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Family Tree Series

399 statements
78 feature instances
21 referencing feature instances

Family Tree Series	type	TVTItem
Family Tree Series	label	Family Tree Series
Family Tree Series	page	FamilyTreeSeries
Family Tree Series	comment	The Family Tree series is a four-book Period Piece Generational Saga series written by Ann M. Martin.The series chronicles the lives of four girls, their mothers, and their daughters in four generations of a family—based in the fictional seaside town of Lewisport, Maine—as they each come of age in their time period. The books start with the main narrator as a child of about seven, and follows them and the family around them to nearly their adult life and the start of the next generation; the next book then follows their oldest daughter. Each character carries various secrets that, for one reason or another, they don't tell their own mothers—or later, daughters.The four books in the series are: Better to Wish: Abigail "Abby" Nichols is living in The '30s and the early years of The '40s, dealing with her overbearing racist social climbing father, changing family dynamics and finances, loss, and secret friendships. The Long Way Home: Dana Burley, Abby's oldest daughter, is growing up in The '50s and The '60s and is much closer to her dreamy father than her more practical mother. When tragedy strikes the family, Dana takes it poorly for years. Best Kept Secret: Frances "Francie" Goldberg, Dana's only child, is growing up in the late The '70s and The '80s. When a predator shakes up her world, Francie carries the guilt herself as a deep secret. Home Is the Place: Georgia "Georgie" Noble, Francie's daughter and middle child, is growing up in The New '10s and frustrated with her mother's unexplained strictness and the many issues in her family. It's during her story that Francie, Dana, and Abby each come to face the various family issues issues and secrets that have plagued each of them for decades.
Family Tree Series	fetched	2024-02-29T06:14:59Z
Family Tree Series	parsed	2024-02-29T06:14:59Z
Family Tree Series	processingComment	Dropped link to HollywoodHistory: Not a Feature - IGNORE
Family Tree Series	isPartOf	DBTropes
Family Tree Series / int_1392fbe7	type	Drunk Driver
Family Tree Series / int_1392fbe7	comment	Drunk Driver: Francie's son and Georgie's elder brother Richard ends up in a car accident due to his friend Seth's drunk driving. (Richard had been drinking as well.) The accident fractures his thigh and puts him in physical therapy, but he comes off best out in the crash. He's the only survivor of the two-car accident. Seth—who'd been driving—the other unnamed friend, and the person in the other car are all killed, and the single driver in the other car is Georgie's music teacher, Mr. Elden.
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Family Tree Series / int_14ed6ab7	type	Does This Remind You of Anything?
Family Tree Series / int_14ed6ab7	comment	Does This Remind You of Anything?: Adele, the baby of Abby's siblingsnote not including her half-brother Miles, as a child often referred to "fairies" as something she believed in (saying they took Fred and her mother Nell away). She never wants to marry and eventually leaves for New York and gets a job as a costume designer for films and Broadway. Her apartment is eccentrically designed and she never lives with anyone else other than her niece Dana, and spends lots of time among various friends her father wouldn't approve of. She later dies of breast cancer in the 1980s, and two different services are held—one in New York and a more conservative one in Maine, and at the New York one her employer Bobbie Palombo (whom she knew from the time she arrived) is treated like family by Dana. The parallels to being a queer woman who stayed in the closet are present.
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Family Tree Series / int_16ddefda	type	Alcohol-Induced Idiocy
Family Tree Series / int_16ddefda	comment	Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Zander stumbles about, giggles, and acts a general fool when he's been drinking. Abby pleads with him to at least not drink in front of the children, but he calls her a nag for it. This includes chasing his hat when it blows off his head while he's on a ferry. He falls overboard and drowns in the river because of this. Richard, who's been drinking himself, gets in the car with his Drunk Driver friend Seth behind the wheel. He's the only survivor of the two-car accident that kills Seth, his other friend, and Georgie's music teacher Mr. Elden who was in the car they hit.
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Family Tree Series / int_19fe3478	type	Daddy's Girl
Family Tree Series / int_19fe3478	comment	Dana, a Daddy's Girl to the point of being blind to her father Zander's drinking problem and many faults, elevates him even more after he passes and is annoyed and is resentful of her mother constantly moving them around Maine to keep a job to support herself without any help from Luther (even though again, it was Zander's spendthrift ways that left them with debt after his drowning that Abby worked to pay off while raising four kids). This culminates in her moving away and in with her aunt when she's a teenager, leaving the rest of the family behind and having a poor relationship with Abby until she's a grandmother.
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Family Tree Series / int_1c445e86	type	Poor Communication Kills
Family Tree Series / int_1c445e86	comment	Poor Communication Kills: Much of the strife in the family (especially from mother to daughter) can be attributed to this trope. The biggest ones are between Dana and Abby and Georgie and Francie. Dana didn't want to hurt her mother Abby by telling her the real reason she left for New York (with Abby seeing it as abandonment) was because Dana missed her father and felt guilty for her father's death as he fell overboard in front of her). And Francie keeps the secret of almost being kidnapped to herself—and the guilt when her not telling anyone resulted in the kidnapping and murder of another child—for several decades and this makes her an overprotective mom that doesn't let Georgie do anything, uproots her whole family to Maine without caring about her half-black husband's employment potential as a teacher (and wrecks the family finances when he can't keep a job) all so she can feel "safe" about her children—and in the process almost drives Georgia away. When sixteen-year-old Georgie runs away to her Nana Dana's after one too many denials to do anything without her mother either forbidding it or hovering over her, Dana has to face that she's been just as bad with not talking to her own mother and decides they all need to sit down and finally talk about their family issues without keeping secrets. All four generations finally talk things out about their various burdens and secrets. The fifth generation comes into play when Georgie, who has been reading her great-great-grandmother Nell's hidden diaries, presents them to the family—and it's clear that Nell had the same issue with Abby including being unable to talk about her deteriorating mental health that lead her to take her own life, which Abby always thought was her dying in her sleep.
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Family Tree Series / int_1c8e096e	type	Childhood Friend Romance
Family Tree Series / int_1c8e096e	comment	Childhood Friend Romance: Orrin Umhay with Abby, who Abby falls in love with in second grade. Granted, it's Abby's second marriage after her first husband and Dana's father Zander dies, but the two of them stay Happily Married until his own passing sometime after Georgie's high school graduation. Abby's mother Eleanor Durbin (later Nichols) intended to marry her childhood sweetheart Ralph Saunders, who she'd known since they were in third grade. He proposed right before he left to fight in the Great War—and didn't come back. Or so she was told. He'd been disfigured and suffered a brain injury and when he recovered enough to let anyone know, he'd told his parents not to tell Nell out of shame for his disfigurement. Over a decade later he contacted her again, and they conducted a secret affair for several years.
