FAMILY TREE What Is A Family Tree Because people tend to get creative with them, family trees take all sorts of forms. This might throw you off in some cases, but at the end of the day, a family tree is simply some sort of chart or diagram that shows the members of a family and the relationships between them. Sometimes, challenges like missing data, or different goals may lead people to adjust the type of chart they use, so you might see different trees illustrated in different ways.