Project

[PLLXA]

I just went through R this fall and really wanted to do something that our chapter doesn't have. I wanted to trace family trees, because I was told you don't know where you are going unless you know where you came from, so, does anyone have thier full family trees of Bigs and littles mapped out? I was thinking about doing it for our chapter. If anyone has it let me know how you did it and what it is on, ie an excell file or poster or whatever. Thanks a lot!

[Tom Earp]

Welcome to GC PLLXA!

While many Brothers on site have family trees, LX Z never had one and 41 years later still do not have one.

I am not sure how young your Zeta is, but if you are going to do it, start now, I wish we had.

While Brother Jono, BN 41 is away, when he gets back from the wedding of His Centurary Brother, he may be of help as he is one of the lower Zeta #s on GC!

[PLLXA]

Being this fall my class has the highest numbers, last one being 576, so I think it will be decent amount of work, but at our last alumni cocktail hour our #1 Zeta was there. Let me know when he gets back with any help, as well it is never to late to start this project. Also where can I find some of these examples? Thanks a lot!

In ZAX

[john1082]

I've never seen a comprehensive list but I suppose if a Zeta starts early enough it could be done. In our case it may well be that the notion of Big and Little Brothers wasn't part of the plan in 1913!

[Crescent182]

I have been working on a similar project for my Zeta for the past 12 years, since I was active.
It takes a lot of patience and time. Lucky for me I am from a small chapter, and I was only the 182nd initiate, but I was still missing a lot of the info from the early years. Over the years I have slowly compiled 95% of the data. And hope to have 100% by our 25th anniversary in 2008.
For most of the time I just used an Excel spreadsheet to compile the core data, and I drew out the tree by hand. One of my fellow alumni brothers recently got hold of a family tree compiler program for his computer and he is transferring my data. I haven't seen the results yet though.

IN ZAX,
Brian Gustafson
Phi Theta 182

[Tom Earp]

Originally Posted by john1082

I've never seen a comprehensive list but I suppose if a Zeta starts early enough it could be done. In our case it may well be that the notion of Big and Little Brothers wasn't part of the plan in 1913!

John that is a good point, but remember things evolve.

Without History then we may lose our way as it repeats itself.

I guess the reason LX Z did not is because it was in the throw of what expansion there was in the mid-60s.
We actually had little leadership from IHQ at the time as/and we were so new.

As you, I, and others know Leadership is still spread somewhat thin and is much better than many.

But if I remember correctly, the tree got bigger than the whole and the over all picture was lost.


Lest we not lose sight of the overall picture.

[JonoBN41]

Family trees became a major focus for one of our brothers at Beta-Nu about ten to twelve years ago. Jody, being a "computer guy", created a kind of flow chart which he printed out as a banner and pasted on the hotel banquet room wall one Founders Day. That kinda faded as he moved on with his life.

More recently, another brother, Josh Bennett ("JB"), created an alumni website into which he incorpoated a big brother/little brother feature.

From a list of some 600 initiates one could select a brother and a pop-up would show his picture. Above, was his big brother's name. Below, was his little brother (or a flow chart if he had multiples). You could then click an any of those names and work your way up or down the family tree.

I had some old documents and was able to fill in many of the blanks, but a line will still come to a dead end if there is missing data or if someone never had a little brother.

JB now works at IHQ, so contact him there to find out how he did the online version. Good luck!

In ZAX,
Jono
PS - Feel free to sign your name and tell us something about yourself. There's a thread at the top for that.

[PiLambda1]

Originally Posted by PLLXA

Being this fall my class has the highest numbers, last one being 576, so I think it will be decent amount of work, but at our last alumni cocktail hour our #1 Zeta was there. Let me know when he gets back with any help, as well it is never to late to start this project. Also where can I find some of these examples? Thanks a lot!

In ZAX

Here's the link to ours.

Our I-numbers are only up to 49, but I have them mapped out
fairly well IMO...

http://www.stlcoplxa.com/TheTreeofPiLambdaZeta.xls


In ZAX,
Brandon
Pi-Lambda 001

[Ottor 246]

Wow. My chapter has a book containing a flow chart of each family tree since the founding of our chapter. I always thought all chapters had them. When I was an associate member, I was encouraged to memorize my family tree, which I did. A few years ago, I looked up my tree and discovered that I now have about six generations of little brothers, consisting of about sixteen brothers or some crazy number like that. Pretty neat, since I was only the seventh brother in my tree.

Every year, the alumi appoint an alumnus to add the names of the newly initiated brothers and their zeta numbers to the appropriate tree. So once it's established, it's really no big deal to keep it updated. On the other hand, starting from scratch and going back through decades of chapter history could be daunting. Good luck.

In ZAX,
Ottor

[Tom Earp]

WOW, that is the rub.

Starting early is the key.

But I still did not answer the question.

The idea of having a total listing of all Brothers of the Zeta is the key!

Starting from scratch is going to be tough with out the key. # 1 being the first of course.

The Tree is nothing more than a seed = #1. Then it grows with branches and names.

The only problem I have seen is the Limbs overwhelming the Zeta.

It has to be kept in prospective.

[Mooch279]

Heres a link to the one a couple of guys in our chapter compiled in the last couple of years. http://phidelta.glennfitzpatrick.com/

[JoinerLxa]

One of Georgetown's alums started one about 10 years ago. At every
Homecoming meeting he has a flowchart printed on a large banner so alums
can fill in more info. But I think it only goes back to the 70's or late 60's.... no
data for the 20's to the 60's. I'm not even sure they had "big brothers"
"way back when". Would be interesting to know how far back the
"big brother" tradition goes. At least the 40's, but I don't know if
ThKN had them or not.

Since Vandy recolonized in 1991, they didn't have so far to go back. So I
think they have almost 100% complete data. They even have "families"
with names. A family patriarch is one of the initial colonizers who had no
big brother (at least at Vandy). Since I was active there at the time,
and had a little brother, I'm the "patriarch of the Omega Family", which
I'm proud to say is still adding members (some families have died out).

They started "family names" well after I left, and I have no idea why we're
the "Omega" family. Eventually someone realized that "Omega" is for
deceased brothers in LXA, but there is resistance to change of course.
I suggested changing it to the "Kappa-Omega Family", since I was
initiated at KO, and since that family has a line at KO going back
many more years....but it hasn't changed. So my "dead line" is still
alive! ha ha!

They keep their excel file online on their website. All the new initiates
learn what "family" they are in, but don't memorize their line or anything
(that I know of).

[JonoBN41]

Originally Posted by JoinerLxa

..."big brother" tradition goes. At least the 40's, but I don't know if ThKN had them or not.

I have a 1936 TKN paddle, "Elmer from Bob", so (unless Elmer was the pledge master) I would assume they had big and little brothers.

But I'm not absolutely sure.