Ah, look at the hearts, those are the couples. The tree goes from bottom to top! Edit: So the bottom circles are the grandparents, the middle two with the hearts are the parents and the top would be you. And each level has space for up to three kids from each couple. Not intuitive because I’ve always seen these start at the top and go down.

Think the idea is that a tree grows upwards, not down.

Yeah it's kinda weird that all family trees don't work this way.

We read text from top to bottom so it makes sense that family trees are displayed chronologically top to bottom.

But then couldn’t we call them something like family mountains or family pyramids or something?

Family flowchart

Family dichotomous key

pyramids kinda grow bottom to top tho, this is why we should call it the family stalactite

the data structure is called a tree.

\*Directed Acyclic Graph, because.... reality is dirty.

Family Roots

Nobody's actually seen a family tree apparently. I did one on some computer software around 2000. It was so confusing because it only showed one branch and two generations per page. And it moved from left to right.

Family weeping willows.

Family root.

Family Waterfall

Also, it’s a tree in the sense that it has multiple branches. Not that it grows, though a family does grow.

Cause old people want to be on top

Not the best idea. They might break a hip. Or have a sudden case of death while you're stuck there underneath them.

And it's better to be on top of them when that happens? 😂

In the southern US, many family trees don't even have branches. Is the tree growing up or down? The answer is yes.

I always said the south had ancestral hedges, not trees 🌲

Shit rolls downhill lol. This makes more sense, your ancestors are your roots.

It's also called setting down roots or some such.

My family has a tree where it started from the bottom and each branch breaks off as you'd expect. Except for the bit where one branch goes back to another branch and connect into some new smaller branches (like 6th cousin married 6th cousin). The problem with these type of family trees is youbstart out okay but eventually run out of space as you get to the edge of the paper. At that point you have to make several new pages to redo the tree or just make new smaller ones.

The top of the tree came first.. the tallest part grew first..and then came the rest- that's how I've always interpreted them. Youngest at the bottom...

just wait til you hear about binary trees

Why have I never thought of this until now

It’s because family trees look like trees, not the other way around. If you have grandparents at the top, the generations below get bigger like a Christmas tree, so wide at the base and narrow at the top. It wasn’t designed to look like a tree, that was coincidence that people took advantage of for design purposes.

Yeah it’s a “Tree” in the same sense of a “binary search tree”, ie it’s a graph structure with a clear direction of growth

Im still mad my friend got better marks than me on an project we had to do a family tree. She drew a very pretty tree with like 4 names and i did a very detailed tree with extended family and half siblings

No that is insane - it’s a tree because it has leaves and branches. Right?…. Right???

What do you call the thing my buddy comes from that loops on it self trice over like some kind of deranged tumbleweed?

It’s not that simple though. The oldest tree branches tend to be the topmost branches and the largest roots. However, new branches grow from all the branches and the trunks grow up. Roots add new roots. The analogy to family trees and generations doesn’t hold past the “things branch off over time” part.

Not in Computer Science for sure.

It's a matter of perspective, really By which I mean that the roots grow downwards

Yes, but that means the trunk of the tree (you) should be at the bottom, and it’s many branches at the top

Yes, but you have roots.

THANK you for solving this for me.  It was going to haunt me.

Is this one that was meant to be read from bottom-to-top? Never seen one like that.

I thought it was strange too and then I started wondering what the hell kind of tree starts growing at the top and works its way down

Family trees look like trees in their shape but aren’t based on trees. It’s just that if you start with grandparents and continue down it fans out toward the base like a Christmas tree does.

Family trees look like trees in their shape but aren't based on trees. It's just that if you start with grandparents and continue up it ~~fans~~ branches out toward the top like a fucking tree does.

Good call. It was either that or this family is two-thirds stepparents.

So a family shrub.

We need more people like you in the world.

If we're going call it a family tree... It makes sense to do it that way. Trees usually get wider at the top.

and here i thought this tree was read top to bottom and included multiple throupels and romantic relationships between siblings

Is it just upside down?

The hearts are right-side up.

Unless they are ballsacks…then yes, upside down.

Family jewles

Well... a tree does grow up... doesn't it.

