African family knowledge centre

A large family is many families: every marriage joins two of them, and every child has a mother's side and a father's side. This is how a family keeps all of it in one record, without copies that drift apart, and without leaving the work to one person.

1. One master tree

The family's master tree is its one source: the record everyone shares. Corrections are made there once.

• A tree started from it, for a mother's side, a father's side or a branch that has grown into a family of its own, stays linked to it.
• Corrections made in the master flow down to every linked tree, to the same people.
• What is added or corrected in a linked tree comes back to the master as a suggestion, for its approvers to apply or decline.
• A linked tree can be the master of trees started from it in turn: a mother's family tree is that family's own master, and still part of the whole.

2. A tree for each side

Give each side of the family its tree, rather than a private copy kept by one person: Each is open to the people of that side, invited to it, and grows with them.

• A mother's full side: her father's line and her mother's line, and everyone descended from them
• A father's side, the same way
• The family of a wife or a husband, started from their own place in the master

3. Owners: many, never one

Every tree has several owners, so it never depends on one person:

• The founders who started it, and those who owned it with them, stay owners whatever happens.
• Each house (each wife's household, or each branch) has one owner, appointed by the custodians.
• Children and grandchildren can be co-owners from a young age. While they are minors, their parent or guardian manages their MAD-ID for them, and gives the consent.
• Every owner is a Tree custodian, and names two or three people who carry the tree on (see Continuity).

4. Custodians and deputies

Custodians look after the tree for everyone: they let people in, appoint deputies (Family reps and Curators), check reports, open album folders and keep the houses. Deputies help them.

5. Approvers: two or three who keep it right

With many owners and custodians, the family names two or three approvers, usually elders who know the family best.

• Everyone can add and correct. A change is on the tree at once, so nobody waits to share what they know.
• Only the approvers approve or reject a change, apply or decline a suggestion from a linked tree, or decide what comes in from a file.
• The approvers of the master tree also approve for every tree linked to it, unless that tree names its own.
• Family members can agree with a change or challenge it. A change nobody challenges for 30 days stands; a challenge keeps it open until an approver settles it.
• Rejecting a change puts things back as they were.

6. When people pass on or go quiet

Ownership passes to the people each owner chose, after a death notice is checked or a long silence. See the Continuity (Generations) guide.

7. A simple order of work

• Start the master tree, and invite the elders first.
• Name the approvers, and the owner of each house.
• Start a tree for each mother's and father's side, with that side's people as owners.
• Make the children co-owners, and have each owner name who carries the tree on.
• Correct in the master; add in the side trees; let the approvers decide.