Twigs
Short notes on how TreeLine works — written for the curious, shown where they are most useful.
Arrangement
Arrange
One pane for moving the people you select up or down the chart, choosing exactly who moves with them, and putting brothers and sisters in order.
Rebuilding a TreeLine
**Rebuild TreeLine** clears every manual arrangement instruction and rebuilds the chart from your family history. It asks first.
Resetting the canvas
**Reset canvas** removes every photo and piece of text placed on this TreeLine. Your uploaded photos stay in your library.
Move up to prior
Close a gap: move a person, or a selected block, up until it sits just below their prior sibling or parent.
The layout root
Build the arrangement outwards from a chosen person. It is not the same as the protagonist.
Why larger TreeLines take longer
Arranging a TreeLine means solving a placement puzzle — finding the best position for every person across every generation. Larger families have many more possible arrangements to consider, so the process takes proportionally longer.
Spacing between siblings and spouses
Set how far apart siblings and spouses sit, or let TreeLine scale the spacing to fill the page.
The Recipe
The instructions currently shaping this TreeLine, such as growth direction, nudges, sibling order and locks, in one editable list.
How TreeLine arranges your family
Every person is a bar along a timeline, from birth to death. TreeLine stacks those bars so families stay together and lines do not cross, and you can change the arrangement yourself.
Why some branches fold back
When a family has complex inter-relationships — cousins who married, or families connected across multiple lines — TreeLine sometimes folds a branch back to keep the chart readable. This is a deliberate layout choice, not an error.
Selecting people for row dragging
Click a person to select them. **Shift + click** selects all descendants. **Alt + Shift + click** selects all ancestors. **Ctrl + Shift** toggles a person and their descendants; **Ctrl + Shift + Alt** toggles ancestors. Hover over a selected person and drag to move all selected rows together. Press **Ctrl + Z** to undo, or **Escape** to clear the selection.
How dates place people in time
TreeLine uses **birth dates** to position each person horizontally on the timeline. More complete dates produce more accurate placement — and a more meaningful chart.
Clarity & Simplification
Why simplifying can improve clarity
A chart with every person visible is not always the most readable chart. Pruning lets you focus on the people and lines that matter most, making the resulting TreeLine easier to read and more meaningful to share.
Branch overlay
Colours every person by their relationship to the **mainline** — the direct path connecting your protagonists plus all their ancestors. **Mainline** people are highlighted in one colour, **immediate** family (spouses and siblings of the mainline) in another, and each **branch** gets its own colour. A badge on each bar shows the separation distance and generation number.
Separation overlay
Shows how many family-link steps each person is from the **mainline**. Mainline people are distance 0, their spouses and siblings are 1, and each further step outward adds another degree. Bars fade in opacity the further they are from the mainline, making it easy to spot distant relatives at a glance.
Showing only the Mainline
**Show › Mainline** keeps only the **Mainline**: the line between your protagonists and the spouses it runs through. Everyone else is hidden for now, not deleted. **+ immediate family** also keeps the Mainline's brothers, sisters and spouses; wider circles follow, out to **all**. Each choice is one step in the TreeLine's history, so **Ctrl+Z** takes it back. **Ctrl+Alt+1…6** steps from Mainline to all.
Bringing back hidden people
Hiding people never deletes them: they stay in your family and can be brought back at any time. Right-click a person beside them › **Show/Hide › Reveal specific hidden relatives…** to bring back one hidden spouse, child, family or branch, or choose **Show › all** to bring everyone back.
Attention indicators
**Attention indicators** is an overlay (Canvas Controls › **Overlays**). It places small marks beside the bars — for Events, hidden connections and **Warnings** about the data — without repainting the bars. Like every overlay it is screen only and never prints.
Generation overlay
Colours every person by their **generation number**. Generation 1 is the earliest ancestor; each child generation increments by one. Spouses share the same generation as their partner. Adjacent generations use contrasting colours so they are easy to distinguish at a glance.
What makes a TreeLine feel balanced
A balanced TreeLine distributes branches evenly, avoids long stretches of empty space, and keeps connectors short and unambiguous. Balance is part aesthetic, part mathematical — TreeLine optimises for both.
Emphasising the protagonist line
Draw the parent-and-child lines that connect your protagonists a little more firmly, so the eye can follow the main lineage.