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Family Tree Series / int_21d47bb7	type	Nouveau Riche
Family Tree Series / int_21d47bb7	comment	Nouveau Riche: Luther is this after he makes enough money to move his family to Barnegat Point. He complains when Nell says the girls should still do chores after they've moved, saying that Stuart Burley—a well off man living next door—doesn't make his children do chores and hires help. He throws a big fancy party for Abby for her eleventh birthday with a spread of food that includes lobster, cold roast beef, and three salads. Then he makes a big show of presenting her with a silver wristwatch—something she didn't ask for.
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Family Tree Series / int_239ba401	type	Doesn't Trust Those Guys
Family Tree Series / int_239ba401	comment	Doesn't Trust Those Guys: Luther is bigoted towards anyone that doesn't fit his narrow-minded WASP, Hoover and conservative Republican view. This includes Irish people, French people, and Catholics. When he becomes well off, he forbids Abby from spending time with lower class people, especially Orrin.
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Family Tree Series / int_269e82c1	type	Death of a Child
Family Tree Series / int_269e82c1	comment	Death of a Child: Abby's mother Nell loses two babies early in their lives as stillbirths after Abby and Rose: Millicent and Luther, Jr. Her husband Luther planted a rosebush for each of them—but more to make his wife get over things and get on with life and back to keeping house than to actually help her heal. And even he didn't suggest it; Nell asked for them to remember her babies and he begrudgingly allowed it. Abby's best friend Sarah dies after sliding across thin ice and falling into a frozen pond in the winter of 1935 when they're teenagers, right before Christmas. Abby ends up miserable after her loss. A young girl, Erin Mulligan, is kidnapped and never found, assumed to have been murdered. Francie, who never told anyone about her encounter with a man trying to kidnap her, feels immense guilt to the point she ends up paranoid about it and overprotective of her daughter Georgie. The Drunk Driver car accident that kills Georgie's music teacher Mr. Elden also kills all of Richard's other friends, including the driver Seth; he's the only survivor. The epilogue of the fourth book reveals that Georgie's older brother Richard and his wife lost a baby born a year ago.
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Family Tree Series / int_275a13d1	type	Half-Sibling Angst
Family Tree Series / int_275a13d1	comment	Half-Sibling Angst: Abby (and her sisters and brother) have a younger half-brother, Miles, through their stepmother Helen. He is almost never mentioned by any of the central family and the one time he's actually seen in the series, it's at Luther's funeral, supporting Helen. It's implied he may share the same bigotries as their father and this is why Abby and her sisters don't get along with him—but it also may be because Luther doted on him most as the only "good" son he ever had.
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Family Tree Series / int_28cd01ca	type	Disappeared Dad
Family Tree Series / int_28cd01ca	comment	Disappeared Dad: Zander for Dana after he dies by drowning. Part of Dana's drive to move back to New York is to feel close to him again, especially given how much she continues to elevate him and resent her mother Abby.
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Family Tree Series / int_2bf993ad	type	Secret Relationship
Family Tree Series / int_2bf993ad	comment	Secret Relationship: Nell and Ralph carry one on for several years after he comes back, behind her husband Luther's back. There's an implication that Luther might have suspected at some point, but it's left a mystery.
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Family Tree Series / int_2e76947a	type	The Topic of Cancer
Family Tree Series / int_2e76947a	comment	The Topic of Cancer: Adele, Dana's beloved aunt and Abby's baby sister, is diagnosed with breast cancer in the early 1980s and eventually dies of it.
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Family Tree Series / int_2fd7200b	type	Dead Guy Junior
Family Tree Series / int_2fd7200b	comment	Dead Guy Junior: Dana's youngest sister Nell born after her father dies is named after Abby's late mother Eleanor. And while Georgie is not named directly after her, her middle name is Eleanor.
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Family Tree Series / int_3039ffc7	type	Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting
Family Tree Series / int_3039ffc7	comment	Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Abby does this in the very next generation, despite all her faults between her and her daughter Dana. When her son Peter is born with Down Syndrome, she doesn't send him away like her father did with her disabled younger brother Fred. Even after Zander dies, she raises Peter herself, makes sure he has every accommodation she can get for him, and ensures he is always connected to his family, including his sisters, nieces, and nephews. When she's no longer able to care for him, she arranges for him to move in with his older sister Dana and Francie. Peter and his niece Francie have a loving bond because of this. Dana finally does this when her granddaughter Georgie shows up at her house after sneaking away from her overbearing mother Francie; Dana is so distressed after a day of back and forth calls with Georgie's parents that she's forced to face her own issues. She says she doesn't want Georgie to have the bad relationship with her mom that Dana has with her mother Abby, then calls her mother and her daughter Francie and says they all need to sit down and have a great big talk about everything, because it's clear that not talking about their problems and the various estrangements have only caused more issues between every generation of mother and daughter. She insists that all four generations meet at the family beachfront cottage and, once there, insists that everyone talk about their many issues that have been bottled up for years. She even says her mother Abby was right to be upset that Dana became distant to her, and can say she told her so.
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Family Tree Series / int_308ac24f	type	Fantasy-Forbidding Father
Family Tree Series / int_308ac24f	comment	Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Abby's father Luther doesn't want Abby and Rose to socialize with "certain children" or work for themselves, and when Halloween becomes popular says they can't attend a party because it's "witches and black magic" and not Christian enough. He also tells them they can't work for money, especially in stores. Abby eventually leaves to live her own life, followed later by Adele.
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Family Tree Series / int_30d1e0df	type	Full-Name Basis
Family Tree Series / int_30d1e0df	comment	Full-Name Basis: Mostly invoked in the narrative; the characters have their full names mentioned frequently in book four to state who's narrating each chapter, in part to show their changes through their lives including marriages, divorce, widowhood, and remarriage.
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Family Tree Series / int_3318a1cb	type	Distant Finale
Family Tree Series / int_3318a1cb	comment	Distant Finale: The series was published between 2013 and 2015, with the last event of the last book before the finale being Georgie's high school graduation in 2013. The epilogue of the last book (and framing prologue of the first book) are set in 2022 with Abby reminiscing about her life on her 100th birthday. The epilogue informs the readers that Richard is married with a child—though he lost one child young—and Georgie is married and pregnant with her first child. Abby also mentions in passing the deaths of her second husband Orrin, younger sister Rose, and younger brother Fred, which occurred sometime between 2013 and 2022.