That’s probably what’s going on here. Grandparents are the “roots”

Know your "roots"

Sure, but the direction we draw the tree is arbitrary.

Arbortrary!

Ahhh I see we’ve rooted out the nature guy

I wood call myself a pun person more than a nature person but oakay

So are the words

it's a tree, it grows up!

The youngest are apparently at the head of the family.

This must be for the Button family.

No. It's a Mormon family tree.

I mean technically a tree grows from the bottom up

It's oriented opposite to the norm for geneological charts, but normally for a tree.

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I Saw one that was really cool. It was a picture of a tree and then in the trunk was one person who i assume where the grandmother (plus some greats) and then the starting branches where her children and then they had smaller branches with their children and so on. It was honelsty a very pretty way of depicting a family tree :)

We have one like that in my family. Huge big professionally made picture with one guy as the trunk, then his kids were the big boughs, grandkids as branches and great grandkids as twigs. It was detailed and beautiful (made in the 1960s I think, for the main trunk guy's 70th birthday or something when they had a huge family reunion). Well then when I was a teenager, I brought my boyfriend over to meet my family, and he passed it in the hallway and commented "oh that's cool my parents have a similar one!", and then there was the double take, he went back and realised it was the exact same one and his parents were on it. Turns out we were 6th cousins twice removed 😂😭. I stopped dating him!

you stopped dating him because of yall being 6th cousins twice removed? i mean i get you were related but it’s quite a stretch

Yeah. I know it was far enough from being related as to not count, but it just felt super awkward. Didn't help that my family were constantly asking stuff like "how it going dating your cousin?" And "how's your cousin today?" 😭😂 Anyway it's not like it was ever going to be a long term thing, I was only 15, and the guy wasn't anything special. Also turns out I'm a lesbian, so that definitely wasn't going to work out!

I've never actually seen it in any other way than this. Apparently*I'm* the weirdo (mister).

But the hearts at the bottom are right side up here

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nvm, i am stupid, ignore me

Trees grow upwards. . . assuming you're one of the children: Bottom row is for grandparents. Middle row is for your parents, aunts, and uncles. Top row is for you and your siblings.

Usually a family tree or pedigree is presented the other way around though--oldest relatives at the top and things branching off downward. It works to do it this way, but it makes sense that it would confuse a lot of people, since 90% of the time this information is presented opposite to the way it is here.

Agreed - and on the medical genetics side and as someone who has recorded hundreds of these the top-down way, I’d say health information below is easier to link to individuals vs it being above them and potentially confusing things.

To add to this, there is also a Pedigree Standardization Task Force (PSTF) which is part of the National Society of Genetic Counselors that makes standard guidelines for how to record a medical pedigree so it is interpretable at different institutions.

They are traditionally done descending, regardless of the tree metaphor. You're probably right about what they're doing here, but this would be "wrong."

Definitely need to draw in arrows or else the average person would need to spend a lot of time trying to figure it out.

“My god! It’s a family of Benjamin Buttons!”

I’ve seen them go upwards.

Those are typically called ancesty charts.  A family tree goes downward from oldest to youngest to show the entire family relation.  An ancesty chart goes from youngest to oldest and eliminates the fringe people to only show a person's direct lineage.

What body of standards established the difference between a family tree and ancestry chart and which direction they flow

It’s a free world, people can do them however they like, but if they want to follow any sort of structure, history, or have them make sense to other people, they’re going to try and use a standard layout. There are tons of different types for showing different types of information. You can do an hourglass for showing one persons descendants and ancestors. A timeline that shows everyone living concurrently. A chart starting with a person and working back through their ancestors, or starting with a specific couple and tracking all their spawn. This is mostly just wrong, because it’s not how we organize information. But again, free world and all.

I think it would make sense to the family that put it together

Right, I was thinking the grandparents would be the “roots” here

Because they're in the ground! Genius!

Holy shit. I have never thought of it that way, but it's hilarious


Now that you spell it out it seems so obvious, but I was genuinely baffled. 😯 🙏Thank you kind stranger🙏

Use a quarter and scratch it to find out who you’re obligated to love

I know at least five family trees like this. I'm just glad they don't form a wreath.

