Family Tree
 

Just curious if anyone has actually traced their family tree in their fraternity or sorority?

I worked on mine for about 8 months and finally traced it back to one of the Founders. It gets frustrating sometimes, and its horrible to call and talk to someone's wife and find out that the brother was 70 years old and fought brain cancer for 3 years before he died.

But, all the negative stuff aside, it was a great experience, and it was cool to talk to my 15th Gen. Grandbig. and whatnot. I highly recommend it to everyone.

Note: If you are going to do this, pick up a program like Family Tree Maker. You can store addys, phone numbers, etc that will make your job 10000X easier.

I've not only traced my own family tree, but all of the family trees for my chapter. I've been working on our chapter history for about four years now (I'm now an alumna and still doing it).

Most of it was fairly easy since we've only been around since 1988 and we have a tradition of family books (unfortunately, that tradition died out somewhere and I've been trying to revive it). Basically the family book gives the new sister family traditions, family tree, all of the big sisters for her pledge class, little extras that the big sister chose to include (when the first book was made, the rest are just duplicates with the necessary information changed).

There are still quite a few sisters that I haven't been able to place into families because I can't find them now and the older sisters seem to remember their own families, not everyone's (which is understandable). Plus we were charted as Gamma Phi Beta in 1988, prior to that we were a local sorority, so it's quite possible that some of these older sisters that I can't place into the known families are in families that died out shortly after we became Gamma Phi and don't connect in anyway (at least not without going back into Pi Kappa Sigma) to the known families.

But overall, it's been very interesting contacting sisters that I've never met and realizing just how willing they are and how excited they are that the chapter history is finally getting done.

Since I'm a founding mother for my new chapter...I'll keep this in mind. For future generations, I'll make sure we write all this stuff down and keep record...Hopefully.

That's really cool - I can go back about 10 generations with mine, but considering our chapter is almost 140 years old, it's not really that great.

It's really a cool thing to do when alumnae come back because it kind of ties them to your chapter to be able to say "We're in the same family!" My family, unfortunately, died the semester after I went alum. :(

Considering my chapter's only 12 years old, I thought that it was going to be a piece of cake. I tried doing it on my own using the chapter history, but it turned out I needed the help of some of my early chapter sisters. Thankfully my own sister-mom was helpful because she was the all-around "Miss AGD" of her time, and provided me with info even though she already moved back to New York.

We had our 10 year reunion 2 years ago and I was fortunate enough to meet one of the chapter founders, who eventually turned out to be my sister-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grand-mother. At the end of the reunion, everyone was amazed as to how much alike we were. Kristi's a flight attendant based in Virginia now (I think), and she is one AMAZING woman.

I've started a legacy of my own, and hopefully, this Fall, my sister-granddaughter will take on a sister-daughter of her own. :D

Since I am a rechartering brother, I will have to make sure the chapter stays on top of it.

President
Tau Mu Chapter
Alpha Phi Omega

I have and it was a pain, but a good pain :p

I not only did my family tree, but every branch that I could get a name for, dead or alive. We are 30 years old and unfortunelty, since the sorority split twice, and went national twice, we've lost A LOT of history. So, it made the search harder.

I would like to be able to continue seeing my family tree grown down the line; unfortunately it has come to an abrupt end..

I was a Founding Farther of my chapter.. I have my little bro and he has his; unfortunately he is inactive and my lil brother and i have since graduated..

:mad:

pledge sons, etc.
 

in my undergrad years I had 17 pledge sons; 16 of them made
their grades and were initiated. I stopped counting at a hundred,
and my word....48 years later...golly.
The tightness of the Betas always impressed me. One of my high
school buddies flew his plane back to K-State for a reunion of his
pledge class...think it was 45 years...at any rate, 18 of 21 showed up. That is brotherhood personfied.
Fraternity is for life. For those of you who never had a house or
never lived in one...sorry...an experience you missed.
And it is hard for me to conceive of Fraternity without a house and at least sixty men...

I can trace mine back to a chapter founder... but I can't take credit for doing any of the work. Our family's tradition is to give your Little a copy of their family tree. I have been the one to add the names in the past year or so and distribute copies.

I've been working on my family tree off and on. The only reason that I have a very good one is because one of my Specs gave me a copy of hers. I need to update it to account for the newer ladies.

We did this in APO. Fortunately, Brothers did all the research years before I pledged, so all we have to do is add the names of new Brothers every semester.