Photos and your layout
Photos are placed on the canvas as pieces of their own. They never change the size of a person's bar or the rows of the chart.
Rendering & Output
Why rendering happens in stages
TreeLine separates arrangement from rendering so that style changes — colours, paper size, fonts — can be applied instantly without repeating the expensive layout calculation.
Why your TreeLine may be queued
TreeLine processes charts one at a time per worker. During busy periods, your chart waits briefly in a queue before arrangement begins. Larger charts have their own queue to ensure smaller charts are never delayed by them.
Help & Account
The Canvas Controls
The bar along the bottom of the screen is the **Canvas Controls**. It changes how the chart is **displayed on your screen** — it does **not** change the layout or what prints. From here you can: - **Zoom** in and out (**−** / **+**), or snap to **Fit** or **1:1**. - **Width** fits the chart to the window width. - **Overlays** lays a temporary, screen-only tint over the TreeLine — by Branch, Generation, Separation, Role, Lineage or Sibling set — or shows **Attention indicators** beside the bars. Choose **None** to see the TreeLine's own colours. Overlays never print. - **Find** searches for a person by name. - The **···** menu holds extra screen aids, including **Edit borders** for dragging the page edge. Think of it as a working overlay: everything here is for *looking* at the chart while you work. Turn on **Presentation mode** (in ···) to preview exactly what will print.
Twigs, TreeLine's help
Short help pages about each part of TreeLine, grouped by subject.
The Right-Click Menu
**Right-click** is where you **shape the tree**. **Right-click a person** (or a selection of people) for actions on *those* people: - **Show/Hide** — hide people, a branch or relatives, and reveal them again. - **Data** — edit the person, or add a relative or an event. - **Select** — add relatives to the selection: siblings, a whole branch and more. - **Create new…** — make a new TreeLine from the people you choose. - **Arrange** — open Layout › Arrange, grow a branch up or down, and other moves. - **Move type** — what Up and Down do for this person. - **Bar style** — full bar, thin line, stub, or a group of children. **Right-click the timeline** for its position, scale and granularity, and **right-click empty canvas** for choices about the whole chart. Unlike the Canvas Controls, these changes *do* affect the layout and the printed result. Hiding never deletes anyone: hidden people stay in your family and can be shown again.
The Pane Buttons
The **icon rail** down the side of the screen opens the **panes** — each one a focused set of controls. Click an icon to open a pane; click it again to close. The panes include: - **TreeLine Settings** — the searchable settings for this TreeLine: layout, style, labels, and **Paper and printing** (paper size, orientation, sheets and borders). - **Arrange** — move the people you select up or down, and put brothers and sisters in order. - **People** — a searchable list of everyone, with their Events. - **Person** — the selected person's details, parents, relationships and events. - **Images** and **Maps** — photographs, and the places in your family's story. - **Recipe** — the steps that arranged this TreeLine, one by one. - **History** — view or restore an earlier design. - **TreeLine Info** — what this TreeLine is and who can see it. - **Help** — these guides; **Feedback** — tell us what works and what does not. Panes are where you go to **change settings and review** the tree, a topic at a time. Open one, make your changes, and close it again.
Sending feedback
Tell us how TreeLine is working for you. TreeLine is a new format and at an early stage, so every comment helps.
Reporting a bug or getting support
Report a bug or ask for help. You get a reference, and our reply appears in **My support requests**.
Cookies and analytics choices
Choose whether TreeLine counts visits and records campaign attribution, and see exactly what is stored in your browser.
Your profile and preferences
Your contact details, country, language, theme and the units TreeLine shows measurements in.
Signing in and out
Sign in or register from the header; sign out from your Profile menu, on this device or on every device.
Dates
How missing dates are estimated
When a birth or death date is missing, TreeLine estimates it from the family around the person, so their bar can still be drawn. Estimates are marked, never stored as facts.
Fading estimated dates
Where TreeLine has estimated a birth or death date, the fill of the bar softens toward that end. The ink outline stays unchanged, so a full-strength fill means a recorded date.
Dates on bars
Choose whether each bar shows no dates, the years, or full dates, with a separate choice for people still alive.
Other parents — adoptive, step, foster, sealed and guardian
A person can have parents beyond their father and mother: adoptive, step, foster, sealed or guardian. They are recorded on the Person pane and kept in exports; the chart draws the father and mother.
