How to Do a Family Tree on Paper

March 03, 2022 Post a Comment

It sounds similar an easy enough starting point: Fill up out a family unit tree nautical chart. But once you go started, this seemingly elementary task becomes bewildering. Where do your siblings, aunts and uncles go? How exercise you lot deal with Grandma's second union? Practise you use her maiden or married proper name? And what practice all those numbers mean?

Not to worry. After you lot've learned the format of standard genealogy charts and worksheets, you'll run across why generations of genealogists have found them so handy — they let you pack all your essential family facts onto a few sheets for instant reference. If you want to know how to draw a family tree, these tips tin also help ensure your tree is accurate and thorough.

No matter what kind of family tree you're creating, at that place are a few basic principles to continue in heed. In Family History 101 (Family Tree Books), get-go genealogy instructor Marcia D. Yannizze Melnyk provides five guidelines:

1. Write surnames in capital letters.

The all-caps approach lets you (or someone reading your charts) immediately distinguish final names from first and middle names. At start, this might seem unnecessary — only when yous run into kin named Guillaume GAUTIER de LACHENAYE, Sebastiano Giovanni DI CARLO and the similar, you can see the importance.

2. If you know heart names, spell them out.

Naturally, this helps you lot distinguish Granddad William Randolph Reynolds from Grandpa William Robert Reynolds. Remember, too, that some people went past their middle names. For instance, my great-swell-gramps Charles George Michael Hauck was known to all as Michael, and that's how he shows upwards in virtually U.s. records.

3. Ever record nicknames, denoting them in quotation marks.

Again, you want to show your ancestors' total identities, so you can match upwards family history to the right relative. This is particularly useful for kin whose nicknames don't relate at all to their real names, such as my uncle Everett "Butch" Smith.

four. List women'due south maiden names, not their married names.

Since you're recording your female person ancestors right adjacent to their husbands, including their married names is redundant. If you don't know a woman's maiden name, note that with a question mark or simply skip the surname.

5. Format dates every bit twenty-four hours, month, total year.

For consistency, genealogists write dates European-fashion, flip-flopping the American convention of month, solar day, yr. To avoid any potential confusion, they also apply the month's abbreviation (Melnyk suggests putting it in uppercase letters) instead of a numeral. You know what 12 AUG 1836 means, whereas 12/8/1836 isn't and so clear — is that Aug. 12 or Dec. 8? If you haven't all the same established an verbal engagement, you can use qualifiers such as past 1836, before 1911 or after 20 May 1893.

How to Chart Remarriages

What if your relative remarried afterwards a divorce or a spouse's expiry? Use the box labeled Other Spouses to note whatsoever additional marriages of the hubby and/or wife. But don't list offspring of those unions on the same sheet — instead, create separate family group sheets for those other marriages, and assign each kid to the advisable parents. So if your peachy-grandmother Naomi Crookshank had half dozen children, four past her first husband, Silas Dobbins, and 2 by your great-yard-father Norbert Philpot, you'd make ii family group sheets with Naomi every bit the mother Her 4 kids with Silas would get on one form, and the 2 with Norbert would go on the other.

You've probably noticed two Source # columns on your family unit group sheet. For each fact you lot record, you'll want to notation where you got that information on the back of the form or on a separate folio. Simply compile a running listing of the sources, number each item, then write those numbers next to the corresponding details. Yous'll probably list multiple sources for some facts, and use a single source for several different items.

Documenting facts may seem similar a formality, but we guarantee you'll be glad yous did. When you refer back to certain details afterward or compare notes with a fellow researcher, y'all won't notice yourself wondering, "Where did I find Norbert's burial location? And did Naomi'due south nativity engagement come from her marriage license or baptismal certificate?" (Although pedigree charts don't have a designated place for documentation, you lot still can cite your sources. Either list them on the back of the chart, or note references to the sources on the corresponding family group sheets.)

At present that you know these best practices, information technology'south time to choice your charting method.

Common Family unit Tree Charts and Templates

Genealogists employ an array of research forms. In fact, you lot can download dozens of different forms free from our website. But with and then many options — from correspondence logs to calendars to census extraction forms — it's easy to get overwhelmed. How do yous know which ones you need?

All sorts of family forms can prove helpful, simply offset family history buffs volition want to focus on the two staple worksheets every genealogist uses most: the full-blooded chart and the family unit group sheet. The Ahnentafel Numbering System mentioned below is not a nautical chart, just rather a system to helps you go on rail of each person's place in a family tree.

Pedigree Chart/Antecedent Chart

We'll start with the pedigree chart, which is besides called an ancestor nautical chart. It comes in a diverseness of sizes, from giant 15-generation posters to the unmarried-page five-generation worksheet. At first glance, y'all might think this chart looks similar a basketball game bracket — and information technology actually follows the same principle, only in reverse: Instead of beginning with many pairings and recording the outcome of each match until y'all've whittled the field to one, you're starting with the end effect (you) and working backward to fill in the "pairs" that preceded you.

