Debbie, Alan and list: Several years ago when I attended the family reunion on my father's side the family historian, (as the gentlman likes to be called) produced the family tree outlined beautifully on a roll up style window blind. With the help of his daughter (his eyes are failing) he had the names of all the primary members of the family and links to their issues, etc written on the chart. He could easily unroll it and place it on a wall for all to see and then roll it up to a compact and handy size. Later one of the daughters took other roll up blinds and painted a family tree for each family and their issues. The primary family members are one color leaf and the issues depending on their ranking in the family ( daughter, granddaughter, gr g son, etc) were another color. It was easy to see the members of a given generation by the color of the leaf .... Although I know that this is not a viable resolution for everyone I found it to be a clever solution to the problem of a growing family tree. Changes could be made easily to the lineage and the size could be made easy to transport. However, when the daughter transcribed this information on to her computer she numbered each generation and made her charts from there. Just my two cents worth for anyone who may be interested.... LeAnn C Cook St Clairsville, Ohio Researching: Franczak, Bargiel, Volan (Wollain) Debbie Greenlee <daveg@airmail.net> wrote: Alan, Been there done that. I printed out one of my great grandmother's lines. IO think the font was 10 or 11. I included side lines and the side lines' spouses, parents etc. This roll is about 25 feet in length but about two feet in width. I'm sure this can all be done at a Kinkos now but when I did it I printed out page after page from my gen. program, cut and taped/pasted the people into place making sure I even had those people who were illegitimate. This meant I had an uneven width so I took sections and photocopied them onto 14" long paper so the almost finished product was the same width all the way along. I taped these now longer pieces together, took them to Kinkos and had it printed off on one long sheet of paper. They had to do this a couple of times to get it right (I paid once). Now some people were impossible to fit in so I made little separate strips and glued them where they belong on the "tree" and then folded them back in over themselves so you could still see the information that's "behind" them but could also unfold the strips to see who else is there. This rolls up nicely and does fit into a tube which fit into my suitcase. I took one to France and one to Poland a couple of years ago. The one in Poland is at the USC and makes nice wallpaper. ;) I don't know if this link will work for you but it shows my "working copy" roll. The loose pieces are the ones to be taped on and folded. http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/QL5PSKferkG35RnSNmLQ47fZQFLPrf5Y9QND6kXHiN-jDdIU0WCzhzSrVk-fiQV7ObUNHdunmUD8YH-P9C7hYcnW8lxwvvw/Family%20Tree%20Roll.JPG The oldest ancestors are at the bottom left of the photo. The yellow spots indicate my direct line. Debbie Alan J. Kania wrote: > > To bring her completely up to date, I printed out my family chart and > found an unfortunate situation. Even using a 9 pt. font size, the > "Relative Chart" format resulted in 65 pages that I need to trim and > tape together. When you tape that many pages together, it produces an > impressive chart (when viewed several city blocks away), but not only > is it pretty lumpy when you get close enough to read it but it's also > impossible to have reproduced, even at a professional blueprint-type > print shop on a "plotter." And since the post office charges extra for > shipping tubes over three feet in width, it makes shipping difficult. > I tried folding the chart several times, but couldn't get the > remainder of the folder chart to roll up to fit into the shipping tube. > > Decreasing the font size even further will make the chart difficult to > read, and I don't think that would reduce the family chart much more > than the current 65 pages. > > Iwona will be pushing the family records further back, so the new > chart will be even larger. I would love to put the family information > into a form that I could send to all the key living members of the > family as holiday presents at the end of the year, but the Relative > Chart format really doesn't look very appealing to anyone but another > genealogist used to dealing with work sheets. I was thinking of > chopping up the branches of the family and having a photo book > printed, but that won't give the same overall view of just how large > our "little" family has become. > ********************************* Need to contact the list manager? Write to Marie at Poland-Roots-admin@rootsweb.com ---------------------------------- Discussion of Polish food, culture, and customs are welcome on the list as long as the discussion stays pertinent to the topic of this list: researching our Polish roots. ---------------------------------- Browse the list's archives here: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=poland-roots Search the list's archives here: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?aop=1 ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to POLAND-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. Mahatama Gandhi LeAnn