How To Complete Pedigree Charts?

A pedigree chart begins with you as the first member of the family tree. It is designed to show your ancestral lineage, and so shows information about each of your ancestors. A pedigree chart is quite easy to complete, and properly done can make a decorative addition to your home. You can see important family history on one chart at a glance. The genealogy, ancestry and family history you include needs to be accurate and properly formatted.

The importance of accurately recording your family data in the proper form cannot be stressed enough when compiling a pedigree chart. Certain ways of writing in information make it easier for other genealogists to quickly assess your family tree to see if it’s relevant to their own. Your pedigree chart can easily and quickly be expanded if the right foundation is laid, and proper steps are followed.

PEDIGREE CHARTS: Free Printable Pedigree Charts

Your pedigree chart is designed to hold basic information about your family. Detailed information on family members is usually best kept separately, perhaps in a specified folder or similar filing system. This separate documentation is known as a family group record, and its design is to assist you in compartmentalizing the information that you accumulate. When you discover information on a new family member it will inevitably be accompanied by information on their spouse, siblings or parents that doesn’t fir on your pedigree chart. The family group record provides the perfect solution to this aspect of genealogical research.

The data on a pedigree chart will consist of the person’s name, their birth date and place, death date and place, and spouse’s name. You can most likely fill in a three generation family tree pedigree chart from memory, or at least with minimal exploration. If you do need to research any facts, make sure you record them and any additional information that you may uncover. Material regarding relatives outside of your three generations will be useful if you decide to expand your family tree further.

Once you have gathered the information you’ll be inputting to your three generation family tree chart, be sure to use a recognized system of entry. Names should be written with the surname in full capitals and nicknames inserted with quotation marks as such:

William Henry "Hank" RUTHERFORD
Thomas Reginald "Reggie" BALANTYNE

All dates should be recorded in the day, month, year format, with month names abbreviated to conserve space. Thus if you were born on the tenth of March in 1973, you would write you date as b. Mar. 10, 1973. Notice the use of the "b." before the actual birthdates. This is the standard abbreviation for birth date or born, and should always be used. Other abbreviations are m for married, d for died and bur. for buried.

Using these basic standard forms for entering your information will ensure the continued growth of your family tree. Think of it as simply speaking the language of genealogy. You know it’s impossible to understand someone who isn’t speaking your language, or speaking it, but very badly. The same applies to ancestral charts.