Reply To: How best to approach family tree layout.

However unwillingly, I would advise against trying to do this in InDesign …

The key features of geneological trees are the frames with the names and their interconnecting lines. These need to be positioned very carefully, because neither the frames nor (ideally) the lines may overlap. It would be necesasry to start at the topmost, widest level, then work your way down the ancestry line — and if you need to insert a late-discovered third-degree removed cousin, you'd have to start again at the top.

There is no real easy way to move a frame and have a line “connected” to it moving along — it would need some serious scripting (which you'd need to run after each edit), or a dedicated plugin specially written for this.

I have zero experience with geneological programs, but it sure sounds like you should do this in one of these and produce a PDF when you're done — then you can place this into ID and finish off the book. If the tree changes, change the data in the program, export a new PDF and have ID update it.