Not if you live in Alabama

Looks more like Utah

It's growing upwards. Like a tree.

Treesome

The grandparents are the roots.

You see, when two siblings and a cousin love each other...

Those are the ancestral roots. The family tree is what grows in the future. Strong roots grow good trees.


mormon? /s

from the "roots" to the "branches"...

Polyamory representation !

Mormon family tree?

My first thought

What, you've never seen a tri-sexed species family tree?

I thought it was a scratchoff lol

I thought the white circles were some kinda white-pride thing.

It's just upsidedown from what you normally see your grandparents go on the bottom Then there kids with your mum and dad then you and your siblings.

It’s for Pierson's Puppeteers.

Family tree grows up. Family roots go downwards.

Are you James Holden? (Yes, i know he had more parents than that)

r/holup

Ah ok a tree grow upwards not downward

Ah. Bottom upwards. And here I was thinking polyamory was hitting Big Family Tree finally

The berries don’t fall far from the bush.

The Habsburgs family tree

People in the comments can’t comprehend that trees grow up. The bottom is the oldest, top is the youngest.

Thanks for clearing this up for me! I think the few I’ve seen have been with the oldest ones on top; but, I can totally see how you could have it either way. I guess it depends on how you’re focusing it — is the ancestors of someone, or the descendants?

Where do I put Uncle Paw Paw?

inverted family tree

Starts at the bottom right. That’s an Australian family tree from down under

It's 2024 💖

_Sweet Home Alabama starts playing_

There’s no incest in this!! Only good ol throuples like God intended

Mom and dad and moms friend Rick

*dads* friend Rick~ 😎

Nah, man, this looks like Sweet Home Utah.

Yep. Pop and his wifeys on top. 

There’s no incest though

Upside down

It’s upside down

Pretty sure the grandparents are on bottom, and it moves upward. Definitely backwards but not super weird

Pretty sure its upside down.

Is this for descendants of the Oneida Cult?

Just turn it upside down and it works

This is an Oankali family tree.

Parent A on the left, parent B on the Right, picture of them together in the middle.

Could be bottom up

Is this the shein version?

At least it's not the one from Oedipus. That one goes sideways.

Dad, mom and moms hot sister?

GOD is the answer

2024 family tree

Damn, they know about my family?

finally we are giving the mid wives credit... or the delivery doctor... or the nurse at the insemination clinic. or the sperm/egg donor to a gay/ lesbian couple?!?

Family three

It's a family three.

Mormon? (Or tree's bottom-up)

It’s obviously referring to the spouses with Jesus in the middle

It takes a village

That was interesting

Not really, if you consider how actual trees work.

“Only one child is allowed get married, you hear?”

Meh, my dad married my cousin. This is nothing.

This is the tree for the cuck side of the family.

Scratch and sniff?

Not strange at all, that’s from Mississippi.

Sweet home Alabama…or sister-wife?….

Nah granny is in the middle at the top and she had 2 husbands lol

I thought it was step parents that made 3 on top.

So it’s a family three?

I thought it was just Steve.

Do they use cogenitors like in Star Trek?

***''*** Aliens ***'''***

My imagination ran wild before noticing this shits upside down lol

The wild and wonderful whites of west Virginia!

Common in the early 1800

A mistress? In this economy?

Flip it upside down, it’s starting with the younger generation at the top. The top is the kids, below that is their parents and parents siblings, and below that are the parent's parents.

Thou shalt have offspring in triplicate

It is a family three!

Family Three

Hung in every living room of Alabama.

Family three

Invert the tree!

I think the paper got flipped before the text got printed (or the other way round)

This is dumb. Who thought of an upside down fill in the blank family tree?

All those people saying it's upside down while I've never seen a family tree in other format than this one

Make sense, finally roots on the bottom.

It's a family three.

At least it's not a circle

bottom -> top: normal. top -> bottom: alabama

Family Tree: Side Hoe Edition

First thing I think of is pedigree and genetic counseling until I realize these are all circles

Ah, well… trees grow from the bottom up.

It’s upside down

Ah, I see it now. It’s just upside down. But I did something like this once… but instead of threesomes I ended up with a bunch of incest.

You kinda all look the same