Charting your family doesn't have to be difficult

Susan Doak

SW Nebraska Genealogy Society

I am a pen snob. The day I reached the grade in school where the teacher allowed us to use a pen rather than a #2 pencil, I was elated. I reached for my pen and never looked back!

Genealogy charting and pens do not mix well! When you start your project if you are not doing it on the computer......buy a pencil with a good eraser. You will find that as you research and chart the information, nothing is written in stone (or ink).

Also, when you are doing this by hand, it is a long tedious process which might spur you to buy an inexpensive genealogy program so that you can enter more information and pictures at will. If you decide to join one of the membership sites, such as Ancestry.com, they provide the charting format you use which can be saved and printed.

Simple charts can be found on the internet or by getting in touch with SW Nebraska Genealogy Society if you do not have access to a computer. You can even draw your own charts using graph paper; however, I was a complete failure at that and several sheets of graph paper later, I found some charts that my aunt had used and went forward using that format.

Shown is an example of a simple chart; simple because it is only going to have each person's name, birth, marriage, and death dates plus locations. It is a five generation chart. You may want a chart that is decorative in nature (tree form as an example) that can be framed for your children or grandchildren when you complete it. One of the most beautiful charts I have ever seen was a family tree quilt created for the Roth family; a treasure in any home. Generational charts are well adapted to a scrapbooking format, collages, quilts or needlepoint and there are many patterns available.

To get started, here is the major clue: Paternal (Father's Lineage) always goes to the top and Maternal (Mother's Lineage) always goes to the bottom. On Chart # 1, your name goes in Box #1; your fathers' above in Box #2; your mothers' below in Box # 3 and so on. Now you take all that information you have been gathering and start filling in your chart! If you have information past 5 generations, you begin a new chart for each of the people listed in 5th generation. Chart # 2 would begin with the paternal GG- Grandfather listed in Box # 16 as the Box # 1 entry with a notation of continuation from Chart #1, etc.. See why I suggested using a pencil?

To get help or a free genealogy chart from SW Nebraska Genealogy Society, you need only to contact us through Facebook.com or our website: swngs.nesgs.org. You can also attend meetings (soon to restart when the weather cools down) at our location in the Merit Building, 2nd floor, 110 West C Street. For more information or additional help, you can contact me at sdoak@swnebr.net. . Please give me a week to respond and put GENEALOGY on the subject line.