Earlier ancestors and dated evidence
When a recorded parent is really an earlier ancestor, with unknown generations in between, say so and the chart shows the break in the line. Dated evidence gives someone without dates a place on the timeline.
Captions & Labels
Event and marriage captions
Put your own words beside an Event or a marriage on this TreeLine. The Family's Event or marriage itself is unchanged.
How a marriage is annotated
Choose how this TreeLine marks a marriage: rings alone, rings with the date and place, a movable callout, or nothing. The marriage itself is unchanged.
Marriage dates and gold rings
Choose how TreeLine writes the date of every marriage, and whether the rings are gold.
Which Events and marriages are drawn
Draw every Event and annotate marriages automatically, while your own choices for individual Events and marriages always win.
Families & TreeLines
Importing a family from a GEDCOM file
Bring a family tree you already keep elsewhere into TreeLine as a new Family, from the GEDCOM file your family-tree program can save.
Creating a Family
A Family holds all your genealogical data — people, unions and events. Create one, choose how to fill it, then add one or more TreeLines to it.
TreeLines in a Family — tabs, new, copy, rename, delete
Each TreeLine of a Family has a tab along the bottom of the Studio, like worksheet tabs: click to switch, **+** to make a new one, right-click to copy, rename or delete.
The TreeLine Library
Start with a ready-made Family from the TreeLine Library — genealogical data and chart design included.
A Wedding TreeLine
Start with the happy couple, then add the people who are part of their story. You only need the names and dates you know.
Making something new from a selection
Start a new TreeLine or a new Family from exactly the people you have selected. Nobody else is added.
Exporting a Family
Save a copy of a Family as a spreadsheet, as a GEDCOM file for other genealogy software, or as a full private backup.
A frame of selected people
Make a new TreeLine tab showing only the people you have selected, for a smaller print or a book page.
Your TreeLines and Families
**TreeLines** in the top menu lists your Families, with everything you can do with each one.
Updating a Family from a new file
Bring newer research into an existing Family — from a GEDCOM file or an edited Family spreadsheet — and see every change before anything changes.
Copying a Family
**Copy** on a Family makes a new, separate Family with its own copy of the people and TreeLines. The original is not changed.
Recovering sources
Add back the sources and citations that a Family imported before TreeLine kept them is missing, from its GEDCOM file.
Deleting a Family
**Delete** on a Family permanently deletes all its people, events, TreeLines and photos. This cannot be undone.
The Family Map
Every place in your Family on one map, worked out once for all of its TreeLines.
Backups of a Family
A backup is a complete copy of a Family — every person, relationship and event, and every TreeLine with all its design work — kept until you delete it. Only you can see it.
Maps on a TreeLine
Put maps of your Family's places on a TreeLine, and choose which places each map shows.
When an import is refused
TreeLine will not import a GEDCOM over a Family that already has people in it. Nothing is changed.
Getting a GEDCOM from another program
Export your family tree from your current genealogy service as a GEDCOM file, then upload it to TreeLine.
Settings for a Wedding TreeLine
A Wedding TreeLine's Settings show only what a Wedding needs, with every other setting one click away.
Choosing which places a map shows
Narrow a map to the places that matter: by role, period, kind of Event or country.
How a map shows its places
Show a map's places as markers or as a heatmap, set the size of its captions, and choose its printed subtitle.
Appearance
Palettes
A palette changes how the chart looks, not how it is arranged. No one moves, and you can change it at any time.
Bar colours
Choose the bar colour for each sex, and the ink of its border and lettering. Nothing moves.
Bar style, fill strength and ink
How each bar is filled and how the pen draws its border.
Handwriting
Draw names in pen-and-ink handwriting instead of type.
The Default bar style
How each person is drawn unless you choose otherwise for them: Full bar, Narrow bar, Line or Stub.
A person's own bar style
Draw one person, or everyone selected, as a Full bar, Narrow bar, Line or Stub, whatever the TreeLine's default.
People & Events
The People pane
A searchable list of everyone on this TreeLine, which you can group and order, filter to the people selected on the chart, and use to show or hide each person's Events.
The Person pane
Click a person to see and edit everything about them in four sections: **Person**, **Parents**, **Relationships** and **Events**.
Adding people, children, partners and Events
Add someone new, a child, a partner or an Event from the person right-click menu or the Person pane. Every field is optional; you can refine it all later in the Person pane.
