Printing a FAN Chart

Creating your own FAN Chart is a great first step to identifying other Patriot Ancestors. You can use the information in your FAN Chart to look up ancestor names in the DAR Descendants Database to find links you may not have known about previously. There are three ways to print you FAN Chart. The first way is the most low-tech. You can print the attached chart and handwrite you ancestors.

Fan Chart Template

The second method is to print your FAN chart from your Ancestry tree.

  1. Open your tree on the Ancestry website.

  2. Click on the name of your tree to reveal the pull-down menu.

  3. Select Tree Settings

  4. Scroll to the bottom and click the Export Tree button.

  5. Name the file and save it somewhere you will remember.

  6. Now navigate to the TreeSeek website which offers free FAN charts: https://treeseek.com/gedcom

  7. Click on the small “Chose File” button and upload the file from Ancestry that you just saved to your computer.

  8. In the Select Name field, scroll to find your name and choose it.The list is not alphabetized and is cumbersome to work with, but if your name was in your ancestry file, then it will be in this list.

  9. Choose 9 or 7 generations FAN Chart.

  10. Click Create Chart

  11. Click the Download Chart button

  12. Save the resulting PDF file somewhere on your computer. I like to include the date I ran the chart in the file name so I can differentiate this chart from a future chart with more research.

Note that this chart will not print on a regular printer. You can use on on screen or have it printed like a poster at a printing service like Fedex or Staples.

The third method is to print a FAN chart from the single, large, FamilySearch tree. Unlike Ancestry, FamilySearch members share one family tree, just like the human species. So to print a chart based on FamilySearch data, you first need to find your branch. You will probably not be on the tree, since it is public, but you can print the chart from each of your grandparents, or each of your great-grandparents, or a more distance generation, depending on which people are already in the crown-sourced tree. Here is how:

  1. Go to https://www.familysearch.org/search/tree/name

  2. Log in or create a free account to login

  3. I found my grandmother’s record here: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GSN7-YQM

  4. Just below her name there is a View Tree menu. When I click on it a beautiful FAN chart appears. If you are not seeing a FAN chart, at the top of the chart area, click on the pulldown menu and choose FAN Chart.

  5. You can use this on screen or print it from the web browser’s print menu.

If you chose an ancestor and not your own name for the report, then be sure to rerun the chart for other ancestors who may have paths to a Patriot in their FAN chart.

Next time look for a post on what to do with your FAN Chart to find other Patriot ancestors!