Most people are familiar with family pedigrees.  These documents, staples for genealogists, accommodate at most five generations on single 8 ½ x 11 inch sheets of paper, limiting the amount of history viewable on a single page. However, students working with Dr. Tom Sederberg in the One-Page Genealogy Laboratory have extended the boundaries of what’s possible in family history. They have created a way to view hundreds of years of family history on a single page.  Using their technology, they are able to display a 14-generation pedigree on a single three-by-four-foot sheet of paper.  In the standard format, the same pedigree chart would require a sheet of paper the length of Lavell Edwards Stadium.

The innovative One-Page Genealogy software builds on the fact that family trees often have incomplete branches—areas of the pedigree that are incomplete.  In standard pedigrees, these unused branches are left intact, wasting valuable space.  The One-Page Genealogy software, however, using a standard Gedcom file for the input data, automatically expands other branches into this unused space and forces every pair of subtrees as close to each other as possible.  The algorithm used to achieve these results is adaptive to each unique set of records and to each user’s preferences. 

For a nominal fee, individuals can access this software on the lab’s website and create 14-generation pedigrees that fit perfectly onto poster-sized pieces of paper, giving them a bird’s-eye view of their family tree.  100% of the proceeds are used to fund students as they develop additional family history technology.