Event details
An Event's facts belong to the Family; how it is drawn belongs to each TreeLine. The Event editor keeps the two apart.
Selecting people
Right-click a person › **Select** to pick a whole group at once: a branch, a generation, siblings, or everyone on this TreeLine.
Names on bars
Where names sit on their bars, whether middle names and young children's surnames are shown, and which names had to be shortened to fit.
Marriage and relationship details
Person › Relationships lists a person's partners. **Edit** opens the whole record: the type, the dates, the place as recorded, notes and sources.
Deleting a person from the Family
Deleting someone removes them from the Family permanently, in every TreeLine of it. To take someone off just one chart, hide them instead.
The words on a bar
Put your own words on a person's bar on this TreeLine, or write the label beside the bar. Names and dates in the Family are not changed.
Protagonists — who a TreeLine is about
The protagonists are the people a TreeLine is about. TreeLine draws the **Mainline** through them, and several features build on it.
The People data page
A full page for the Family's people data: names, dates, relationships and Events.
Working in the Studio
Presentation mode
See the chart exactly as it will print, without the editing aids.
Rulers, crosshair and magnifier
Measuring and reading aids for the screen. None of them is ever printed.
Pausing Studio renders
Keep editing without waiting for the chart to redraw after each change.
TreeLine Info
Facts and figures about the TreeLine you are designing: its size, scale, dates and people.
Searching TreeLine Settings
Type what you are looking for to find a setting without knowing which section it is in.
Keyboard shortcuts
Press **?** with the chart in focus to see every keyboard shortcut.
Popping out the panes
Move all the Studio's panes to a separate window.
Paper & Printing
Printing on several sheets
Print a large TreeLine across a grid of ordinary sheets, such as four A4 pages side by side, instead of one big page.
The printed title
Edit the title printed on your TreeLine: its words, style and position. It does not rename the TreeLine.
Print size and readability
Every TreeLine prints at its natural size, so names and captions stay readable. Here you see how large it prints and its smallest text.
Paper size
Choose the paper your TreeLine prints on, or let the page grow to fit the tree.
Orientation and natural scale
Landscape, portrait, or the tree's own shape, and whether bars and years stretch to fill the page.
A sample PDF at actual size
Download one page of your TreeLine at its real printed size, to check on paper before you print the whole thing.
Downloading the PDF
**Download PDF** on the toolbar gives you your TreeLine as a PDF, at its natural printed size.
Edit borders
Drag the page edge, the margins and the sub-canvases directly on the chart.
Show & Hide
Show — how much of the family to show
Show sets how much of the family a TreeLine draws, from the Mainline alone out to everyone, one wider circle at a time.
Showing and hiding a person's relatives
Right-click a person › **Show/Hide** to hide them, or to show or hide their spouses, descendants or ancestors, on this TreeLine only.
Living and disconnected people
**Show › Living people** and **Show › Disconnected people** each leave a whole group off this TreeLine, on screen and in the PDF, without changing anyone's record.
Collapsing a branch
Fold away everyone descended from a person on this TreeLine. A small **+** beside them marks the branch so you can open it again.
Timeline
The year ruler
Where the year ruler sits, which way time runs, the years it covers and how often it marks them.
The timeline scale
Fit the years to the paper width, or set a fixed number of millimetres per decade.
Ruler lettering
The font and size of the ruler's year numbers and its period captions.
The As at date
The date this chart is a snapshot of. Leave it blank for today.
Historical context bars
Reference lines on the timeline, such as monarchs, prime ministers or wars, to set your family's lives against.
Undo & History
Photos & Text
Sizing and aligning photos together
Select several photos to make them the same size or line them up.
Importing photos from another TreeLine
Reuse photos you have already uploaded to another TreeLine.
Text on the canvas
Add your own words to the TreeLine, such as a dedication or a note, and style them.
Calligraphy
Turn your text into a calligraphic image for your TreeLine.
Overlays
Selected person relationships
Select one person and this overlay colours how everyone else is related to them: their spouses, brothers and sisters, ancestors and descendants, and the wider family reached through them.
Role, Lineage and Sibling set overlays
Three overlays that colour the whole chart by how people belong to the family: **Role**, **Lineage** and **Sibling set**. They change nothing and are never printed.