[the phantom]

Funny you should mention that Imladrien. I, myself, just started working on a family tree last week just for my own benefit.

The one thing that I always hated about the trees in the Silmarilion is that all of them are connected in several ways, but you can never see it all put together, so you have to flip back and forth all the time to get everything in perspective.

Well, I've actually engineered my own tree so that the entire house of Finwe, Elwe, Olwe, and all three houses of men (the Edain) are all on one single tree. I had to make several rough drafts, trying to figure out where to cross different lines and how long some of them had to be, and where to stick in the different groups, but the end product looks very nice (very easy to follow)!

Every person on the tree has a tiny number next to them, and on the back side of the paper it lists the people in order along with their titles or positions, as well as a couple basic things about them. And let me tell you, I have fallen in love with my creation (I refuse read Tolkien without it now).

I would definitely encourage putting something like that in the ultimate book.