Review on Friday: Basic Genealogy Forms

As you begin to collect data about your family, you will want to be able to look at it in an organized format. In order to do this, you can put the information into a genealogy program and it will produce the printable forms for you or you can print out empty forms and as you find information, you can fill the forms in.

The basic form for recording your genealogy information is the pedigree chart. This particular chart is a five generation chart. You will be in the first spot. Your father will be to the right upper and your mother to the right lower. The same will be done with each set of parents.

When you have filled in all the lines, you will then make a new pedigree chart for 16 great-great grandparents. Unless you are French Canadian, it will take you a long time to fill in all of this information so you wont need more pedigree charts for a while.

Another form you will need from the beginning is a family group sheet. Ancestry offers a variety of forms that you can download for free.

With a family group sheet you will be able to add all the children for a specific set of parents. For instance, your grandparents. You will add all of their children including your parent and all the dates and information that you have.

You can do with these two basic forms as you begin your research. Later we will discuss census forms.

Print out a stack of family group sheets and a few pedigree charts just in case and you will be ready to begin your research.