We didn't do anything like what most of you have described. The chapter website has a section for family trees. It goes back to the founding sisters of our local sorority in 1981. As a pledge, I had to memorize my family tree from the local founder to me. It wasn't that long. My big sister's big sister was still an undergrad so I had to learn three names.

We gave our little sisters nicknames at initiation. Sometimes they were related to the big sister's nickname so they had a lineage with similar nicknames.

That's actually one of the reasons Kappa uses Kores, according to one of our advisors. Kores are like the whole family system, but they're switched up semesterly. ( I beleive the VPS is one of the people responsible for the assignments.) Helps you get to know more people and prevents lineages, which can potentially be divisive. We do use Key sisters (basically bigs and littles) which I guess create a sort-of lineage. To my understanding, though, they weren't part of the Kores as it was originally planned. I recall being told they were added later because people missed the big-little thing.

We had families at my college, though I was not in a sorority. They have since done away with the official family names, in an effort to get rid of some of the hazing that way going on. Now the girls say, "I'm from the parrot lineage... "

I was a junior transfer student, so I didn't get the greatest choice of families. The nice thing was, though, that the way the rules were set up, a senior could start their own family. I did just that the next year with two of my best friends who became my little sisters. We were the parrots, pretty much because we all love Jimmy Buffett and wanted to have a cool mascot.

Each family has it's own traditions, flowers, special spot on campus, signature, colors, etc. My littles and I came up with the ideas for our family, but since we've all left, no one seems to remember them. I am in the process of making a traditions pass down book for my family, since one of my friend's from college has a biological little sister in my family that I know.

Other families I remember (off the top of my head): dinosaurs, koalas, pigs, cows, funky monkeys, dead rubber chickens, lambs, butterflies, teddy bears and sharky angels.

I know at my school some of the fraternities have family names...Founding Father Family Tree.....Budman....Military Cartoon Characters....etc.

My DG Family
 

Being as we have a nautical themed fraternity, most of our families are nautical themed. In the beg. we had the sailboats, the anchors, the lighthouses, the seashells, (and non-nautical) roses and hannahs. The hannah's have officially died out, which makes me sad, but it happens. The sailboats, i believe, will be the next to go, they are down to two girls. At big/lil revealing, the girls are given sailor hats decorated in family style. I'm a part of the seashell family, and we have our own traditions, such as bigs give lils their lavilier on initation morning, and other such traditions.....I don't think any family has any sort of heirloom or anything, but some of these ideas sound cute, i may have to start a tradition!
Greek Love and Mine,
Mandie

We have four family trees, Driscoll, Browning, Hallinan and Sandillo.

Sandillo died out in the early '90s
Hallinan is being brought back, because we gave the last Hallinan a little from our most recent class.
Browning only has one girl now.
Driscoll has the other 7 actives.

They were named after sisters.... the main tree split into the 4 branches a long time ago. There are many branches of the Driscoll tree, along with the others.

Our families are names of our drinks. Thunderbird, Rumplminze, Calico Jack, Smirnoff.

only 2 have additional names and those are Dark Side - Smirnoff and mine Thinderbird - Dave Bishop Family(named after the family founder).

I have none..

I was the 5th initiated into my chapter (founding father). Took one little and even *I* ended up blackballing him.

Our families come from our founder's last names. At one time we had 7 families, but now we only have 2, the Van Decker and Greek. I'm a Van Decker. Each tree has it's our pattern, ours is tie dye, thiers is bandanna. Each tree also has it own traditions. We also branch out. If someone has more then 1 little they get their own branch. My full liniage is Van Decker- Lalsiw-Pisano. Again each having their own pattern. It's cool but expensive. I had to buy my little 3 family shirts!

We don't have family names in our chapter. I kinda wish we did but oh well. I have the biggest family in the chapter (there are like 6 different families) with 19 active members out of 65. The last person that I know is my Grand-Big so we start the family with her and branch out....i need to research a little more and find out if she had a twin and see if we branch into any other families by any chance.

Family Trees
 

in my chapter, we have a wide variety of family names...our founders started off as twins...which my big sis is a twin...and then the families began from there. we are the Gem family...there is also the angel family, sun family, butterfly family, rockstar family, care bear family...i dont even remember how many other families we have...buttttt you name it...we probably have it :) im pretty sure its either the sun family or angel family thats the biggest...not too sure, but we definitely have the "grandmas" of our chapter hehe :)

well, we have a family names but you each start your own
We have the
Mafia. ..the biggest big/lil tree in the sorority
Shiznets. . .the smallest but growing group
my family. . .the Triumvirate. . .which our big left so it'sjust me and my two littles

That's just an example. . .

family tree, et al.
 

Thomas G Earp
 

I kinda screwed up my reply, hope this one is right.
Tom Earp was all het up about family trees, etc.
Tommy...you belong to us all!
Interfraternally, Erik P Conard, TKE

Eric needs get into that a little further! Yes, I am interested in Family Trees because of my Heratige. Hell yessss Eric knows that! Eric do know me only to well after Lo these many years!

:)

I still stand by my origingal statement of you must be very careful that it does not start decissnion amongst the members.

I still get embarresed when I introduce myself at Chapter Functions. It makes me feel like I am being pretintious amongst my Brothers and their guests.

I am prouder for the Brothers from # 2 to OUr latest Initiate Brother.

Hell, I go down and I hear whispers, damn, that is Tom Earp, # 1!

I am just one of the Brothers just as they are.

Eric and I go back longer that most are onld on this site and I love him as not as a Brother of LXA, but a Brother Interfraternally as a TKE!:cool:

He did for me what many would never do and it means so much to me so many years later!:)