About Us, Family Tree Art

We're Jeff and Michelle, owners of Family Tree Art.

Jeff designed his first family tree print back in 2011 after attending a workshop on data visualization by Edward Tufte. Jeff wanted to take what he learned about multi-dimensional data, the data-to-ink ratio, and use of color and combine it with his budding interest in family to visualize his family tree at least back to when most of his ancestors emigrated to the United States. He thought it would be neat to somehow combine the tree structure of a family tree on a timeline, to help visualize the scale of time between him and his ancestors who emigrated. Thus was born what we now call our "Centered Tree." His first attempt was drawn by hand, on graph paper that had been cut and taped together to make it big enough. He used the birth years to connect children to parents back 7 generations.

Jeff quickly realized this looked cool, but needed something more. We needed to show how long each person lived! The next attempt was also drawn by hand, on graph paper cut and taped together, colored with colored pencils he borrowed from his kids. 

Next Jeff knew he needed to make a digital version of his design, so he could make a big print, frame it, and put it up on a wall for his family to see. He used graphics software to lay out a 7 generation chart by hand, calculating the exact placement and length of each person's colored bar. This took quite some time and at the end of it he thought: "This is crazy! I'm a software engineer, I should write software to calculate and place all the pieces of this design! It should be flexible to accommodate different sizes of paper or different number of generations." So, that's what he did. Over the course of several years, working on this in fits and starts, in whatever spare time he could eke out between a full-time job and a growing family.

During the course of his work, Jeff learned about Ahnentafel numbers and thought it might be interesting to have a family tree visualization on a timeline, but organized by Ahnentafel number. Thus was born our second design, the Ahnentafel print.

Not long after that, Jeff thought he needed a design that showed both his and Michelle's family trees in the same print, because both the Centered and Ahnentafel trees were designed to show an individual's pedigree. Keeping with the timeline motif, he realized he could use concentric circles to represent decades and then the colored bars that represent each person's lifespan could radiate out from the center. This idea became our Sunburst print, which has become our most popular design.

By early 2025, we thought it was finally time to share these family tree designs with the world. Our oldest child had just started college, so the prospect of making a little extra money was enticing as well. We bought a domain, set up this website, and officially launched Family Tree Art at RootsTech 2025.

We believe knowing your family history,  knowing who you come from helps you know who you are and can be an immense source of strength. We also believe having a fun, interesting way to visualize your family tree helps the rising generation learn their family stories and who they are.