family tree – Doodling Doo

VC | Process & Mock Up

The deliveries for my project is to design a “treasure box” or “time capsule” to keep the memories of my family. However, I deliberately change the form of the treasure box with extending a door, which the box is representing a home as well. So a reader can open the box just like a door. The idea behind of it is that even though we family members are not living physically in a home but we are still linked together.

A: the family tree.
B: the mapping of family migration
C: the history and story

Mock Up for box (11.5 x 11.5 x 11.5 cm) :

VC | Process and Summary Brief for Time Project

Small summary for my project:

1)family tree (4 generations, start from my grandparents)
what: to discover the relationships between my family and the extended family based on the year of birth and generation
how: design a visualization diagram based on the concentric tree rings instead of a vertical hierarchical chart (information: english name, chinese name, year of birth, relationship)

First draft for family tree - it seems like quite successful and workable for my idea — First draft for family tree – it seems like quite successful and workable for my idea

2)migration path of my family (map)
what: to show the migration path of my family from the start of my grandparents immigrated from China to Malaysia. Also, to show the fact that the children have moved to other cities to seek for more job opportunities after they grew up.
how:

Go back to the initial mind mapping of time concept, order and sequence have mentioned in the previous post. From there, I integrated the meaning of Lin 林, the tree. From there came to the idea of the order and the sequence of a tree grows. It starts with a seed and needs time and nutrition to produce all of its parts – roots, trunk, branches, leaves, flowers and fruits – and to grow larger.

So, I am thinking to use the growth of tree to be the idea of visualisation diagram and integrate with Malaysia map to show the migration path of my family which is

China is the root of my family
why? because there is a Chinese proverb called 寻根溯源，“寻根” literally means seek root and “溯源” means trace to the source. Undoubtedly, our ancestors were from China.

“Root-seeking culture is part of traditional Chinese culture, and features elements suchas ethnic groups, family names, characters, and classics. As its name suggests, root-seeking culture refers to practices of seeking one’s roots and finding one’s blood ties andemotional bonds.”
Resources: Root-seeking culture booms in China
my grandparents were the trunk of my family – support us, educate us
my father’s generation is branches – because they become older and start to settle down without big moving, so they have more time to gather around
my generation is leaves – having education, seek for job opportunities, organise our own family
my next generation is fruits – protected by leaves from insects, external factors

However, generations represented by different part of the tree are my perspective for now since we will grow up and the role will keep changing and changing. For visual and aesthetic aspects, I have no idea of how to fit this idea into map to show the migration for now.

3)memories and stories
what: mainly to narrate my grandparents’ story. eg, how he survived in those tough times, how he started his business, how he taught his children and etc.
how: stories, old photograph, some documents

Resources :
Forest Fact: How a tree grows
Tree trunks – general facts and information

VC | Research on Tradition Family Tree

Here is the summary of my research
Source: http://traditions.cultural-china.com/en/214Traditions11966.html

Family tree is a special cultural legacy of China, being one of the 3 important documents (history of the nation, local chronicles and family tree) of Chinese nation. Family tree is a precious human culture document, which is irreplaceable for the further study of history, folkloristic science, demography, sociology and economics.

The Origin of Family Tree

According to the inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells, bronzes, stones and other early inscriptions of China discovered, the history of family tree can be traced back to before Qin period at the latest. The officials of history wrote Generation Book – on Emperors in Zhou dynasty. The Generation Book written before Qin Dynasty has already been lost, and the one we are reading today is written by people in Qing dynasty. However, from the menu we can see that Generation Book has concluded all the family trees of emperors, kings and chancellors from Huang Emperor Period to Spring and Autumn Period, being a general pedigree chart of the comprehensive blood –related groups of previous and contemporary times.

The Form of Family Tree
Before written
oral family tree, knotting family tree
Other forms
mount chart (common people, merchants, rich families)
book-bind (bureaucrat families)

The Contents and function of Family Tree

The function of Family Tree changes from the past to now:
evidence of blood relationship (inheriting of title & property), content was simple, instruction of lineage -> Wei, Jin Dynasty, the chosen of officials and marriages based on family status, contents become more -> Song Dynasty, worship of ancestors and harmonizing the relationship of family members, popular among common people

The content of a family tree includes mainly 3 parts:
1) chart of lineage -> describing the generation and father of clan member
2) the main text -> name, title, father, generation, time, post, title of nobility, life time, posthumous name, marriage and so on of each member.
3) appendix

The order of generations is set in some family trees when they are being made. The generations are marked ahead of time. This is called “generations order” in folklore, which is actually assigning priority according to seniority. Because of the value the male child only formed by history, a character decided in advance has to be one of the characters of the “full name” of a male. This character should be in the middle or the last of the three characters of the name. The generations may be different, but the rule is accepted through common practice.