Sizing Matters

Controlling the size of your chart

When the size of a chart gets unwieldy, there are three items to consider: paper size, font size and the number of people on the chart.  One of the three needs to give in order to accommodate the other two items. If a large font is desirable, a chart would either need to be on a large piece of paper, or have a smaller amount of people in order to enlarge the font size. 

A circle chart is good to get multiple generations into a small amount of space and leave blanks to show where more information is needed.  However, circle charts are not ideal to add extra information such as extensive geographical information, stories or pictures.  Regular box charts are ideal to be able to add extra information and leave space for additional images.

Left to Right (or right to left) and Top to Bottom (or bottom to top) charts can be very different in size depending on the information a chart displays.  With large amounts of people/generations, a left to right format can save about 1/3 the space because of the way the boxes layout.  The chart size is determined by the size of largest generation.  On a left to right chart each individual box can be laid out to take less space in the overall generation.  For a top to bottom chart, each individual box has to be a certain width to accommodate long names and the way our language moves from right to left.  So top to bottom charts have to be larger to have room for each individual’s information. 

The Why Behind Genealogy Charts

There are as many reasons to create a genealogy chart as there are genealogists.

For the person doing the research:

·      Charts can get your research out where you can see it and keep it in front of you where you can mull over ideas. Sometimes getting things off the computer and out where you can see them can help you think of other research ideas 

·      Charts can help you find errors or problems you didn’t realize were entered wrong. 

·      Charts can keep comparisons of unproven lines straight.

·      Charts can be good for collecting information from living relatives (especially descendancy charts.)

·      Charts can help you stay organized.

·      Charts can help engage the non-genealogists in your family with their family’s history.

For clients and non-genealogist family members:

• Charts explain the research that has been done to someone who hasn’t been involved.
• Charts can engage a person in their family history and surround them with the feeling of love that comes from knowing they are enveloped in a family.
• Charts foster the confidence of realizing the potential embedded in their inherited traits. 
• Charts can nurture emotional healing by creating more understanding of the family’s past history.

Regardless of if you’re a professional genealogist or just a family history enthusiast, a genealogy chart is invaluable to helping your family document their origin story. 

The Basics of Creating a Chart

The visual expression of a family’s history can be a powerful communication and research tool for the genealogist as well as the non-genealogist. Charts are an inspiring way to show a span of a family. Over the 15 years that we have been printing charts, we have had people ask us for all sorts of charts that have been used in many different ways. Whether you use a printing service, or draw one out yourself, charts can really help you discover your origin story and get more work done. Here are some of the basics to get your chart started: 

Who to include in your chart:

Start with your siblings, parents and grandparents, then add in-laws and their ancestors and descendants, divorces, adoptive family lines, step-families, and even Pets! The beauty of creating a custom chart is you can go back as many generations as you want. 

What to include?

You'll want to include the most basic information like birth, marriage and death dates and places to give a chronological and geographical frame of reference. You can add spaces to fill in missing information, but here are some ideas for information you can include: family quotes and titles, health issues or genetics, stories (how the couples met!), pictures, immigration (Mayflower, pioneer, first-families), ethnicity, languages, talents, religions, accomplishments and offices, quotes, maps, flags, military service, documents, current address, age, physical attributes, character attributes, religious events (baptism, bar-mitzvah, offices held), criminal records, royal lineage, education, occupations, nicknames, heritage and culture, personality, citizenship, telephone numbers and even social networking information. With this, you can be as detailed as you want. The more information you include about specific ancestors, the longer their stories will live on. 

Another interview and a lot of origin story

Wow.  We've been doing a whole bunch of conferences this spring and early summer.  We've been to Ohio, California twice, New Hampshire and several other conferences.  We love talking to our people.  And in Ohio, I was able to sit down with one of our old friends, Drew Smith of the Genealogy Guys Podcast.  What a delight it was to talk to him about what we have been doing lately and what got us to this point. 

You're welcome to listen in at http://genealogyguys.com/genealogy-connection-057-janet-hovorka-speaker-writer-entrepreneur.  I hope you'll enjoy the interview as much as I did.

Helping You Make Connections

As human beings, we long to be a part of something greater than ourselves. In our teenage years, we will do anything to feel like we're accepted by our peers. When we enter the workplace, we work day in and day out in order to have a stake in creating something worthwhile for others. We spend our time on Facebook and Instagram, curating a perfect profile that meets the standard of others, all so we can feel accepted. At the core of each decision we make is the desire to be a part of something bigger than just us.

The most important way to feel like we are involved in something greater than ourselves starts with our family. Our entire existence revolves around our membership and acceptance into a family. We are shaped by those who paved the way before us -- our parents, our grandparents, even our great-grandparents. Preserving their story is vital to understanding our own origin story. When one makes that connection with their ancestors, they become a part of the story that transcends the great thief of memories: time. Making that connection is made easy with Family ChartMasters.

Family ChartMasters aims to connect your ancestors to their descendants by giving you access to expert designers that will create an engaging, time-proof family history display. These displays engage with the family history in a way that no other artifact can. It paints a picture, tells a story, and ultimately helps one understand their origin story.

Another great review for Erin

Stu said we could share this with you.  He worked with our designer Erin:

I've been into my family's genealogy for a bit more than a year and a half.  I've had a great time doing it.  I've learned many many things and have found some cousins throughout the United States.  One result of the search is that we're going to have a Family Reunion.  I wanted to have a chart of our ancestors as well as many of the children that we could get on the chart.  Family ChartMasters was too easy to deal with!!!  The return emails were prompt and questions were directly answered.  I was surprised at how quickly everything went from start to finish.  I have no qualms recommending this company to anyone who wants a printed family tree.