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Family Tree Series / int_3659e5f2	type	Vicarious Gold Digger
Family Tree Series / int_3659e5f2	comment	Vicarious Gold Digger: Abby is outright told by her social-climbing Rags to Riches father Luther that she has to marry Zander Burley, the son of a prominent family; one of the reasons Luther gives is that since the Burleys are rich, Abby will never have to worry about money again once they're married. Abby turns Zander down, but marries him five years later after living on her own. When Zander dies—leaving her with three kids and one on the way—widowed Abby learns that Zander spent his writing money as fast as he earned it and she has to clear his many debts. Which leaves her to worry about finances for years afterwards.
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Family Tree Series / int_3866ab91	type	Deceased Parents Are the Best
Family Tree Series / int_3866ab91	comment	Deceased Parents Are the Best: Abby's mother dies Nell when she's a teenager, which leaves her only with her sexist, social climbing father Luther and later Wicked Stepmother Helen. Abby constantly thinks better of her mother than her father, and she never got to know much about her mother's struggles with mental health until many decades later when her great-granddaughter Georgie finds Nell's Secret Diary; even then, she's still much more enamored with her mother, in part because of everything Luther is. Dana, a Daddy's Girl to the point of being blind to her father Zander's drinking problem and many faults, elevates him even more after he passes and is annoyed and is resentful of her mother constantly moving them around Maine to keep a job to support herself without any help from Luther (even though again, it was Zander's spendthrift ways that left them with debt after his drowning that Abby worked to pay off while raising four kids). This culminates in her moving away and in with her aunt when she's a teenager, leaving the rest of the family behind and having a poor relationship with Abby until she's a grandmother.
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Family Tree Series / int_3d69ca47	type	AmicablyDivorced
Family Tree Series / int_3d69ca47	comment	Amicably Divorced: Dana and Matthew divorce when Francie is twelve, before they fully resent each other. They manage to get along—Dana is even happy for Matthew when he remarries—but Francie is unhappy about it for years.
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Family Tree Series / int_455f6a91	type	Long-Lost Relative
Family Tree Series / int_455f6a91	comment	Long-Lost Relative: Fred for Abby, Rose, and Adele. Their father Luther sent him to a institution when he was only five because he was ashamed of his then only living son being disabled, and didn't tell anyone where he was even as he paid for Fred's care. Abby asks her father about him in 1980 after he comes up during Thanksgiving, and they reunite with him when he's forty-nine—forty-four years later. Adele's not even sure he remembers them, but the first thing he says is to call Abby his big sister—and as they leave, he tells his assistant Tim that that's his family.
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Family Tree Series / int_46c1dc8e	type	Someone to Remember Him By
Family Tree Series / int_46c1dc8e	comment	Someone to Remember Him By: Dana's youngest sister Nell is born after their father Zander dies.
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Family Tree Series / int_4814d132	type	Big Fancy House
Family Tree Series / int_4814d132	comment	Big Fancy House: Luther moves his family to one in the early 1930s after making enough money to move them from Lewisport to Barnegat Point—it has two bathrooms, a parlor, and enough rooms that everyone including the new baby can have their own room. Abby doesn't feel comfortable there, especially after her little brother Fred is sent away and her mother Nell dies. By the time Abby is an adult and has Dana, Julia, and Peter, only Helen and Luther live there with their servants. The house remains as a sign of Abby's estrangement from her father and his money until Georgie's book, when after Helen's death it goes up for sale with most of the contents auctioned off. Abby takes nothing in memory and neither does her great granddaughter Georgie, but does one last walk through on her own.
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Family Tree Series / int_4c8e8078	type	All of the Other Reindeer
Family Tree Series / int_4c8e8078	comment	All of the Other Reindeer: After Abby's best friend Sarah drowns in a icy pond, Abby is this in her first year of high school; she no longer has either Sarah or Orrin as Orrin's family has since moved away. The other kids talk about the issues in her family around her, and she feels like she's been labeled as "the girl whose best friend drowned."
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Family Tree Series / int_52196c03	type	Age-Gap Romance
Family Tree Series / int_52196c03	comment	Age-Gap Romance: The school nurse Helen marries Abby's father Luther (who is old enough to have a teenaged daughter) when she's 23—only six years older than Abby herself. Abby's younger sister Rose points out, after the wedding, that Helen's father looks almost exactly the same age as their father.
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Family Tree Series / int_53677c0e	type	Generational Trauma
Family Tree Series / int_53677c0e	comment	Generational Trauma: Each of the girls end up with some form of it, and their inability to communicate clearly about their emotions passes their pain down from their generation to the next. It's when Georgie shows up at her Nana Dana's house, having run away because of Francie's overbearing and not allowing her to ever do anything out of fear when Dana, tired of it all, says that everyone needs to get together and heal finally—and they do.
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Family Tree Series / int_590eb583	type	Domestic Abuse
Family Tree Series / int_590eb583	comment	Domestic Abuse: Luther counts. While he never physically hits Eleanor, he's emotionally cold and controlling. He made Nell stop seeing her old friends after their marriage, saying he didn't like her friend Faye (and it's never stated why) and forbidding them from meeting after they start courting. He makes her quit her job as a milliner after they marry, because he doesn't want people to think he's incapable of supporting a family on his own. His planting the rosebushes (as representative of each child Nell lost) was more for her to get back to doing housework again instead of sulking about and it was her who begged for them to remember them; he didn't want the rosebushes. The worst thing he does, however, is placing their only son Fred (who is mentally and physically disabled) in a group home out of embarrassment and without consulting her. Many of his views don't change, and Abby has to demand to know where her little brother is to find him again.
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Family Tree Series / int_5a5b7e42	type	Improperly Paranoid
Family Tree Series / int_5a5b7e42	comment	Improperly Paranoid: Francie thinks she's justified in her overprotectiveness and only wants to keep her family and children safe due to nearly being kidnapped as a child (and never telling anyone, which makes her think another girl being kidnapped and then never found happened because she never spoke up). However, she refuses to let her children walk even as far as next door alone or play in the front yard without watching them. She panicked at having a baby sitter and used a nanny cam the first four times. After 9/11 she not only leaves a New Year's Party early because she can't spend one night away from her children, but then insists—without considering her husband's input—that she and her family must uproot their entire lives and move to Maine because it's "safer" than Princeton and because she can't live there anymore, they all have to leave. While her children get some small freedoms in Maine, she still keeps them on tight leashes (for example, won't let them bike to the nearby town with friends). She grounds her daughter Georgie for a week for taking her little brother Henry with her to a guitar lesson because—while Georgie told Richard they were going together—they didn't tell Francie, so Francie panicked and nearly called the police even though Henry was with his sister the whole time. And almost anything her children ask to do she shoots down, even before her husband can have input, and often overrides him. This smothering, overparanoid parenting style only breaks when Georgie, forbidden to perform with a band because it's an overnight trip with seniors and she's just sixteen, runs away to her grandmother's house—and Dana sees her going down the same path with Francie she went down with Abby and makes all four generations sit down and talk their problems out.
