Pedigree At A Glance Chart
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A Glance
Generations
Start with the focus person in the single entry at the far left, and work to the right. Each entry branches in two: the father on the upper branch, the mother on the lower. Fill in names as each person is identified, and leave an entry empty until then.
Working in a pattern — A chart is easiest to fill in one consistent order, kept from start to finish. One is a generation at a time, completing each column top to bottom before moving right. Another is a line at a time, following one surname back through the generations before starting the next line down the page. Jumping between lines or generations makes it easy to put a name in the wrong entry, which on paper can mean starting the chart again.
Unknown ancestors — An ancestor not yet identified is an empty entry, and an empty entry is useful: it shows at a glance which branches still need research. Where only part of a name is known, the known part can be entered on its own. A name not yet proven is better kept in research notes until the evidence supports it.
Versions — The form has two versions which can be selected from the Version list above the form: the Fillable version, filled in on screen, and the Print blank version, a blank copy for filling in by hand.
Printing — Print opens the browser's print window, where the form can be printed or saved as a PDF instead.
In the Fillable version — Each entry shows a label while it's being typed in, naming the generation and the relationship, such as “Generation 3, Maternal Grandfather.” The labels don't print. Enter moves down the column to the next entry, then on to the next generation; on the charts with IDs it goes from a person's name to their ID first.
Form options — Three buttons beside the Version list add options to the standard chart, alone or together.
- Lines: puts a ruled line under each name, for enhanced readability.
- IDs: puts a box beside each name for an ID, to reference the person's individual profile; in the Fillable version the name and its ID share one space, and the ID can take room the name leaves unused, so a shorter name leaves more room for a long ID.
- Hues: gives each generation its own color, so a generation can be picked out at a glance across the whole chart.
The Pedigree At A Glance Chart sets out one person and six generations of their direct ancestors on a single page: 127 people, from the person the chart starts with back to their 4th great-grandparents.
A pedigree follows the direct line only: parents, their parents, and so on back. Brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and cousins are collateral relatives and have no place on it, however close, because no one on the chart descends from them. They belong on a family group sheet, which holds one couple and all their children. This chart is a map: it shows how far each line has been traced and where it stops. The family group sheets hold the dates and places for each family along it.
Also known as — an ancestral chart, a pedigree chart, or an ancestor chart.
The chart reads from left to right, one generation per column. Each person branches into their two parents in the next column: the father on the upper branch and the mother on the lower. The pattern never changes, so an entry on the chart represents who that person is to the focus person.
In the Fillable version, the label on each entry gives the relationship in full. From generation 4 it adds the path from the focus person in letters, F for father and M for mother: “Generation 5, Paternal 2nd Great-Grandmother (FFMM)” is the father's father's mother's mother.
Name — A person is named in full, with a woman's birth surname (maiden name) rather than a married one. The birth surname connects her to her parents' family and to the records made before her marriage.
Profile ID — A profile ID can be whatever identifier the researcher chooses: the ID a family tree or database gives a person's profile, such as a FamilySearch ID, or one from the researcher's own numbering system. A consistent system across a body of research gives the same person the same ID on every form. The ID ties the form to one specific person where a name alone could fit several, and makes that person quick to find again.
An identifier for a specific form. The same identifier goes on every page of the form, so pages that become separated can be put back together, and another form can refer to it.
The prefix is unique to each type of form. The rest, up to four characters, is chosen by the researcher and can be numbers, letters, or both. Combining letters with numbers allows more forms to be referenced with fewer characters. Each Quick Reference chart carries a fixed identifier instead, such as "QRC-C2", which names the chart itself and has nothing to fill in.
A generation is one step in a line of ancestors: children are one generation, their parents the previous. On the chart each column represents a single generation, counted from the focus person as generation 1, through the parents (2) and grandparents (3), to the seventh column.
The count belongs to the focus person, not the other family members: the same ancestor is in generation 4 on one person's chart and generation 3 on their mother's. A generation is a position, not a span of years, and the gap between a parent's birth and a child's varies too widely for the count to stand in for a date.
Everyone has two parents, so each generation back has double the entries of the one before. Seven generations make 127 entries, and the seventh holds 64 of them.
Pedigree collapse — The 127 entries may not represent 127 different people. When two relatives marry, their children share some ancestors through both parents. When that happens, the same person fills more than one entry on the chart. Each entry is still filled, so the name appears twice.
Ahnentafel (pronounced AH-nen-tah-fel), German for “ancestor table,” is a numbering system for the people on a pedigree. The focus person is 1. A person's father is twice that person's number, and the mother twice the number plus one: the father is 2 and the mother 3, the father's parents 4 and 5, the mother's parents 6 and 7.
Apart from the focus person, every man has an even number and every woman an odd one. Each generation begins at a power of two, so generation 4 runs from 8 to 15 and generation 7 from 64 to 127.
In the Fillable version, each entry's label begins with its Ahnentafel number, which shows while the entry is being typed in but doesn't print. To keep the numbers on paper, they can be included in the entries.