Practical genealogy forms for transcribing, comparing, and organizing records
Forms on this site come two ways: a blank to print and fill in by hand, and a fillable version to type into in the browser. Note: Fillable forms don't save on their own — print or save to PDF before closing the tab.
Jump to a form
Blank or fillable
The blank is for printing — take it to an archive, or work from a screen with the paper alongside. The fillable version is typed into in the browser and then printed or saved as PDF. Nothing is stored: closing the tab discards what was typed, so save before closing.
The sheets for 1790–1840 work differently
Before 1850, only the head of household was recorded by name. Everyone else in the house appears as tally marks in age, sex, and race columns — so the sheet has tally boxes rather than a row per person. The Tick Mark – Census Quick Reference Chart gives the age range behind each column, which is what turns a tally into a birth year range for a specific person. One continuation sheet serves all six years.
Continuation sheets (Extra Page)
A household can run past the last row on the page. On a printed form filled in by hand, the continuation sheet is the second page — same columns, no header block to fill in twice. The fillable sheets don’t need one: they add continuation pages themselves, as the household needs them. From 1850 on, each year has its own, because from 1850 each year’s columns differ.
Census Extraction, 1850–1950
1890, and the years in preparation
The 1890 schedules were almost entirely destroyed after a fire in 1921, and what survives covers only fragments of a few states — so there is no sheet for 1890, and there will not be one. Sheets for 1900 through 1950 are in preparation and are added as they are finished; the tile for each year shows its status.
Family Group Sheets
Choosing a family group sheet
The standard sheet carries birth, marriage, and death for each person. The christening-and-cemetery version adds a christening line and a burial place, for families where church and cemetery records are the main sources. The side-by-side layouts arrange the children across the page rather than down it, which fits the same children in less of the page’s height. Each layout comes with and without the christening and cemetery fields.
One family per sheet
A family group sheet holds one family unit: the two parents, their marriage, and their children, each with the vital dates and places that identify them. It is the working sheet a household’s evidence is gathered onto before it goes into a database or a tree — everything about one family on one page, so gaps and conflicts are visible at a glance.
More always on the way
Every form here began as a request from a working genealogist: something needed repeatedly, with nothing available that did the job. The library grows the same way it started, a sheet at a time. If no existing form does the job you're trying to accomplish, tell us what you need it to do.
Pedigree At A Glance Chart
Seven generations at a glance
The pedigree chart shows a person and six generations of their direct ancestors — parents, grandparents, and on back — on a single page, with a line for each. It is a map: the family group sheets hold the detail, and the chart shows how they connect.
Ruled lines, ID boxes, color
Three options to add to the standard chart, available alone or together. Ruled lines under each name, for enhanced readability. An ID box beside each name, to reference the person’s individual profile. Color by generation, so a generation can be picked out at a glance across the whole chart.
Research Worksheets
Research Log Worksheet
A research log starts from a stated objective — the question being asked — and tracks the search against it: what was searched, on what date, what was found, and what the outcome was. Each source gets its own block: its ID, title, the date it was reviewed and its citation, lines for the details of the search and what it found, and a status — the page the review stopped on, whether the source has been fully reviewed, and whether it matches the person being sought. A notes block at the foot carries next steps. It is what stops the same source being searched twice, and what lets a search be picked up months later where it was left.
Profile Comparison Worksheet and Identity Analysis Worksheet
Two worksheets for the point where records conflict. The Profile Comparison Worksheet sets two profiles side by side, fact by fact, to decide whether they are one person or two before a merge is made. The Identity Analysis Worksheet works through whether one or more profiles describe the same person, different people, or a conflation — fact by fact, with each item weighed on its own. Both are for deciding on paper before changing in the database, where a wrong merge is hard to undo.
