How To Make a Family Tree on Paper

Getting Started

When starting out, it is very easy to be seduced by the ease of technology or the flashiness of corporate marketing.  You may be convinced you have to create your family tree in a software application or in an online tree, but that's not your only option or even the best option for starting out.  The reality is that these tools can sometimes be overwhelming to the beginner genealogist, so why not learn how to make a family tree on paper first.

We're going to start out really high tech here, so brace yourself.  Take out a sheet of paper and a pen or pencil (preferably a pencil so you can erase if needed).  Regular paper, graph paper, construction paper, whatever you have is fine.  You even have permission to rip a piece of paper out of a spiral notebook, full of fringes and all.

Wakefield Family Tree by Shelly is licensed under a 
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0). 
Based on a work at www.flickr.com.

At the bottom center portion of that paper, write your name and birthdate and place you were born (if you don't know all of these, that's okay - just write down what you know).  Then, work your way back in time moving up the page.  List your parents and their birthdate and place of birth if known, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. until you written down all the ancestors you know of.

Ok, good.  Now, I want you to crumple up that piece of paper and throw it away.

Gotcha!  Wait - Don't do it.  You don't have to throw it away.  But keep in mind that feeling you just had - that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when something you worked hard at ends up in the trash.

Taking a Second Look

Take a look at the information you just created again starting with your own name at the bottom.  Now think of a question about your information.  Something like, how do I know that is my name?  Was I really born in 1971? - yup, I'm dating myself here.  Am I sure I was born in the city where I live now?  Genealogy is all about answering questions, so it's always good to start with one.

Let's start with your name.  What proof do you have of your name?  Do you have a driver's license that shows your name, your social security card, a birth certificate, your Mom's testimony.  These are what we call sources and they help us confirm that the information we put in our tree is correct.  It is important to locate and scrutinize sources as we do our research to make sure we place the correct people in our tree.

Beyond Repair by aehdeschaine is licensed under a 
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0) 
Based on a work at www.flickr.com.

Remember that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.  Well, imagine how much worse it would be if you traced your family back ten generations only to find out that one of the people you thought was an ancestor back in generation four is not really your ancestor.  All of that hard work would basically be trash and nobody wants that.

Where To Go From Here

Genealogy is the process of answering questions about our lineage one by one and documenting the sources we find that prove our claims.  Stayed tuned for our next post on the research cycle for more information on how to do genealogy.  And later on, we'll show you how to make a family tree on paper using a variety of templates - something without all those paper fringes on the side.  Until then, keep asking and answering those questions.

Don't Follow That Ancestry Leaf

Well, at least don’t follow that Ancestry leaf...for now.

Ancestry.com’s advertisements show all these wonderful flowing leaves moving back in time and finding your ancestors. They claim, “Simply type in a name and follow the Ancestry leaf…” and “You don’t have to know what you’re looking for. You just have to start looking.” Many other online family tree applications have similar hint generators. And, while ancestry hints can be extremely helpful, following them blindly doesn’t start you out on the best path for your research. Trust me, I know.

Green leaf of Tamarillo by epSos.de is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0).
Based on a work at www.flickr.com.

I had started a really basic family tree over 10 years ago, but at the time I didn’t have the time or resources to pursue the research. My tree, which I created on Ancestry.com, just sat there all that time. Then, in January of this year, I began seeing a lot of Ancestry’s ads on T.V. and well... they worked.

I subscribed to Ancestry.com and immediately followed their instructions. I opened that tree created so long ago and followed that first ancestry leaf on my father’s profile. I was immediately hooked and I had a blast. All kinds of ancestry hints popped up with records and photos and other people’s trees and I attached all the ones that looked correct based on names I had heard my family members mention. I merged data and people from other members’ trees with my own without checking to see if they had any sources attached. If it looked okay, I attached it.

After several months, conflicting records and information started to rear it's ugly head. I was no longer getting the ancestry hints that would take me back another generation. My little ancestry leaf was not leading me to the information I needed. So, it was time to look elsewhere for more info on this whole genealogy thing.  Where did I need to go next for more hints?  I watched hundreds of videos and went to webinars online and it turns out that I went about this all wrong.

Now, I have a tree with over 500 people in it with questionable sources, almost no citations, and no real proof that anyone I have in my tree is actually my family. I’ve just collected a bunch of ‘stuff’. And, to make it worse, looking at all the stuff I have and knowing that I have to go through it all again is completely overwhelming.

So, I decided to create this site for other newbies just like me. Hopefully, I can stop at least one other person from blindly following their leaf hints. Don’t worry, we won’t ignore them forever. We just have to learn a few basic principles before we dig in. Check out our GPS tab to review a summary of the Genealogical Proof Standard which we’ll use going forward. I’ll also create posts about each standard and go into more detail. Feel free post questions, comments, or basically anything (except spam).

Leaf Pile by lecates is licensed under a 
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0).  
Based on a work at www.flickr.com

If you’re in the same boat as me and have a messy tree, hang in there. You’re not alone. We’ll start at the beginning and work through it a piece at a time. It’s an achievable goal and we can do it. We’ll be in this together so at least we can give each other moral support along the way.

Once we get the research cycle down, we’ll dive into that pile of ancestry leaf hints to find the answers we are looking for and we’ll know exactly what to do with that information when we find it. The end result will be an accurate and substantiated family tree.