able to help our clients create this year:

 This first chart is stunning with the watercolor tree in the background and the soft muted colors.  It shows a direct line for 10 generations but the beauty of this chart is the short biographical description of each person.  What a treasure this chart is for the family that created it.

 

 We get alot of requests to show royalty lines, but this chart was a special one because it starts on the bottom with all of the living descendants and then goes directly up to that royal line.  With all of the royal photos, it really engages the viewer with how the royal lines came together to form this family.

With 17 generations, this chart is unique in that it goes directly up the patriarchal line of both the mother and father's side of the family.  They both go back to families with crests, so they were integrated into the chart.  A bright colorful design.

You can start your own family masterpiece with us by sending your information in for a free consultation at http://familychartmasters.com/consult.  We'll assign you one of our talented designers who can work with you to create an heirloom masterpiece for your family.  You might even be chosen for next year's annual favorite collection.  We're looking forward to creating the perfect chart for you. 

Basically the Best

We have the best family of employees here at Family ChartMasters. They are hardworking, creative, and just a joy to work with.  I truly love getting feedback from customers who love their charts, and their experience with their designers!  Here is one example:

Hello Janet,

Just wanted to thank you and Karli for doing an exceptional job both designing and delivering such beautiful chart. I didn't even know what I wanted when we first spoke on the phone. With your expertise you were able to create a pedigree chart that exceeded my expectations. Feel free to display my chart if you wish at you conventions. Also if you could archive my information that would be greatly appreciated. 

Thank you 

Karli truly is exceptional!  Here is the chart she made for him:

It's so different from any other chart we have made!  He loved it, and we think it's pretty neat.

We also continually get good reviews about our designer, Erin.  One of her clients sent her this picture, along with this lovely comment:

Here we are, Erin. I’ve just returned to Leicester, England after the reunion of cousins in Rotherham, S. Yorkshire, England yesterday, and was SO pleased with the working family trees. I’m including photos of working on it - sadly I neglected taking shots as I was so caught up in it with cousins that I’d forgotten until the end. Thank you SO much again for all you did.

I’m sure I’ll be contacting you again for the next revision when I go to England again. I can’t be any happier!

We will say it again and again, our designers are basically the best! Look for more highlights about our amazing employees in the coming months!

A Lovely Client Email

Claude Fields said I could share this with you:

Dear Janet & Erin,

Let me first tell you that it has been a pleasure working with Family ChartMasters!  Our family chart cumulates over ten years of my work and even more counting those that have helped me in my ancestry research.  The journey that I have been on has been amazing.  The folks I have met along the way from lost cousins to historians that I have traveled to visit with, has been a incredible journey.  The history I have learned along the way was more than I had ever learned in school.  This work has been a roller coaster ride at times from joy to tears and sadness.  I have written both my mother and fathers direct lineage telling the story of both families from the time they arrived in America until today.  The chart shows my direct lineage.  Arriving here from seven different nationalities as early as 1630.

My writings tell the story, but how could I show the big picture (and big it is!)  I wanted to see my ancestry not by paging through many pages but looking at all my direct ancestry in one picture.  Mom always told me a picture is worth a thousand words.  I began my research to find a company that I could trust to show all my work and effort.  I found your company on the internet and reviewed your website.  I don't do anything without reading reviews and researching as any genealogist would.  I chose Family Chartmasters to design and make my ancestry chart and I'm so pleased I did.  Erin has been a treat to work with and had a lot of patience working with me and making suggestions for the design of the chart.  Today we picked the chart up from the frame shop and hung it on the wall.  I look with amazement at it and I am so pleased how it came out.  What a wonderful way to see my ancestors and how they are all related and tied back to their original nationalities.  I am very proud of my ancestors and what they gave to make this great country.  Your company can be proud of the chart you have provided my family, a real picture of our ancestry!

Sincerely,

Claude Fields

Thanks Claude!  We're so delighted to see how well the framing turned out and we're so honored to be able to help you display your family history.  Thank you for your trust. 

The Today Show!

One of our charts made an appearance on the NBC Today Show!  The segment featured some Ancestry researchers and a client on a recent ancestral home tour to Sicily.  It is such a neat story about the Balistreri family and the connections that were made from his family history research.  It will make you want to travel to all your ancestral homes!

Check out the clip at:   https://www.today.com/video/dna-kit-discoveries-leading-to-new-travel-trend-1446689859528

The chart we made for their family is shown near minute 3:30.  But you will want to watch the whole thing because it is so lovely to see the family's experience.  And as the reporter says at the end of the clip, "The message is, go out there, and find out about your history before, honestly, it's too late!"

Best of the Year

Each year, as a part of our RootsTech preparations, we go back through the custom charts we've created to select a few of our favorites.  We then go back and ask those clients if they would be willing to let us share their charts.  This year we had so many favorites that it was hard, and we ended up choosing more than ever before.  Check out the amazing work our designers have been doing lately.  You can clearly see that "if you can dream it up--we can create it for you."

We've added these to our gallery so you are welcome to click over there to find larger versions. 

Of course, we change all of the names on the charts-especially the living people, but if you see any ancestors that look familiar, shoot us an email.  Some of our clients asked to leave their ancestor's names as is, in the hopes that displaying their chart might help find some cousins to connect with.  We promised them that we'd connect you should anything match up.  Likewise, some of the charts have been edited slightly for the use we needed them for.

We're delighted to show these off at RootsTech soon.  Please come see how spectacular they are in person.  And if you can make it this time, catch us at one of our other conferences this year.  We're looking forward to seeing you, and working on coming up with a spectacular chart for your own family.  Maybe you'll be one of our winners next year!