My family tree originated in Spring 1966 with Bill Clinton's line Brother, Kit Ashby. I am now a great-great Big.

I'm really lucky that my chapter is only 2yrs old (my daughter is 9days older than my chapter) so I have direct contact with my founder I call her my momma, eventhough she is actually my great-grandma.

I've documented my family, and I have also written down the members of other family trees in my chapter.

One thing that I really love about family tree's in my chapter is that we all have a family name....I love my family name it is so fitting....sorry I can't share it ....TOP SECRET !!!!!!

One question? As anyone really taken a look at the members in your respective family tree's ? Are all the girls/guys have the same type of personality characteristics?

I've looked at the families in my chapter and I noticed that all the girls are matched very well. They are not all carbon copies of each other, but they all have similar/same personalities.

I know that in mine we are the girls that are very vocal, like to talk s&%* to each other , are very sarcastic, but we all know when we are kidding and we can go back to being wicked cool with each other .

yeah I have...We've only had 5 brothers in our family total...Actually my grand big, my big and myself all graduated college the same day and time....

Ive actually tried on several occasions to trace my family tree. Its so hard though cause when people dont have other peoples emails or addresses its hard to get in contact with them. I have been at a dead end for a while. You have actually given me hope though. I think I am going to try again to locate the next on our family tree and hopefully find her somewhere. Also I may be able to ask some people who may know her.

I think it would be awesome to be able to have that. Maybe even meet some of the people who are part of your fmaily way back then who are still alive. I bet theyd get a kick out of it too.

I've been able to trace back to my grand-big. I know at one point, I learned who was her grand big but cannot remember now. I might have to do some more digging now that my mind is on it. I don't see myself ever tracing back to our founders since we're 125 years old....but i think it would be cool if i could!

My APO chapter has a family tree planner you can download from the chapter website. Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated since 2000. But it does trace my littles through the fifth generation.

After reading all these posts I am getting interested in documenting my family's tree when I get back. Its going to be crazy because there has been some adopting lately...I have two "adopted" aunts now, complete with cousins. I have a copy of my branch going back about 4 generations that my big gave me, I think I'll pick up from there!

As a founding father for the recolonization of Phi Psi's Iowa Beta chapter I'll have to keep this in mind.

This is how the colony's family tree will look like this fall with our current count for our Beta pledge class:
But if rush keeps up my guess is the 4 Founders who did not have an Alpha class pledge-son will all have twins.

I luck out with tracing my family tree in two different ways. My family has a tradition of receiving a book of inspirational quotes, poems etc during Initiation week. Inside the book is the family tree. And even though the chapter that I'm an alumna from is over 50 years old, my family line started when a member transferred to ISU and affiliated.
Additionally, one of the archivist/historians for the chapter (well before my time) started a book and each page (or pages) is a different family. Now after each Initiation the new names just have to be added to the respective pages. It makes things pretty easy, but I'm sure it was a pain for the person that actually sat down and did all the original work.

My chapter had six pledge classes as a local. They kept great records. I could trace back to the Founders of my local. The chapter continues a family tree to this day. Sadly, my branch of my family tree ended. I'm just happy that my chapter continues to record the family trees.

In my family I can go up to my great-great grand-big to where the line is like this:



(another family) aunt--cousin
/ /
G-G-G-Big -- G-G-Big-- G-Big-- Big-- Me -- little
| \
uncle sibling


I'm hoping that I'll have my first grand-lil this fall and maybe another little.

If you contact your HQ, they usually have alumni lists that have contact info. Thats how I traced mine, or at least got started with it.

*hijack*

How serious of an issue is it when a family tree dies out in a chapter ?

My grandma had 2 littles and one is no longer active, so we hava a part of our family that has no littles so one day my tree might die out , and since our chapter is a samll one the only people that are allowed to have more then one little are founders, so if my little or her little goes inactive then my tree dies out.

I have one founder that is a big sister to all family trees, she graduated before we were granted chapter status, so we have all adopted her into our families.

*end hijack*

In our chapter, big/lils are very important. I think it is a huge thing if a family tree dies out. That means that someone, somewhere along the line, has given up. They have stopped trying to recruit, or they just don't care to have a little anymore, and help him along the path of Greek life.

Ive only been active for 2 semesters, and I have 3 little brothers and a twin, I think it has been one of the most rewarding experiences of Phi Delta Theta thus far. Plus, your little is going through what you did so long ago, and it reaffirms and refreshes my feelings towards my fraternity. I think it should do that to everyone.