Give Your Family the Ultimate Gift - A Family Tree

Create or update your Family Tree, and uncover your unique roots. Give the ultimate, recession-proof gift to your children and grandchildren. But do it the right way. Start with your family today, and carefully work back. Be true to the recent ancestors whom you best remember, and then work back. Leave the family pioneers, presidents, and patriots, until later. NFFG can partner with you, to obtain a professional-quality family tree. You do not try to cut corners on the financial security of your family; don’t cut corners on your ancestral legacy.

Your Family's Paths through time...

Around the kitchen tables and hearths of your ancestors, stories were told and values were taught to children. The families in your past were the greenhouses which eventually brought you into this world and released you into the world's fray. Your predecessors not only created you genetically, but they set you up with an ethos - structures and codes by which to live your life. It is part of the family treasure which you carry and pass on.

A family tree is not just a chart of names and dates. A carefully developed family tree will bring alive the stories, hopes and dreams, of those who created and nurtured you. You will uncover the values and beliefs of your ancestors, core values which preceded Political Correctness. Your research could redefine your identity, and help your children and grandchildren know from whom they came.

The first step is to become an NFFG Member, and you can see how to do this by visiting our main web page. From our main page, you can find the fee structure for joining, read some references, and find our email address. This will start the process. We will need you to send us the information which you are sure of, and tell us how far back you would like to go. You will tell us if you are interested in tracing by surname (father to son), or by more branches (for example, including the mother’s, or siblings, lineages, in one or more generations. This background information will give us a sense of the scope of your family research project. We can then estimate the number of research hours which we must use to prepare your family tree, and the type of resources which we will have to consult. Then, we can arrive at a proposed fee to prepare your family tree. Some of this cost will be provided by your membership fee, when you join NFFG. A very detailed family tree over many generation can cost up to $10,000.00. An average family tree of 3-5 generations often costs in the range of $800.00 to $2000.00. In any case, the fee is very small, in terms of the value to your family legacy.

To read more details, and see references, and to give things more thought, please click here to visit our main web page.

IMPORTANT: Our statement of Privacy Policy regarding family information which is sent to us: no information on any living person will be shown at our Online Family Tree, nor shared with anyone. Howver, we will keep such information in our very private home database. This has sadly become helpful, for some past clients who have passed away.

Today and Yesterday...

Think of TODAY as the leading wave of the great tsunami of time. TODAY embodies our passing mortality. TODAY overpowers us with compelling things - finances, trends, politics - all the things which fill our waking thoughts. But that tsunami is propelled by the ancient seas of the past, which contain all that went before. The identities of your own ancestors, are contained in those ancient seas.

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) said... '"I borrowed from all, without any exception. I am sewn between ancestry and posterity. I am a drop of water in a flowing river of time; a molecule in a mountain; a cell in a great family tree."

The Mathematics of Genealogy

The number of parents in your ancestry increases exponentially by the power of two per generation. For example, in the third generation previous, you have eight great grandparents (8 = 2 ³). Over ten generations, a span of about 350 years, there will be 1,024 individuals (1024 = 2 ¹⁰), who are your direct ancestor-parents, from each of whom you are equally descended. You could find a few surprises amongst those 1,024 ancestors!

The Branches of your Family Tree

You may speak of 'your family tree', but you will have many possible family trees. Over the generations, your many ancestor-parents will include a large number of different surnames. Your ancestral family will have lived in hundreds of different locations. Each generation may have had many other children, other than your specific ancestor. A ten-generation group would produce a family tree numbering 50,000 or more. The diagram of such a genealogy, would be an exploding inverted pyramid, from one's self, back in time through all direct ancestors and their siblings. No one I know has compiled such a family tree.

Generally, the 'family tree' which people refer to, is a branch of a family tree which is chosen for some reason, from some specific ancestor.

Many family trees are created by surname, but there are alternatives. You may have a memory of a great grandparent who affected you greatly, and you would like to track back your ancestry through his or her ancestry, regardless of surname. Perhaps you have a notable person, a President or a Prime Minister, or a Patriot or Loyalist in your family tree. Perhaps there is a family mystery you would like to resolve. But first, start with the family which you know and remember.

Honouring Your Immigrant Ancestors

As you track your family members back, you will discover when they entered America or Canada. Such persons are known in genealogical parlance, as Immigrant Ancestors. For each immigrant ancestor, there will be a poignant story. In your family tree, we can attempt to discover the details.

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If you would like to view the areas of research, and the families under study by current NFFG members, please click here.

Visit the main web page of NFFG, The Network of Founding Family Genealogies, by clicking here.