Your family tree on the map: making family history visible

A family tree is usually a diagram: names, lines, dates. But a family plays out in places. The farm where a great-grandfather was born, the village the family came from, the city someone moved to. Put those places on a map, and your family history suddenly becomes visible in space, not just on paper.

What is a family tree on the map?

On TributeMap you create a memorial for each family member, tied to a real location. Then you draw connections between those memorials: parent and child, partners, generations. The result is a family network you see on the geographic map: who is connected to whom, and where each life took place.

Why on the map, and not just in a diagram?

• You see migration and origin. At a glance you see where the family comes from and how it spread.
• Places tell stories. An address evokes more than a date.
• It lives. A map with real places invites you to keep searching and adding.

How to approach it

1. Start with who you know best

First create memorials for the people you know well, with the places you are sure of. You do not have to begin with the most distant ancestor.

2. Draw connections

Link memorials to each other as parent-child or partners. As soon as two connected people both have a place on the map, the network view appears.

3. Work together

Approved connections from other family members count and become visible. That way you build one family map together, even when you do not know everything yourself.

For genealogists

Already doing family history research? Then the map is a new layer on top of your existing work: not a replacement for your genealogy software, but a way to make origins and stories visible and shareable.

Getting started

Map your family history. Create a first memorial and connect the family from there, or browse the map to see how it looks. New to this? First read how to create an online memorial.