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Family Tree Series / int_5ad80bf8	type	It's All My Fault
Family Tree Series / int_5ad80bf8	comment	It's All My Fault: Dana feels immense guilt for her father Zander's death, believing she could have pulled him back from jumping over the ferry railing and drowning even though she was a child at the time. Her guilt, blame towards her mother, and pining for her father—as well as her anger—leads her to leave her mother and family and move back to New York City to live with her aunt Adele. Francie never told anyone about her frightening encounter with a man in a black station wagon that tried to kidnap her. When another girl, Erin Mulligan, is kidnapped by the same man and never found, she feels guilty because she thinks if she had spoken up sooner, Erin would have been safe. She carries the guilt for years, with it manifesting in her overprotectiveness of her children and paranoia whenever she doesn't feel "safe".
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Family Tree Series / int_5f3bb274	type	Late-Arrival Spoiler
Family Tree Series / int_5f3bb274	comment	Late-Arrival Spoiler: Given that every book follows the very next generation, spoilers about the husbands of each girl and the fathers of the next generation are a given: Abby marries Zander then Orrin after Zander dies, Dana marries Matthew, and Francie marries George. The fourth book also spoils many major events, deaths, and/or the character's feelings on them that have happened throughout.
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Family Tree Series / int_661d7909	type	Maligned Mixed Marriage
Family Tree Series / int_661d7909	comment	Maligned Mixed Marriage: Abby marries her childhood friend and part-Irish Catholic Orrin as her second marriage and later Dana marries Jewish Matthew Goldberg. Luther is not pleased with either marriage and actually refuses to attend Abby's wedding to Orrin because of it. The third book has friends of the Goldbergs, the Nobles, facing prejudice due to being a black and white couple with mixed-race children. When Francie realizes what's happening, the bigoted strangers earn a scathing comeback from her.
Family Tree Series / int_661d7909	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_661d7909	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_661d7909
Family Tree Series / int_6b9613c0	type	Ms. Red Ink
Family Tree Series / int_6b9613c0	comment	Ms. Red Ink: After Zander's death, Abby learns Zander spent his writing money as fast as he earned it, including on their very lavish New York City lifestyle. He also sent large checks to pay part of his parents' house costs in Maine, since their business had failed and they could only afford their new smaller house with Zander's assistance. She spends years clearing up Zander's many debts—when her father Luther told her the reason she had to marry Zander was because she'd never have to worry about money again if she married him.
Family Tree Series / int_6b9613c0	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_6b9613c0	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_6b9613c0
Family Tree Series / int_6d332aea	type	Driven to Suicide
Family Tree Series / int_6d332aea	comment	Driven to Suicide: Revealed in the fourth book: Abby's mother Eleanor, who kept multiple diaries that her great-great-grandaughter Georgie discovers and reads through long after her death. She had struggled with mental illness and was already fragile after losing several babies early in their lives, but when the controlling nature of her husband Luther leads to her only living son, Fred, being sent away to an institution when he's five, Nell never emotionally recovers. Her last diary entry says she can't do "it" anymore, and it's with horror that Georgie realizes that "it" means remain alive.
Family Tree Series / int_6d332aea	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_6d332aea	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_6d332aea
Family Tree Series / int_6da90c4d	type	Full-Name Ultimatum
Family Tree Series / int_6da90c4d	comment	Full-Name Ultimatum: Often done when the girl or woman in focus is in trouble or being rude—including when Abby is talking to Zander about his drinking problem, even though he's the one in the wrong.
Family Tree Series / int_6da90c4d	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_6da90c4d	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_6da90c4d
Family Tree Series / int_7315fd38	type	Covers Always Lie
Family Tree Series / int_7315fd38	comment	Covers Always Lie: A minor one, but Georgie Noble—who is a quarter Black (through her paternal grandmother Denise) and a quarter Jewish (through her maternal grandfather Matthew)—appears WASP levels of white on the cover. While she does in fact have dark blonde hair, it's very thick and curly due to her being partially black and Jewish (it's described as so thick a comb won't easily go through it), but the cover makes it look straight and fine.
Family Tree Series / int_7315fd38	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_7315fd38	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_7315fd38
Family Tree Series / int_77aae115	type	Hated by All
Family Tree Series / int_77aae115	comment	Hated by All: None of Luther's daughters like him or his second wife Helen; Abby says they never got along. None of the subsequent generations care for him and their visits to his Big Fancy House are obligations to Dana and Francie as children. When he dies in Best Kept Secret, Francie attends mostly out of respect, as he never approved of her being half Jewish, and notices the only person standing near Helen during the funeral and after funeral gathering is her son Miles.
Family Tree Series / int_77aae115	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_77aae115	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_77aae115
Family Tree Series / int_7a97b7f4	type	Morning Sickness
Family Tree Series / int_7a97b7f4	comment	Morning Sickness: Abby is off being sick on the ferry back home when her husband Zander falls overboard and drowns. Dana didn't realize why her mother was sick and initially blamed Abby for not being there when it happened, thinking she had been (hypocritically) drunk too—and not realizing her mother was pregnant until later when she learns about the next baby on the way. Abby spends the whole pregnancy sick with morning, afternoon, and evening sickness, not helped by her having to face that Zander's spendthrift ways have left a lot of debts behind for her to clear up.
Family Tree Series / int_7a97b7f4	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_7a97b7f4	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_7a97b7f4
Family Tree Series / int_7b228c31	type	"L" Is for "Dyslexia"
Family Tree Series / int_7b228c31	comment	"L" Is for "Dyslexia": Francie struggles with this starting from childhood; she describes it as letters flipping around and upside down.
Family Tree Series / int_7b228c31	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_7b228c31	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_7b228c31
Family Tree Series / int_7bd657f	type	White Collar Worker
Family Tree Series / int_7bd657f	comment	White Collar Worker: Abby leaves home and goes to live in New York City after she turns down Zander's proposal when she's but eighteen. She works for a temp agency in offices, but she's happy to be independent.
