This is like the 5th time I've tried to type out this damn post but my webpage keeps doing weird shit. Anyways, here's the summary:
Thought it would be cool to set up a visual family tree to help keep track of different noble families, titles, ages/birth dates/death dates, relationships, etc, because sometimes it helps to just see it all laid out visually. I'm using Family Echo, since it's the best free collaborative family tree maker I've found to date and offers an appropriate range of information inputs. You do not have to be nobility/gentry to utilize the family tree, although the main purpose is to keep track of relationships between different families, as well as titles.
How to use:
-- Upon inspection, it does appear you have to make an account in order to actually add to the family tree. Fortunately, this is super basic & easy.
-- If your family is not connected to any of the other families already present on the family tree, connect it to the "Baseline" box. Try to keep the generations roughly even visually (so like, don't connect your 20-year-old character directly to the baseline box -- if you don't have/know parents or grandparents, just put in "filler" boxes to connect to the baseline, etc).
-- Please set all NPCs' gender to "other," which turns their box white. Sorry that that constrains PCs to male/female, I couldn't think of a better way to do it (other than perhaps setting all PCs to one gender and all NPCs to a different gender).
-- Use "profession" for your current highest noble title (or just your profession, if you're not a noble). Feel free to fill in any of the other boxes you like (such as bio, interests, address, etc. as well as birth and death dates to the day or to the year as you desire). Obviously just don't fill in anything you don't want to be publicly visible!
-- You can also add a portrait. Has to be uploaded directly from your computer/device (I honestly don't know hell well FE works on mobile).
-- Feel free to add stand-in or "connections wanted" boxes if you, for example, know for a fact that your character has a younger sibling but the sibling isn't named/claimed/etc yet. However, try not to scramble the family tree with too many filler/stand-in boxes.
Link: https://familyecho.com/?p=ZNXVB&c=hl14f7er54&f=737169162527464936
Sorry, I just really like family trees and having the visual format of it lol.
Name: Yvette Simone Bellamy (born November 12, 1788 in France)
Title or Profession: Currently Lady, but originally Mademoiselle
NPC Kin: Mother's Line-
Grandfather: (haven't decided title for sure yet for this guy) Monsieur Alexandre Blanchet (deceased)
Grandmother: Madame Genevieve Loup (deceased)
Mother: Madame (now Lady) Josephine Blanchet
Uncle: Monsieur Phillipe Blanchet
Father's Line-
Grandfather- (Title- Chevalier) Monsieur Claude Bellamy (deceased)
Grandmother- Madame (also Lady) Lydia Howard. (sister to PC Cornelius Howard)
Father: Monsieur (now Lord) Bastien Bellamy
Uncle: Monsieur Mathias Bellamy (deceased)
Aunt: Madame Elodie Bellamy
(Hopefully I'll flesh this out at some point)