About

Heritage Threads also known as "Family Tree Threads" started as an obscure, to then more popularized practice on 4chan's board /pol/. Later on it spread also on /int/ and /bant/, as anonymous users would participate in them to share their family trees with each others using a simple sketch board with blank squares and flags to fill (shown below).

Origin

These threads started gaining traction in 2017 but witnesses claim to have seen them years before. Some of the earliest variations come from the 4chan image board /int/ in 2013.[^[1]

The purpose of these threads are based on the anonymous users trying to understand, relate, comment, and share opinions on each others by sharing their historical and ethnic backgrounds, often with descriptions regarding the professions of their ancestors as well as their own (example shown below)

The trees are usually filled with Wojaks, and flags, representing the users' hair, eyes and skin colors, as well as the countries they and their ancestors are from.

Meme Trees

As a form of banter, usually /pol/acks would make up family trees (or parody their own) by filling the trees with meme images and making them spawn a brand new creature. These are usually used ironically.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References