Family Tree Series / int_7bd657f	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_7bd657f	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_7bd657f
Family Tree Series / int_7c9dcc1	type	THeUnfavorite
Family Tree Series / int_7c9dcc1	comment	The Unfavorite: Georgia feels this way with her mother Francie, due to her being overly strict with her and not giving her the freedoms others her age have. She eventually gets so frustrated with the way Francie treats her and the way she's not allowed to do anything that she runs away to New York City where her grandmother Dana lives. Dana takes her granddaughter back to Maine—and decides she, her daughter Francie, and her mother Abby all need to talk to each other about their problems rather than keeping so many secrets and resentments.
Family Tree Series / int_7c9dcc1	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_7c9dcc1	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_7c9dcc1
Family Tree Series / int_7eebe99c	type	The Alcoholic
Family Tree Series / int_7eebe99c	comment	The Alcoholic: Abby's husband Zander. He drinks heavily to the point Abby is clearly upset with it and tells him not to do so in front of the children—which he does anyways, and often where Dana notices (though as a Daddy's Girl she takes his side over her mother's). It ends up resulting in his death when Dana is ten when he drunkenly chases his flyaway hat over the railing of a moving ferry and falls into the water, drowning in the process and widowing Abby.
Family Tree Series / int_7eebe99c	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_7eebe99c	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_7eebe99c
Family Tree Series / int_862e9997	type	FirstGuyWins
Family Tree Series / int_862e9997	comment	First Guy Wins: While Abby initially marries Zander, she later marries her childhood friend Orrin after Zander dies. Francie ends up marrying George, one of the first boys she ever became friends with. Nell, Abby's mother, never fell out of love with her first love Ralph Saunders; when they reunite, she carries on a secret affair with him for years and even introduces him to Abby and Rose when they're young.
Family Tree Series / int_862e9997	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_862e9997	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_862e9997
Family Tree Series / int_8a986cc7	type	The Great Depression
Family Tree Series / int_8a986cc7	comment	Abby lives through The Great Depression and is an adult during the start of World War II. She mentions the kidnapping of the Lindberg baby, later found dead, as a reason her mother doesn't want her and Rose to walk two blocks into town alone after they move to a nicer house.
Family Tree Series / int_8a986cc7	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_8a986cc7	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_8a986cc7
Family Tree Series / int_8c678d33	type	Death by Newbery Medal
Family Tree Series / int_8c678d33	comment	Death by Newbery Medal: Every character experiences at least one hard-hitting death before they're an adult that affects them emotionally as they grow up: Abby not only loses her mother Nell (to suicide, a fact she doesn't learn until much later), but her best friend Sarah Moreside, who drowns just before Christmas when they're early teens. Dana sees her father Zander fall overboard while drunk and he drowns. She blames her mother for what happened even though there was nothing any of them could have done about it, including Dana. While Francie doesn't see it directly, the presumed death of a girl who is kidnapped by the same man who tried to kidnap her makes her grow up paranoid, because she thinks if she had said something the girl wouldn't have been kidnapped. Georgie loses her beloved music teacher Mr. Elden when her brother's friend collides with him in a drunk driving accident; her older brother Richard is the only survivor of the accident. She also learns that her great-great-grandmother, Nell lost her first love in World War I—or thought she did. She did lose two babies early in life and was separated from her only living son Fred because her controlling husband Luther sent him to an institution.
Family Tree Series / int_8c678d33	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_8c678d33	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_8c678d33
Family Tree Series / int_8f00b02a	type	Always Identical Twins
Family Tree Series / int_8f00b02a	comment	Always Identical Twins: Discussed in detail with Dana and Julia, Abby's oldest children, who are identical twins. Dana spends most of their childhood always trying to avoid being seen as just part of a twin set and never wanting to be "samesies." She's frustrated by Julia "copying" her even as young as seven; Julia seems to always get something that Dana picks out first, picks up her interests after her, and even wants to keep wearing matching clothes after Dana is annoyed by it. For their seventh birthday, Dana asks for her own separate room, and she even makes sure to change her dress for their party so they don't match. Dana tries to find friends and hobbies that are separate from Julia and doesn't start feeling independent and her own person until she moves away, which Julia takes badly. It takes Julia's meningitis infection when they're in college for Dana to finally be less distant and connect with her sister.
Family Tree Series / int_8f00b02a	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_8f00b02a	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_8f00b02a
Family Tree Series / int_9186eded	type	Helicopter Parents
Family Tree Series / int_9186eded	comment	Helicopter Parents: Francie. Due to her own paranoia never being addressed, she hovers over her children severely. She forbids Georgie from building a snowman in the front yard, and when Georgie asks to walk next door, she's told she has to call and then be walked over by her mom. Francie doesn't initially trust her baby-sitter to baby-sit. After 9/11, Francie even leaves a New Year's Party early because she needs to be by the kids. Her smothering and denial of anything—including overriding her husband's input if she doesn't think it's "safe"—annoys Georgie and only comes to a head when Georgie's 16.
Family Tree Series / int_9186eded	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_9186eded	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_9186eded
Family Tree Series / int_94e4b975	type	Vomit Indiscretion Shot
Family Tree Series / int_94e4b975	comment	Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Peter has one when he's a child; he swings too much and throws up his recently-eaten ice cream mid-swing, which is vividly described. A rude woman says aloud that that's why "children like him" should stay at home instead of being in public, and Dana calls her out for her abelist bigotry.
Family Tree Series / int_94e4b975	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_94e4b975	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_94e4b975
Family Tree Series / int_958f1f57	type	Maiden Aunt
Family Tree Series / int_958f1f57	comment	Maiden Aunt: Adele never gets married or has children, though she serves as the Cool Aunt to Abby's daughter Dana and later, grandniece, Francie.
Family Tree Series / int_958f1f57	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_958f1f57	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_958f1f57
Family Tree Series / int_95c2a9dd	type	Outliving One's Offspring
Family Tree Series / int_95c2a9dd	comment	Outliving One's Offspring: Abby's mother Nell lost two children as infants in stillbirths. The Moresides lose their only daughter Sarah—Abby's best friend—after she drowns in an icy pond in December 1935. They end up moving away two years later. Luther outlives his youngest daughter Adele who dies of breast cancer by two years. Abby (who lives to 100) outlives her only son Peter who dies of pneumonia when Francie is in her junior year of college in the 1990s.
