Guide · 17 October 2026
How to print a family tree from Ancestry (and what to do when the family cannot open the website).
Ancestry's own Print button prints what is on the screen: a few generations, small, and often across several pages. For one wall-sized chart of five generations, export the tree as a .ged file and have the chart drawn from that. Here is where the export lives on each of the four big tree sites, what the file holds, which print sizes work, and what to do for a parent who will never log in.
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Printing straight from Ancestry
Open your tree, switch to the pedigree view (the sideways tree) and look for Print in the tree toolbar. Ancestry builds a printable page of the generations currently on screen and hands it to your browser's print dialog, where “Save as PDF” is an option. It is fine for a quick four-generation sheet on A4 or Letter. It is not a wall chart: the type is small, the layout is Ancestry's, and anything beyond the visible generations is cut off or pushed to a second page. If that is all you need, you are done. If you want one chart with five generations, names, years and places that a grandparent can read from the sofa, read on.
Exporting your tree: where the button is
Menus move, and these are the step names as the four sites describe them in their own help pages this month; if a button is not where we say, search that site's help for “export GEDCOM”.
Open the tree → tree name menu → Tree Settings → on the settings page, Export tree. Ancestry prepares the file (a minute or two for a large tree), then shows Download your GEDCOM file. It saves as yourtree.ged.
The shared Family Tree has no GEDCOM download of its own. Use Print on the fan or pedigree chart for a PDF, or sync your branch to a desktop program (RootsMagic Essentials or Ancestral Quest Basics, both free) and export the .ged from there. Or skip the file and type the names into our form.
Family tree → Manage trees → the tree's actions menu → Export to GEDCOM. MyHeritage emails a download link or offers the file at once, depending on size.
Every desktop program exports: File → Export → GEDCOM. Choose the whole tree or the branch above one person. 23andMe's tree has no export; type the names instead.
What a .ged file actually holds
A GEDCOM is plain text you can open in any text editor. It has one record per person — name, sex, birth date and place, death date and place, and often an occupation or a note — and one record per family, which is how it knows who the parents of whom are. That is everything a chart needs. It does not hold photos, DNA matches, hints or sources as pictures. Two things to check before you send one anywhere:
- Living people. Most sites replace living relatives with “Living” on export unless you turn that off, so your own parents can arrive as blanks. Open the file and search for their names.
- The root person. A chart is drawn upward from one person — you, your mother, the grandparent the gift is for. Tell us who, and we draw their ancestors; the rest of the file is ignored.
Print sizes that fit five generations
- 36 × 24 in — the standard poster size at US photo counters and office-supply print desks; five generations of names, years and places read at arm's length. Our main PDF is this size.
- A2 (594 × 420 mm) — the UK and Australian equivalent; the 36 × 24 PDF prints at A2 with a small border, or ask the printer to scale to fit.
- A3 / 11 × 17 in — fits a home printer and a standard frame. Readable for four generations; at five it is a reading chart rather than a wall chart. We send an A3 PDF too.
- Letter / A4 — only for three generations. Ancestry's own print view lives here.
Any photo lab, copy shop or online poster printer takes a PDF. Ask for matte paper for a frame, and leave a border of about an inch for the mount.
When the family cannot open the website
The research lives in a website that needs a login, a subscription and a screen, and the people it is about are the least likely to open it. The honest fix is paper. Export the tree (or type the 31 names), have one chart drawn, print it, and hand it over. The Hartley sample — an invented family, labelled as such — shows what five generations look like at 36 × 24 in: each person a name line, a years line, and a place or occupation line where the family supplied one. Only what you send is drawn; nothing is looked up or filled in.
Questions
How do I print my family tree from Ancestry?
Open the tree, choose the pedigree or family view, and use the Print option in the tree toolbar: Ancestry builds a print view of the generations on screen and sends it to your printer or to a PDF. It fits what is on the screen, so a large tree comes out small or across several pages. For a single wall-sized chart, export the tree as a GEDCOM (.ged) file from the tree's settings page and have the chart drawn from that file.
How do I export a GEDCOM from Ancestry?
Open the tree, open its Tree Settings (from the tree name menu), and on the settings page use Export tree. Ancestry prepares the file, then shows a Download your GEDCOM file button. The file ends in .ged and is a few hundred kilobytes for a tree of a few hundred people. Menus move; if the button is not where we say, search Ancestry's help for “export GEDCOM”.
Can I export a GEDCOM from FamilySearch?
Not directly from the shared Family Tree. FamilySearch lets you print a fan chart or a pedigree chart to PDF from the tree's Print option, and a desktop program that syncs with FamilySearch (RootsMagic and Ancestral Quest both have free editions) can download your branch and export it as a .ged. The other way is simpler: type the names, years and places into our order form, up to 31 people for five generations.
What does a .ged file contain?
Plain text: one record per person (name, sex, birth date and place, death date and place, sometimes an occupation and notes) and one record per family that links parents to children. Photos, DNA matches and hints are not in it. Living people may be reduced to “Living” by the exporting site's privacy setting; check the file for your parents' names before sending it.
What size should a family tree chart be printed?
Five generations with names, years and places read comfortably at 36 × 24 inches (the standard poster size at US photo and print counters) or A2 in the UK and Australia. A3 fits on a home printer and is readable for three or four generations; at five it becomes a reading chart rather than a wall chart. We send both the 36 × 24 in PDF and an A3 PDF with every order.
My parents will not use a website. What can I give them instead?
A printed chart. Export your tree (or type the names), have the chart drawn, and print it at any photo lab, copy shop or poster printer; frame it or clip it. It needs no login, no screen and no instructions, and it is the version of your research the family actually looks at.
Send a .ged file or a typed list; the chart comes back as a 36 × 24 in PDF, an A3 PDF and a web image within 2 days. One free round of changes. $59 · £49 incl. VAT · A$89 · C$79.