Reference Charts
Reference Charts
Lookup tables for reading the records genealogists most often work from. The Tick Mark – Census Quick Reference Chart turns the tally columns of the 1790–1840 censuses into birth year ranges, one range per tick, for the census year in hand. The Population Schedule – Census Quick Reference Chart lists, for each census year, which research questions that year’s census can answer: which years give birthplace, which give parents’ birthplaces, which give immigration information, so the right year can be reached for first. The Mortality Schedule – Census Quick Reference Chart lists which research questions the mortality schedules of 1850 through 1900 can answer. Those schedules name the people who died in the year before each census, and are indexed separately from the population schedules. The Enslaved Ancestors Quick Reference Chart sets the sources most often used to trace enslaved ancestors, from the 1850 and 1860 slave schedules to slave narratives, against the questions genealogists bring to them, and marks which questions each source answers directly, gives clues to, or doesn’t cover.
How these forms print
Every form here is a web page. It opens in the browser and prints from it, with nothing to install and no reader to keep current. Each sheet sets its own paper size and margins, so the print dialog opens with the settings the form was designed for. Everything a form needs on paper, such as its lines, chart dots and ticked boxes, prints as it appears on screen, whether the background graphics option is on or off. The background shading on headings, columns and rows, which makes a form easier to read, prints only when the dialog’s background graphics option is on (some browsers call it “Print backgrounds”). A fillable form prints what has been typed into it, or saves to PDF from the same dialog.
Why the census sheets follow each year’s own schedule
The census questions changed over the decades, and the columns changed with them. A generic grid forces a decision, while reading, about which of its columns a given piece of information belongs in — and that decision is where transcription errors get introduced. These sheets carry the same columns in the same order as the original schedule, so the sheet can be checked against the image line by line without translating anything.
What the tally sheets ask, 1790–1840
The six sheets before 1850 name only the head of household; everyone else is a tally in age, sex, and status columns. 1790 divides the household five ways, and counts only free white males by age: 16 and over, or under 16. From 1800 the free white counts split into five age brackets for each sex, so a tally becomes a birth year range rather than adult-or-child. 1820 adds occupation counts and foreigners not naturalized, and counts enslaved and free colored persons by age for the first time. 1830 narrows the brackets into bands running past 100. 1840 adds pensioners for Revolutionary or military service by name and age — the only people besides the head named on these sheets — along with employment, school, and literacy counts. Each extraction worksheet carries its year’s own household columns in their original order; the 1840 school counts describe schools, not households, so that sheet leaves them out.
What each sheet asks, 1850 onward
From 1850 every free person is named. 1850 gives age, sex, color, occupation for males over 15, value of real estate, birthplace, whether a person married or attended school within the year, and whether an adult could not read and write. 1860 adds the value of personal estate and extends occupation to women. 1870 adds whether each parent was foreign born, the month of birth or marriage within the census year, and male citizens of 21 and over; it is also the first census after emancipation, so the population schedule covers everyone. 1880 is the first to give each person’s relationship to the head of the household, along with marital status and the birthplace of both parents — which is what makes family structure explicit rather than inferred.
Mortality schedules
Each census from 1850 through 1900 recorded, on a separate form, the people reported as having died in the twelve months before it — June 1st to May 31st. The schedule gives name, age, sex, color, month of death, profession, and cause of death, and in 1850 and 1860 the number of days ill. Starting in 1870 it also carries the family number from the population schedule, which links a death back to a household; before that, deaths were recorded in the same order as the population schedule, so the household can usually still be worked out. The 1890 and 1900 schedules were ordered destroyed: none survive for 1890, and for 1900 only a copy of Minnesota's is known. Mortality Schedule Extraction Worksheets for 1850 through 1880 are in preparation. The Mortality Schedule – Census Quick Reference Chart sets out what each surviving year recorded.
Enslaved people are on separate schedules
In 1850 and 1860 enslaved people were not recorded on the population schedule. They appear on a separate slave schedule, listed under the name of the slaveholder by number, age, sex, and color, with no names of their own. On the tally sheets for 1790 through 1840 the counts of enslaved people are part of the household sheet itself, and from 1870 the population schedule covers everyone. Slave Schedule Extraction Worksheets for 1850 and 1860 are in preparation.