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Practical guides on building, charting, printing, and growing your family tree — written for real, messy family histories.
Is Blaadline a typo for 'bloodline'? Where the name comes from, why we built a family tree maker focused on clear charts and good prints, and how it fits alongside your research.
Read guideHow GEDCOM 5.5.1 and 7.0 differ: character encoding, GEDZip packages for photos, and why 5.5.1 is still the version most tools exchange.
Read guideWhich paper size suits how many generations, why a vector PDF matters at poster size, and how to get a family tree printed and framed at a print shop.
Read guideA cousin chart and plain-English guide to cousin degrees and what "removed" means, plus how half-, step- and in-law relationships differ from blood relationships.
Read guideNot a school assignment — a way to give kids a sense of where they come from. How to involve them in building a family tree they'll actually pay attention to.
Read guideNo one wrote down your grandparents' story either — that's exactly why it's worth starting now. What gets lost when a lineage isn't recorded, and why the record starts with whoever decides to keep it.
Read guideHow to record remarriages and multiple spouses so every child sits under the right marriage, keep full and half-siblings distinct, and show step-relationships honestly.
Read guideGEDCOM (.ged) is the shared file format of genealogy software. What is inside a GEDCOM file, where to get one, and how to open it as a readable family tree.
Read guideHow to build a family tree from scratch: start with yourself, interview the elders while you can, record a source for every fact, and turn the result into a chart you can print and share.
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