Setting up your family tree

Begin with the people you could name without looking anything up: your parents, your grandparents, your brothers and sisters, your children. You are on the tree already.

On the Family page, choose "Add a person". Type their name, and a year if you know it.

For the first few, choose who they are to you under "Who are they to you?" — Mother, Father. After that, "How are they connected?" joins each new person to someone already there: "Child of Rita", "Brother or sister of Paul". They go straight into the right place.

This takes about ten minutes.

Is a relative about to send you a tree file (step 2)? Then you can wait, bring the file in first, and add only whoever is missing.

Somebody in your family may already have done years of work — a cousin on Ancestry, an aunt on MyHeritage. Ask them. They can download their tree as a file and email it to you. Step 3 shows them how.

On Ancestry, only the person who made a tree can download it. Even if they have shared it with you, they need to download it themselves and send it.

Relatives who use The Attic can join their tree to yours. Open their card, add their email address under "Change their details", then choose "Invite". When they join with that address, you are asked whether to connect them. Nothing happens until you say yes.

Once you are connected, "Compare trees with a relative" at the top of the Family page shows who they have that you don't. And when a grandparent is on both trees, their card asks "Is this the same Rita as on Paul's tree?" Say yes, and from then on you share one set of details.

A tree file brings in a whole family at once. Family-tree websites call it a GEDCOM file, and its name ends in .ged. Downloading one is easiest on a computer.

From Ancestry — free, with no paid membership:

1. Sign in at ancestry.com. Choose Trees, then open your tree.
2. Choose More (⋯), then Tree Settings.
3. Under "Manage your tree", choose Export tree, then Export.
4. Wait while it says "Generating a GEDCOM file". Then choose Download Your GEDCOM File.
5. It arrives as a ZIP file. Open it — double-click it on a computer, or tap it in the Files app on an iPhone. Inside is the file ending in .ged.

From MyHeritage:

1. Sign in at myheritage.com. Choose Family tree, then Manage Trees.
2. Next to your tree, choose "Export to GEDCOM".
3. It asks about photos. The Attic reads only the words, so you can leave them out. Then choose Begin the export.
4. A big tree may come as a link in an email instead.

In MyHeritage's Family Tree Builder program, it is File → Export GEDCOM.

A tree file carries only words: names, dates, places, who is related to whom, and notes. Photos and documents never come with it. You can add those to people's cards afterwards.

On this computer:

1. On the Family page, choose "Import a family tree file".
2. Choose your .ged file, or drag it onto the box.
3. You see everyone in it before anything is added. Anyone who looks like somebody already on your tree is un-ticked, so you don't get two of Grandma.
4. Look down the list. If your own name is there, untick it — you are on your tree already. If someone is un-ticked who isn't really on your tree, tick them.
5. Choose "Add these people to my tree".

One family at a time is fine: your mother's side from one cousin, your father's from another. Each file is checked against everyone already on your tree.

Afterwards, the new family may sit to one side of the tree, not yet joined to you. One connection joins them. Click the person who links them to you — your mother, say — choose "Change their details", and under "Who are they to you?" choose Mother. If she was on your tree already, click her mother instead, and under Connections make her Parent of your mother. Everyone else moves into place with them.

On the phone, Family → Tools → "Bring in a family file" works too. But the phone brings in everyone in the file without checking who you already have, so use it only for a first file, onto a tree that is still nearly empty.

FamilySearch no longer lets you download a tree file. There is an easier way, one family at a time.

1. On familysearch.org, open a grandparent's page.
2. Find their "Family Members" list. Select all of it, and copy it.
3. In The Attic, click that grandparent on your tree and choose "Read an obituary or family list".
4. Paste the list. Say whose family it is, look over everyone, then Save.

The list is read right here in your browser, and it is free. People already on your tree get their missing years filled in. Anyone new is added, joined to the right person.

Work outward from one grandparent: then their parents, then their brothers and sisters.

The button is on the card of anyone marked as having died. If you don't see it, choose "Change their details", tick "They have died", and save.

FamilySearch is one big tree shared by everyone, and it keeps changing. What you copy is how it looked that day.

Comfortable with computer programs? RootsMagic, Ancestral Quest and Legacy Family Tree can each download a branch from FamilySearch and save it as a .ged file, which you bring in as in step 4.

An obituary names a whole family: a husband or wife, children, brothers and sisters, often with their towns.

Click someone who has died and choose "Read an obituary or family list". Paste a link to the obituary, or paste its words. A photo or screenshot of a newspaper cutting works too.

We read it and show you what it says: their years, and the relatives it names. People already on your tree get their missing years filled in. Anyone new can be added. Untick anything that isn't right, then Save. Nothing changes until you do.

Some newspaper websites won't let us read their pages. If that happens, copy the words from the page and paste them in instead.

Every change to somebody's details is listed under Changes on their card, and can be put back.

Once a few families are in, give the tree a tidy.

"Worth a look", below your tree on the Family page, gathers what is worth checking:

• "Is Diane also Cory's mother?" — when someone's husband or wife is probably their child's other parent. One click says yes.
• Dates that don't fit — a mother born after her daughter, say. Usually it is one wrong year. Fix it, or keep it as it is.
• People who need a place — joined to someone, but the tree can't tell where they go. Choose "Place them one by one", and we suggest where each belongs.

"Not placed yet", just under the tree, lists everyone still waiting for a place.

On the tree itself:

• "Tidy up" lays the whole tree out fresh.
• "Families:" shows one family at a time — your mother's side, then your father's.
• Click anyone and choose "Show Rita's family" to see just them and their closest family.

Two cards for one person? Open the one with less on it and look at its Connections. Add any that are missing to the other card. Then choose "Remove this person". Recordings are never removed with a card.

A tree of names is a beginning. The stories are the point.

Click anyone on your tree and choose "Tell a story about Rita". Say what you remember: how she laughed, what she cooked, the thing she always said. A minute is plenty.

Ask the rest of the family too. Stories about someone gather on their card, so in time everyone on the tree has a few of their own. That is what your grandchildren will open.