Family tree templates and charts
The standard charts genealogists use, how to number people (Ahnentafel), how to fill a pedigree chart and family group sheet correctly, and where to get printable templates.
Genealogists have used the same few chart layouts for a century because they work. Learn them and you can read anyone's research, fill in a form at a record office, and keep your own findings in a shape that a program or another researcher can take over. Printable versions are easy to find and easy to make.
The pedigree (ancestor) chart
You (or the person you're researching) at the left, parents to the right, then grandparents, then great-grandparents: usually four or five generations to a page. Each person has lines for birth, marriage and death with date and place. Fathers go on the upper branch, mothers on the lower; women are entered under their maiden names. When a page fills, the last generation's people each become person 1 on a new chart, cross-referenced by number. This is the chart to print and take to relatives: they can see at a glance what is missing.
The family group sheet
One couple, their marriage, and every child in order with birth, marriage, death and spouse. It is the working document of genealogy: one sheet per couple captures the whole family, including the siblings the pedigree chart leaves out, and it is where you note the sources for each fact. Programs generate these automatically; on paper, keep one per couple in your files.
Descendant charts and fan charts
A descendant chart starts with one couple and runs forward through all their children, grandchildren and so on, indented by generation: the chart for a one-name study or a family reunion. A fan chart puts you at the centre with ancestors radiating outwards in semicircular rings; it fits more generations on one sheet and shows empty wedges where lines are missing. Both are better produced by software than drawn by hand.
Ahnentafel numbering
The standard way to number ancestors. You are 1, your father 2, your mother 3; every father is double his child's number, every mother is double plus one. So your paternal grandfather is 4, paternal grandmother 5, maternal grandfather 6, maternal grandmother 7, and your father's father's father is 8. Men are always even, women odd, and you can work out anyone's relationship from the number alone. Use it to label files and charts.
Filling in charts correctly
- Dates as day month year with the month in letters: 4 Mar 1872, never 4/3/1872 (ambiguous across the Atlantic).
- Places from small to large: parish or town, county, country. Use the name at the time of the event.
- Women under their maiden names; note married names in the marriage field.
- Distinguish baptism from birth and burial from death when that is what the record gives.
- Mark uncertainty: "abt 1831", "bef 1851", "c." and question marks. A blank is better than a guess.
- Number every chart and sheet and keep an index.
Where to get templates
Free printable pedigree charts and family group sheets are offered by The National Archives, FamilySearch, family history societies and most genealogy magazines; any program will print blank or filled charts too. Decorative wall charts for a finished tree are a different thing: a printed poster or a hand-lettered chart makes a good present, and several printers will produce one from a GEDCOM. Bound record books with pre-printed charts suit people who prefer paper to screens.
Paper or program?
Both. Paper charts are for thinking, interviewing and record-office visits; the program is the master copy that generates them. Whichever you use, the discipline is the same: a source for every fact, consistent names and dates, and a number on everything. See genealogy software and organising your research.