Family Tree Series / int_95c2a9dd	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_95c2a9dd	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_95c2a9dd
Family Tree Series / int_97aaa7f3	type	In the Blood
Family Tree Series / int_97aaa7f3	comment	In the Blood: When it comes to creative arts. The family has generations of writers, musicians, creatives, and artists. Abby writes poems, her first, late husband Zander is a writer, their daughter Dana is a children's book writer and artist (she illustrates a book for her father as a child and one of her most popular books is based on her brother Peter), Francie is a novelist, and his great-granddaughter Georgie plays guitar and is invested in music. This is even invoked when Francie reads a story at a summer family party when she's about nine. Aunt Rose—Abby's sister—says that she inherited Zander's talent and they have another writer in the family. Georgie later reads in Nell's diaries that she was an artist, like her granddaughter Dana.
Family Tree Series / int_97aaa7f3	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_97aaa7f3	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_97aaa7f3
Family Tree Series / int_9cbf01d6	type	Stay in the Kitchen
Family Tree Series / int_9cbf01d6	comment	Stay in the Kitchen: Luther's attitude towards women (especially WASP women of his class level) working and going to college is exceptionally backwards. He forbid his wife Nell from spending time with old friends after they start courting and makes her quit her job when they marry because he doesn't want anyone to think he can't support a family on his own by having his wife (and later, daughters) work. When a divorced woman, Miss Irene Maynard, takes over the old clothing store, one of the many reasons that Luther forbids his daughter Abby from working there—other than him not thinking it's a respectable job—is because she's divorced, and after graduation the only job Luther lets Abby get is as a librarian. It takes Abby—and later Adele—moving to New York City to become independent women, while Rose does so by marrying.
Family Tree Series / int_9cbf01d6	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_9cbf01d6	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_9cbf01d6
Family Tree Series / int_9e298840	type	New York Is Only Manhattan
Family Tree Series / int_9e298840	comment	New York Is Only Manhattan: The series only focuses on Manhattan for its New York locale, when it's not happening up in Maine. Abby moves there when she grows up followed by her sister Adele who lives there her whole life. Abby initially raises her children there until Zander's death, and her daughter Dana moves there when she's a teen to be close to her father again. Francie averts this slightly by living in Princeton, NJ, but it's right across the water from Manhattan and when 9/11 happens, Georgie's best friend Leslie loses her father because he worked in the World Trade Center.
Family Tree Series / int_9e298840	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_9e298840	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_9e298840
Family Tree Series / int_9f970427	type	Secret-Keeper
Family Tree Series / int_9f970427	comment	Secret-Keeper: Abby never told anyone about the day she, her sister, and her mother Nell spent with Nell's first love Ralph. She reminisces about it after her great-granddaughter Georgia tells her about her mother's hidden diaries.
Family Tree Series / int_9f970427	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_9f970427	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_9f970427
Family Tree Series / int_a0671da	type	Tragic Stillbirth
Family Tree Series / int_a0671da	comment	Tragic Stillbirth: Abby's mother Nell had two stillborn children after Abby and Rose: Millicent and Luther, Jr. Her husband Luther planted a rosebush for each of them on the property, but they were less to help her heal and more because he wanted his wife to get over things, get on with life, and get back to keeping house than to actually help her heal. And even he didn't suggest it; Nell asked for them to remember her babies and he begrudgingly allowed it. She never truly recovers from the loss, and when Luther later takes their only surviving son Fred to an institute for being disabled, Nell's mental health shatters. Leading later to her taking her own life.
Family Tree Series / int_a0671da	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_a0671da	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_a0671da
Family Tree Series / int_a63f45d5	type	Cool Uncle
Family Tree Series / int_a63f45d5	comment	Cool Uncle: Adele, the baby of the three Nichols girls, never marries and lives alone in an eccentric apartment in New York City after following Abby out there. She is this not only to Abby's daughter Dana—letting her move in with her when she insists on returning to New York City at fourteen—but to her grandniece Francie as well. The whole family is devastated when she dies of breast cancer in the 80s. Peter is this for Dana's daughter Francie, especially after he moves in with her and her mother/his older sister Dana. She doesn't care he has Down Syndrome and she's always close to him. When he dies when she's in college, Francie is gifted his favorite cowboy hat during his last words.
Family Tree Series / int_a63f45d5	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_a63f45d5	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_a63f45d5
Family Tree Series / int_a7850fbf	type	Only Known by Their Nickname
Family Tree Series / int_a7850fbf	comment	Only Known by Their Nickname: Every one of the girls except Dana go by a nickname: Abby for Abigail, Francie for Frances, and Georgie for Georgia. Kaycee, George's younger sister and Francie's friend and later sister-in-law, goes by this; her initials are Katherine Christine, but everyone calls her Kaycee.
Family Tree Series / int_a7850fbf	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_a7850fbf	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_a7850fbf
Family Tree Series / int_a79722c2	type	Parent-Preferred Suitor
Family Tree Series / int_a79722c2	comment	Parent-Preferred Suitor: Luther wants Abby to marry Zander Burley, the son of a rich business man in the upper part of town, because the Burleys are socially prominent and well off. Abby turns Zander down and goes to live on her own. He loosely gets his way—Abby marries Zander five years later—but Zander dies after about a decade of marriage and widows Abby with four kids to raise and many debts to pay off.
Family Tree Series / int_a79722c2	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_a79722c2	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_a79722c2
Family Tree Series / int_a90e3df2	type	Cowardice Callout
Family Tree Series / int_a90e3df2	comment	Cowardice Callout: Dana calls out a rude lady who makes nasty, bigoted comments about her brother Peter, who has Down Syndrome and is sick one day on the swings. She walks up to the woman and says Peter can't help what happened and she thought adults weren't supposed to be rude, especially to children—but she guesses no one taught the woman that. Francie calls out a bigoted old couple who shake their head in disgust at Mr. and Mrs. Noble—Rich is white and Denise is black, making their kids George and Kaycee biracial. She glares at them, says—despite Dana trying to silence her—that they should get mad at her parents too because her father's Jewish and her mother's Presbyterian, then says they'd better be exactly the same—but they're not, because the man has grey hair and the woman has blue hair. The couple storms off, and then Mr. Noble laughs and praises her.
Family Tree Series / int_a90e3df2	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_a90e3df2	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_a90e3df2
Family Tree Series / int_a9ee4fee	type	Secret Diary
Family Tree Series / int_a9ee4fee	comment	Secret Diary: Georgie ends up finding her great-great grandmother Eleanor's hidden diaries in a panel in the house, making her the secret fifth generation of the stories from Georgie reading her words and later sharing Eleanor's secrets with her oldest, Abby.
