Family histories were often maintained through hand-drawn or embroidered records that documented generations of family members. Such records usually include names as well as birth and death dates. Tress, with their many branches, were favored symbolic element. This unusually large example combines freehand painting and ambrotypes of a family with ten children. Judging by the appearance and placement of four of the young men, there might be two sets of male twins.

Lee Kogan, "Family Tree," FOILED: Tinsel Painting in America (New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2013), 91