Stu Berlin

We're so happy we could help you with your chart Stu.  I don't know that you can ever be *too* easy to deal with but we're happy to try.  We hope your family loves the chart!

Upcoming Conferences--Come see us

We've already made some great connections at RootsTech and the New England Regional Genealogical Conference in 2019! When will we see you?   

1-4th May 2019 Ohio State Genealogical Conferencein Mason Ohio.  We haven't been back to Ohio for a while so we're super excited about this one.  I'll be speaking on Where to Start When You Get Stuck, and Heirloom, Documentation or Junk.  Will we see you there?
30 May-1 Jun 2019 Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree in Burbank California.  It's the 50th anniversary of one of our favorite conferences so we'll be there with bells on.  Stay tuned.  

15 - 17 June   International German Genealogy Partnership Conference in Sacramento California.  We're excited to share our charts and books with the German Genealogy community.  If you have German roots, you should definitely check out the amazing specialists they have coming to help you with your research.  

We hope to see you there!

Deadline coming: Prices Going Up

This year we will be coming to our sixteenth year in business.  We're so proud of the over 40,000 charts we have printed that now blanket the world. We're grateful for the trust you all have given us to display your precious family history.  We consider it a sacred privilege and honor to help you communicate your heritage to your loved ones and  honor your ancestors.

As such, we've tried really hard over the years to keep our charts as affordable as possible so that we can help as many families as we can.  We've only raised prices twice in our existence, and some of our products are still the same prices we introduced them with in 2003.  Likewise, we produce amazing customized charts with unlimited design help for not much more than it would cost to reproduce a photograph at the same size.  We've run this company on a shoestring, figuring out how to make plotter and computer repairs ourselves and putting in long hours trying to market with a tiny budget.  In some ways that has hindered our progress, but we're proud to run a company that has had no debt and has been able to provide good, flexible jobs to some amazing people.

However, costs of the supplies, the tools, and all of the bills have continued to increase.  And unlike many small genealogy companies, we are looking to the future and the long term development of our company.  We want to be stable so that we can continue creating beautiful family history displays far into the future.  In fact, we are in the process of developing some new automated solutions that will actually allow us to offer more styles and more charts at lower prices in coming years.  So we've come to the point that we need to raise prices on some of our higher end, extremely customized charts.  We offer charts that not available anywhere else in the world.  We will continue to offer printing options at several different price points.  We want to make sure we can continue to do all of that for generations to come.


So, effective May15th, all new orders will be under our new 2019 pricing structure.  We've given you a month to prepare.  If you can submit your free consultation for a chart before that time, we'd be happy to honor the current pricing.

We assure you that we will help us continue to offer our amazing, comprehensive customer service and producing exquisite, striking genealogy displays.  If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at 801-872-4278 or info@familychartmasters.com.  We appreciate your patronage and look forward to helping you create more amazing family history charts in the future.

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. 

Leveling Up Chat with Crista Cowan and the Virtual Genealogical Association

I've been writing a column now for the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly for the last couple of years and I've thoroughly enjoyed researching and studying some new topics for the articles.  Last year I did a full year series on a study we did about the perceptions people have about professional genealogists.  The study had some super surprising results--basically that 2/3 of people who hire professionals are not happy with the results, and combined with the fact that most people don't trust professionals to hire them in the first place, we're really only effectively serving 7% of the market.  There's lots of room for growth and improvement, starting with communicating the value of a professional and making sure the researcher sets expectations correctly so that clients are happy. I was honored to speak about the study as the Keynote for the APG Professional Management Conference in 2018, to give presentations to the ICAPGEN and APG boards and to present it for a Colloquium discussion at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy.  I hope it has sparked some new movement in the genealogy industry. 

The latest thing I've been working on though is some articles on the Dunning Kruger effect and how it affects the genealogy community.  They will be published in the upcoming issues of APGQ for 2019.  I'm really excited to get this conversation started and see what we can do to change things up a bit.

Along with that, last night my dear friend Crista Cowan and I presented a webinar for the Virtual Genealogical Association entitled "Leveling Up in the Game of Genealogy"  We've made it available for everyone.  It was a great discussion and as always I loved hanging out with Crista.  I'm sure it will inspire you to be a better genealogist as much as it did for me.

You can see the show notes on Crista's website at http://cristacowan.com/LevelingUp

Lecture Summary: Lots of people approach family history like a video game-collecting the most number of ancestors or chasing the shaky leaves. In genealogy, just like in a video game, or in life for that matter, you don’t know what you don’t know. You could be playing along for years before you realize that there are power-ups and secret passageways in the game that can take you to the next level. In this session, attendees will learn about typical light-bulb moments and how to get to the “Did you know this was possible” stage faster. They will then be given a walk through on how to advance through the levels of the game of genealogy.

Attendees will be introduced to the Genealogical Maturity Model and the new concept of a continuum of genealogical proficiency. They will also be introduced to the high quality resources available for advancing their own skills.

We're Hiring

The Family ChartMasters Team is looking for a few more people.  If you have design or marketing skills and are in the Southern Salt Lake/Northern Utah County area we may have the perfect job for you. Career development, education opportunities and flexible schedule options are available in this growing company for the right applicant.

Family ChartMasters is a tight knit, high energy team. The right applicant will be highly-motivated, detail oriented and driven with a passion for family history and the impact it can have to change lives. This position is perfect for someone looking for career that will really make a difference in an industry that creates powerful personal discovery opportunities. Family ChartMasters has been in business for 15 years and is the market leader in family history display. 
Apply at https://familychartmasters.com/hiring.