Family Tree Series / int_a9ee4fee	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_a9ee4fee	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_a9ee4fee
Family Tree Series / int_aabe2fb	type	Deliberate Values Dissonance
Family Tree Series / int_aabe2fb	comment	Deliberate Values Dissonance: Abby's father Luther is realistically racist, bigoted, and misogynist for a white conservative man in the 1930s. He thinks the town starts going downhill when the "wrong kind" of people move in. The phrase "Maine should stay white" comes out of his mouth to Abby—and by white he means American and Protestant, certainly not Catholic. He thinks there are better families for Abby to associate with, not Irish Orrin or French Canadian Marie. When his daughter Abby marries Orrin (her second marriage), he is furious—because the boy's half Irish Catholic through his mother—and refuses to attend the wedding, and also despises Dana's husband for being Jewish. And any time he doesn't want to deal with something, he shuts it down and pushes it away; too many questions from Abby annoys him. He never grows out of this, and his prejudices extend to black people, Asian people, Jewish people, and anyone he considers "foreign."
Family Tree Series / int_aabe2fb	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_aabe2fb	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_aabe2fb
Family Tree Series / int_ad118ed1	type	Aesop Collateral Damage
Family Tree Series / int_ad118ed1	comment	Doubles with Aesop Collateral Damage—Georgie's beloved music teacher Mr. Elden dies in the two-car accident that broke her brother Richard's leg—and killed his other two friends, including the Drunkdriver Seth.
Family Tree Series / int_ad118ed1	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_ad118ed1	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_ad118ed1
Family Tree Series / int_b070362d	type	Wicked Stepmother
Family Tree Series / int_b070362d	comment	Wicked Stepmother: Helen March, who marries Luther after his wife Nell dies. She's never accepting of her stepdaughters Abby, Rose, and Adele after she marries their father Luther (not helped by the fact she's only six years older than Abby). She immediately replaces Nell's things with hers, and she thinks Abby is rude, stubborn, and thoughtless. Abby says she never really accepted her. Even otherwise pleasant and friendly Peter doesn't like her, and when Luther dies she's only supported by her son Miles, with the rest of the family distant. She dies at some point in Georgie's book; this is only noted with a quick mention that the house is now up for sale and everything in it to be auctioned, with Abby walking through it one last time but taking nothing of her own in memory.
Family Tree Series / int_b070362d	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_b070362d	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_b070362d
Family Tree Series / int_b11ac9f5	type	Abusive Parents
Family Tree Series / int_b11ac9f5	comment	Abusive Parents: Luther Nichols is not a good father or patriarch. He controls his daughters' activities and constantly makes decisions for them without their input, insisting he knows what's best for them. He considers anything he doesn't know directly to be lying to him, and shuts down any questions Abby asks. He forbids her to play with children he doesn't approve of because of his racism, which includes Irish and Catholics. He gets angry when his disabled son Fred is incapable of eating with the rest of the family at fourteen months old, trying to force him to be at the table even though he can't sit up and trying to cram the food in his mouth. When forcing it doesn't work he takes his poor mood about it out not only on the family but on the help. He eventually sends Fred away to a "school" (really an institution) because the boy's disability embarrasses him as a person who's "made it" socially, and said he did what was right for Fred even though Abby says he did it because it was easy. He got only one son with Nell that lived past infancy—the previous one was stillborn—and was ashamed of him because he wasn't perfect, enough to all but abandon him.note He later has Miles with his second wife Helen, but Abby, Rose, and Adele are all estranged from him, and their children (and later grandchildren) don't get to know him, his family, or Helen well; it's implied he either carries his father's prejudices or was doted on so much they avoided him. He tells Abby, when Zander asks to marry her when she's barely out of high school, that she has to and there won't be any argument otherwise (in part because Zander's family is rich and Luther's social standing matters more to him than anything Abby wants).note Abby does not marry Zander at first despite what her father tells her to do, turning Zander down and leaving to live independently in New York City. She and Zander don't marry until five years later. And Nell's diary reveals to Georgie that Luther was upset he and Nell had two girls first, as he wanted at least three boys.
Family Tree Series / int_b11ac9f5	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_b11ac9f5	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_b11ac9f5
Family Tree Series / int_b58c51d8	type	My Beloved Smother
Family Tree Series / int_b58c51d8	comment	My Beloved Smother: Francie has became this by the time she has children, due to her paranoia from almost being kidnapped as a child. She doesn't let Georgie even walk next door to her friend's house and watch from the front steps, monitors the babysitter the first four times to make sure she's following the rules and not allowing strange men over, and often undercuts her husband George when it comes to the kids and their life just to feel safe. Her paranoia and overprotective parenting are so bad that she demands the family move to Maine after 9/11 and the anthrax attacks because it's "safer" and not so close to NYC. Georgie thinks she's not allowed to do anything because of her controlling mom and this culminates in sixteen year old Georgie sneaking out and running away to her Nana Dana's house without telling anyone she's gone after her mother forbids her from playing in a band with older girls because it's an overnight trip.
Family Tree Series / int_b58c51d8	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_b58c51d8	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_b58c51d8
Family Tree Series / int_beb932ca	type	Big Applesauce
Family Tree Series / int_beb932ca	comment	Big Applesauce: Nearly every character spends some time here. Abby moves to New York City to get away from her overbearing father and Wicked Stepmother Helen; her younger sister Adele follows her later and lives there from then on. Abby and Zander initially live here with their children, but after Zander's death she moves back with her children to Maine and then around the state for some time. Dana moves in with her aunt Adele when she's fourteen in order to return to New York City; she's unhappy in Maine after her family's multiple moves and missing her late father, Zander, who died there; she not only blames herself, but her mother initially. Georgie's family lives just outside of the city in Princeton, but after 9/11 happens, Francie insists on moving the family to Maine (where her family's roots are), abandoning her childhood home out of fear.
Family Tree Series / int_beb932ca	featureApplicability	1.0
Family Tree Series / int_beb932ca	featureConfidence	1.0
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Family Tree Series / int_beb932ca
Family Tree Series / int_bec0417c	type	Happily Married
Family Tree Series / int_bec0417c	comment	Orrin Umhay with Abby, who Abby falls in love with in second grade. Granted, it's Abby's second marriage after her first husband and Dana's father Zander dies, but the two of them stay Happily Married until his own passing sometime after Georgie's high school graduation.
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Family Tree Series / int_c08a4897	type	Elderly Blue-Haired Lady
Family Tree Series / int_c08a4897	comment	Francie calls out a bigoted old couple who shake their head in disgust at Mr. and Mrs. Noble—Rich is white and Denise is black, making their kids George and Kaycee biracial. She glares at them, says—despite Dana trying to silence her—that they should get mad at her parents too because her father's Jewish and her mother's Presbyterian, then says they'd better be exactly the same—but they're not, because the man has grey hair and the woman has blue hair. The couple storms off, and then Mr. Noble laughs and praises her.
