For Those Building Family Trees in Excel
When you first decide to create a family tree, it's natural to reach for Excel or Google Sheets. They're familiar, versatile, and already on your computer.
And there's good reason for that. Excel is an incredibly powerful tool. It excels at organizing data in tabular format — you can neatly list family members' names, birth dates, and relationships. With formulas and filters, sorting and searching is effortless.
But as your family tree grows, have you ever found yourself thinking, "I wish I could do more"?
- As more people are added, it becomes harder to visualize how everyone is connected
- The spreadsheet looks too "businesslike" to share with family
- There's no easy way to attach ancestor photos alongside the data
This is where a purpose-built family tree app truly shines. In this article, we'll explore what makes the "Anotoki Kakeizu" app special.
Beautiful Family Trees Created Automatically
Creating a visual family tree in Excel means merging cells, drawing borders, and manually adjusting layouts. Every time you add a new person, the entire layout needs reworking. Before you know it, you're spending more time on formatting than on the family history itself.
With "Anotoki Kakeizu," simply enter names and relationships, and a beautiful family tree is drawn automatically.
Lines connecting parent-child and spousal relationships appear instantly, with generations neatly arranged. Whether your tree has 10 people or 100, the app calculates the optimal layout — so you can focus entirely on your family's story.
12 Design Templates to Match Your Style
Choose from 12 design templates to give your family tree the perfect look:
- Japanese Traditional: Dignified designs inspired by scrolls and hanging scrolls
- Modern: Clean, contemporary layouts
- Pop: Bright and friendly designs
- Elegant: Refined and sophisticated styles
- Vintage & Retro: Warm designs with a timeless feel
Switch between templates with a single tap. Use a formal Japanese design for a milestone birthday gift, or a pop design for a casual family gathering — the choice is yours.
Photos and Family Crests Bring Your Tree to Life
Excel cells are designed for text and numbers. While you can insert images, managing them alongside your data is cumbersome.
"Anotoki Kakeizu" lets you add a profile photo to every family member.
The built-in image cropping tool lets you trim photos to the perfect size. Snap a picture of an old photograph with your smartphone, and your ancestors' faces become part of the tree.
Family Crests (Kamon)
Family crests (kamon) — an essential part of Japanese genealogy — can be selected from the app's built-in library or uploaded as custom images.
A family tree with photos and crests isn't just a list of data — it becomes a warm, personal record where you can see the faces of your family.
Time Machine — Experience Your Family History as Animation
This is something Excel simply cannot do.
The Time Machine feature, the app's signature capability, lets you play back your family's history as an animation from the year 1600 to the present day.
Drag the slider and watch as ages change, eras shift, and generations unfold before your eyes. Ancestors are born, marry, have children — watching your family's story come alive is a deeply moving experience, no matter how many times you see it.
"My great-grandfather was born during the Meiji era — I never realized that until I saw it on the timeline." Discoveries like this make family history feel personal and real.
With five playback speeds, you can savor every detail or watch the highlights in fast-forward.
Automatic Japanese Era and Zodiac Conversion
When building a family tree, you often find yourself asking: "What year was that in the Japanese calendar?" or "What's the Western year for Meiji 43?"
In Excel, you'd need to build your own conversion formulas or reference tables. "Anotoki Kakeizu" automatically converts between Western and Japanese eras — Reiwa, Heisei, Showa, Taisho, and Meiji are all supported, and zodiac signs are calculated automatically too.
You can toggle between Japanese era and Western year display with a single setting.
AI-Powered Ancestral Storytelling
"Anotoki Kakeizu" includes an AI-powered story generation feature.
Powered by Google Gemini AI, the app uses your family tree data to create narratives about your ancestors — imagining what era they lived in, what their lives might have been like, and how historical events shaped their world.
These stories are fiction, of course, but they're grounded in historical context and cultural details, adding imagination and color to your family's history.
It's a wonderful way to tell children and grandchildren: "This is the world your ancestors lived in."
Family Statistics at a Glance
While Excel can calculate statistics with the right formulas, "Anotoki Kakeizu's" Insights feature delivers fascinating family analytics with a single tap:
- Average lifespan and longest-lived ancestor: See how long your ancestors lived
- Birth month distribution: Discover which months are most common in your family
- Parent-child age gaps: Understand generational spacing patterns
- Most common kanji in names: Uncover naming traditions in your family
- Longevity ranking: See who lived the longest
These statistics are calculated automatically from your tree data. No formulas needed — just enter your family information and discover the hidden patterns in your family's history.
Never Forget Important Dates
Family birthdays, memorial days, anniversary ceremonies — these dates matter, but they're easy to forget.
"Anotoki Kakeizu's" reminder feature sends notifications for registered anniversaries ahead of time.
- Never miss sending a birthday greeting
- Get advance notice for memorial days and grave visits
- Customize notification timing to suit your needs
Data sitting in an Excel file can't proactively remind you of anything. Because it's an app, you stay connected to your family in everyday life.
Share Your Tree in Multiple Formats
When it's time to share your family tree, output flexibility matters.
"Anotoki Kakeizu" supports the following formats:
| Format | Best For |
|---|---|
| PDF (A4/A3/Letter) | Printing, framing, or emailing |
| PNG Image | Sharing via messaging apps and social media |
| CSV | Importing data into Excel or other software |
| GEDCOM | International standard format for genealogy software |
| JSON | Complete backup and restoration |
The PDF export is particularly impressive — it produces beautifully designed family trees using your chosen template, ready for printing and gifting.
Your Excel data isn't lost either. With CSV import and export, you can seamlessly transfer data you've been managing in Excel into the app.
Manage Multiple Family Tree Projects
Want to manage your father's side and mother's side separately? Or record your spouse's family tree too? In Excel, this means juggling multiple sheets or files, and information tends to get scattered.
"Anotoki Kakeizu" lets you create multiple family tree projects, each with independent settings and customization. Switch between them with a single tap — everything organized in one app.
Available in 5 Languages
"Anotoki Kakeizu" supports Japanese, English, Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese.
For international families or those with roots abroad, being able to manage your family tree in your native language provides peace of mind. Everyone in the family can enjoy the tree in their own language.
The Best of Both Worlds
Let us be clear: Excel is a wonderful tool. For data organization, analysis, and processing, few software tools are as versatile.
But building a family tree is more than data management. It's about visualizing your family's history, experiencing it as a story, and passing it on to the next generation.
"Anotoki Kakeizu" was designed specifically for this purpose. That's why it can offer experiences Excel can't — the Time Machine, AI storytelling, beautiful templates, and proactive reminders.
And if you've been managing data in Excel, you can easily import it via CSV. Preserve the work you've already done while taking your family tree to the next level.
Download for Free
"Anotoki Kakeizu" is free to download. Available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, you can start building your family tree today.
Try it with just the family members you already know. Enter a few names and relationships, and watch a beautiful family tree appear before your eyes. A whole new experience in family tree creation — one that goes beyond spreadsheets — is waiting for you.