Pedigree chart using Ahnentafel numbering. — *Hither is an example of a pedigree nautical chart that uses Ahnentafel numbering. Notice the digits adjacent to each person's proper noun. (Source: Wikimedia Eatables)*

Before you put pencil to newspaper, permit's go over a few nuts. Beginning, pedigree charts show but your ancestors: parents, grand-parents, groovy-grandparents and and so on (no aunts, uncles or cousins). Every column on the chart represents a generation. Below each person'south name is space for birth, marriage and decease information — on some charts, you'll run into this abbreviated as b, m and d. In addition to dates, you'll note places, with town, canton and land (for case, Petersburg, Boone, Ky.)

Pencils set? Write your own information in the space marked 1. And then it'due south time to move on to your parents — and our next rule: Men always keep the tiptop space, and women below. So your dad volition go along line 2, your mom on line three, your dad'south male parent on line 4, his mother on line 5 so along.

Family unit Group Sheet

Now you've got ancestor charts downwardly — merely y'all don't want to leave the balance of your relatives hanging. Enter the family group sheet. You'll use this grade to outline basic facts about one nuclear family: husband, wife and kids. Family group sheets permit y'all account for all the siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins (and so-called "collateral relatives") who don't get in onto your pedigree charts because they're not your ancestors.

The format is pretty straightforward. In the tiptop line identifying the family, pencil in the husband'south full proper name (non just his surname). That style, you can tell immediately whether you're looking at the Wilbert Philpot family or the Norbert Philpot family unit.

Directly below, fill in the hubby's and wife's names; their nascency, marriage and decease details; and their parents' names. At the lesser of the folio (under Children of This Wedlock), list the kids in nascency guild, post-obit each proper name with birth, marriage and death information. Voilà! You now accept a snapshot of 3 generations on a single sheet.

How to Use the Ahnentafel Numbering System

Ahnentafel Numbering is one of the genealogical numbering systems typically used in family books, journals and the reports in your genealogy software. These schemes actually are designed to help you organize family facts according to a mutual standard.

All those numbers help you keep runway of each person'due south place in your family tree, simply as rankings on a basketball game bracket tell you any given team's position in the original field.

The Ahnentafel numbers used on full-blooded charts are the simplest numbering system. To delineate descendancy — one person'south offsprings — most genealogists use the NGSQ System (short for National Genealogical Club Quarterly; as well chosen the Modified Annals System) and the Register System (named for the New England Historical and Genealogical Register).

Here'due south how they work: Yous start with the forefather, who is number 1. Below him, his kids get listed in nascency order with Roman numerals (i, ii, iii). Both systems give children sequential Arabic numbers (two, 3, 4) to identify the kids when they appear later — but the systems assign these numerals differently. In the Register Organisation, only children who accept their own offspring get Arabic numerals. NGSQ gives everyone Arabic numerals, and so denotes people whose lines continue forward with plus signs (+).

Simply double any ancestor's Ahnentafel number to determine his father's number; add together one to dad'south number, and you'll accept mom'south. That means even numbers always represent men; odd numbers, women.

And what of those superscript numbers? They indicate the generation. To help you keep the line of descent straight, the systems parenthetically list each person'southward ancestors, along with their generation numbers. So a Register-format entry might look like:

9. Friedrich³ Von Snortmacher (Helmut², Kermit¹).

26. i. Helga⁴ Von Snortmacher

ii. Karl Von Snortmacher

27. three. Wilhelm Von Snortmacher

This tells y'all Friedrich is Kermit'south grandson and Helmut's son. You too know 2 of Friedrich's kids, Helga and Wilhelm, had children — whose names you'd notice under 26 and 27, Helga'due south and Wilhelm's individual entries. See hither for detailed explanations and examples of these systems.

Ahnentafel numbers can prove really useful when you extend your family unit tree past a single page. Suppose y'all've traced your mother's paternal line beyond your bully-great-grandfather (number 26), and yous'd like to make a new nautical chart that begins with him. Instead of numbering from scratch, you lot tin can pick up where y'all left off: Put Great-great-grandpa in the outset space, simply change the 1 to 26. In his father'south space, alter the number from 2 to 52, convert his mother's 3 to 53, and go on for each generation: Infinite 6 becomes 106; 12 becomes 212 and and then on.

If yous don't renumber subsequent charts, you tin can employ the "1 on this chart = _on chart _" line at the peak of each page to go along people straight. In our instance for your great-swell-granddaddy, you'd write "1 on this chart = 26 on chart ane."

A version of this article appeared in the May 2006 effect of Family Tree Magazine.

Claycomb Forienionly

How to Do a Family Tree on Paper

1. Write surnames in capital letters.

2. If you know heart names, spell them out.

3. Ever record nicknames, denoting them in quotation marks.

four. List women'due south maiden names, not their married names.