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Family Tree Series / int_c772e7c5	type	Rags to Riches
Family Tree Series / int_c772e7c5	comment	Rags to Riches: Luther makes it as a carpenter and is able to move his family into better living from their beachfront house in Lewisport—and once he does, doesn't want his daughters to continue to associate with lower class people, and often wants to appear rich and socially acceptable among the upper classes to impress them.
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Family Tree Series / int_cceab1c4	type	Special Aesop Victim
Family Tree Series / int_cceab1c4	comment	Special Aesop Victim: Francie is almost kidnapped by a man in a black car, and never tells anyone what happens. A few months later a young girl, Erin Mulligan, is kidnapped and never found, assumed to have been murdered, and a man in a black car is mentioned to be involved. Doubles with Aesop Collateral Damage—Georgie's beloved music teacher Mr. Elden dies in the two-car accident that broke her brother Richard's leg—and killed his other two friends, including the Drunkdriver Seth.
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Family Tree Series / int_d4cd68be	type	Unwanted Gift Plot
Family Tree Series / int_d4cd68be	comment	Unwanted Gift Plot: Abby wants a lovely doll for her eleventh birthday. Her father Luther (who is now Nouveau Riche) instead presents her with a fancy wristwatch at her lavish seaside picnic party, calling it a grown up gift for a grown up girl—but it's not what she wanted. Her mother Nell gets her the doll as a secret gift.
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Family Tree Series / int_e3109dae	type	Switching P.O.V.
Family Tree Series / int_e3109dae	comment	Switching P.O.V.: Each book after the first includes the perspective of the previous narrator or narrators, often revealing information her daughter doesn't know that would change her outlook. The last book includes perspectives from all four generations, including several times in the same scene. There's also a secret fifth perspective: Abby's mother Eleanor, through her hidden diaries that her great-great granddaughter Georgie finds.
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Family Tree Series / int_e52a0409	type	Calling the Old Man Out
Family Tree Series / int_e52a0409	comment	Calling the Old Man Out: Abby—and Rose with her—calls her father Luther out when he takes her disabled younger brother, Fred, to an institution far from home without telling anyone where he's been sent to or that he's going to do it beforehand—not even their mother Nell. When Luther says he did what he thought was right, Abby says he did what he thought was easiest. Abby gets called out by her daughter Dana for being drunk on the ferry and so not being there to stop her husband Zander from falling overboard and subsequently drowning. However, Abby wasn't drunk. She was newly pregnant and having awful morning sickness. Francie gets it from Georgia for her overbearing mothering—with Georgie not knowing her mother has been paranoid ever since almost being kidnapped as a child.
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Family Tree Series / int_eab212a8	type	Period Piece
Family Tree Series / int_eab212a8	comment	Period Piece: Each book encapsulates its era for the girl and later young lady living through it.
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Family Tree Series / int_f21d434a	type	New Job as the Plot Demands
Family Tree Series / int_f21d434a	comment	New Job as the Plot Demands: Deconstructed. When Francie makes the whole family move to Maine because she's terrified of living near New York City and needs to feel "safe," her husband George has to quit his stable job as a teacher and it's hard for him to find a new job, especially as a half-black man in Maine. He tries to open a dollhouse store, followed by a less successful juice bar. After the juice bar fails, George leaves home and is gone for weeks staying with his sister, fracturing the family. He comes back and starts to work as a real estate agent—but struggles, leaves again, and returns two weeks later. He limps along as a real estate agent until the Distant Finale, where he and Francie have moved back to Princeton (and while not stated, it's implied he was able to find a new teaching job).
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Family Tree Series / int_f909b16b	type	Dark Secret
Family Tree Series / int_f909b16b	comment	Dark Secret: Each generation carries one, often coupled with It's All My Fault; their lack of communicating their issues to their daughters results in lots of poor communication, resentment, upset, and paranoia. Luther feels this way about his disabled son Fred. He sends him away to an institution when he's five, and doesn't tell anyone else where he is for decades. Francie feels guilty for never telling anyone about the time a man in a black station wagon tried to kidnap her; after after another girl is kidnapped and assumed murdered, she carries the guilt for years. Hence the title of her narrated book, Best Kept Secret. One of the largest is regarding Abby's mother, Eleanor. She was Driven to Suicide after her husband Luther sent their only son Fred away to a group home because he was disabled. She never mentally recovered and had already struggled with mental health for years, but losing Fred without any notice and not being taken to see him broke her. Abby doesn't know until she's an old lady, as she was only told her mother died in her sleep.
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Family Tree Series / int_fbc54605	type	Riches to Rags
Family Tree Series / int_fbc54605	comment	Riches to Rags: Zander is the son of the prominent in town Burley family. The family is socially prominent and rich to the point Luther invokes their name as a family to look up to when they move next door to them. When Zander asks to marry Abby through her father, part of the reason Luther demands that Abby do so (along with his sexist attitude) is because Zander's family is rich, socially prominent and well off and it'll be a good merging of the families. Abby turns Zander down the first time but accepts five years later after living on her own. It's around ten years of marriage later after Zander dies that Abby finds out that—while her husband had made quite a lot of money as a writer—he'd spent it as fast as it came in and had been sending large checks to his parents in Maine since their business had failed and they could only afford their new smaller house with Zander's assistance, all while the Burleys were living a very lavish lifestyle in New York City. Abby pays off all Zander's many debts herself—without asking her financially well-off father for any help other than a place to live and a car for a short while—and works multiple odd and often humiliating jobs to support their four kids until she marries Orrin. Ironically, one of the reasons Luther told Abby she had to marry Zander was that she would never have to worry for money once they were wed, but it's all she does after Zander's death until she remarries.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Age-Gap Romance / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Alcohol-Induced Idiocy / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Coming of Age Story / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Daddy's Girl / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Death by Newbery Medal / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Distant Finale / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Drunk Driver / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Forbidden Friendship / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Forgotten Trope / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Generational Saga / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Half-Sibling Angst / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Improperly Paranoid / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Maiden Aunt / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	My Beloved Smother / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	New York Is Only Manhattan / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Parent-Preferred Suitor / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Riches to Rags / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Special Aesop Victim / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	The Topic of Cancer / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Tragic Stillbirth / int_e5a61646
Family Tree Series	hasFeature	Young Adult Literature / int_e5a61646

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