Full names - When recording names of ancestors (whether it be on your pedigree chart, family group sheet, online family tree, or in notes) write the individual's name in their natural order - first, middle, surname. Always use all given names if you know them. Some genealogists like to print surnames (last names) in upper case to better distinguish them from middle names.

  Nicknames - If a nickname was commonly used for an ancestor, you can include it in quote after their given name. For example: William "Billy" James MOORE.

 Maiden Names - Always enter a married female under her maiden name (her surname at birth) rather than her husband's surname. If you do not know a female's maiden name, you can insert a Mrs. as her title on the chart followed by her first name and her husband's surname. Or you can write her first name followed by a pair of empty parentheses e.g. Mary ( ). If you ever come across a situation where the woman's maiden name is the same as her married name, be sure to note it so as not to later on confuse yourself or other researchers.

 Also Known As - If a person is known by more than one name then include all alternate names in parentheses after the surname. For example, my great grandfather Earl Hugh Talbert was orphaned as a baby and raised by a Mr. and Mrs. Strong. I have found him in records listed with the surname Talbert and Strong so I might list him as: Earl Hugh TALBERT (a.k. Earl Hugh STRONG)

 Alternate Spellings - If you find that an ancestor's surname has changed over time or can be found in records spelled many different ways, you can record those spellings. Record the earliest known usage of the surname first, followed by later spellings e.g. Jennifer Koch/Cook.

Somehow or other your interest has been piqued. You've started to wonder what your great grandpa was like, or if you have any famous ancestors hiding in your family tree. You know you want to start finding information but you have one daunting question on your mind: Where do I begin? Luckily for you, genealogy is all about asking questions. And luckily for you there is an answer to your daunting question:


 Genealogy, quite simply, is the study of a family and how members are related to each other. The type of research you do will vary depending on the time period you're searching, where you're searching, what records are available and what information you're looking for. But you don't need to worry about that quite yet. Right now is simply the time to gather. Write down or type up everything you know about your family and once you've done that ask other family members if they have more information for you. Is there a family tree online? A family website you can look at? A book that has been published about your family history? You need to know what has already been gathered so you can verify and build off of that.

 Now some of you, when you begin this process may find next to nothing has been done. You've got your work cut out for you!

 Others of you may find that scores of generations of people have been researched and documented. Guess what, you've got your work cut out for you!



 There are always individuals that have been missed. There are always individuals for whom assumptions have been made that may be connected to the wrong family members. There is always information to add, information to correct, and information to verify. Genealogy work is detective work filled with cases that constantly need solving and reopening. It's exciting exploring different avenues that might get you the information you need.

 The most important thing to do after you have gathered information is to record that information along with your source material. So how do genealogists record their information? Whether you're planning on keeping track of your ancestors online, on paper, or both, there are some common forms you will see that will help you keep your families and facts in order. Below is one example of a pedigree chart:
A pedigree chart is used to document your direct line ancestors, typically four generations back. This includes you, your parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. There are variations on this that include more generations but less detail such as fan charts.


 Below is one example of what is called a family group sheet:

A family group sheet is used to document the parents and children that belong to one particular family.

Another way to record is on the internet through use of a family tree website. An online family tree program combines everything in one, giving you the ability to view your family lines in pedigree form, individual form, or family group form and allowing you to attach source material and records to your ancestors. Some programs will even search for possible matching records for you.



My personal recommendation for creating your family tree online is Ancestry.com. I am not affiliated with them in any way, I am simply a happy customer of over 15 years. And what's even better is that if you're LDS, your subscription is completely free! Visit this link to sign up and start your family tree.

If you are LDS you may be wondering why you need Ancestry.com in addition to your familysearch.org account. Family Search is great and obviously necessary for submitting names for temple work, but your tree on family search is an open edit system. What this means is that anyone with a membership can log in and change anything to any individual in the tree at any time. It's meant to encourage collaboration but is more often frustrating than not as so many individuals don't provide contact information. It's nice to have your own personal family tree elsewhere that only you can edit and make sure information stays correct. And you can import individuals from familysearch to ancestry and vice versa. Also, ancestry.com has records available that familysearch does not.

So to sum up:

This is a family group sheet that I designed with larger families (up to 17 children) in mind. The sheet is two pages so you can print double sided and it also coordinates with the Free Printable Pedigree Chart I created. There is a print and fill pdf version and there is a type fillable pdf version.

Here is a small family group sheet that I designed, with room for seven children and some notes. Remember, all of my printables are free for personal use only. Please do not alter my work or sell it individually or as part of a larger package. Thank you!

Here is a pedigree chart that I designed. Two sizes are available. Immediately below is a standard 8.5 x 11 version for printing and filling out:

Keep track of which individuals or genealogical societies you have contacted and what you have learned with this correspondence log that I designed. It is free for personal use only. Please do not alter it or sell it either individually or as part of a larger package. Enjoy!

Easily keep track of what books or records you have searched and where. I designed this library/archives research log for genealogy and family history work. It is free for personal use only. Please do not alter it or sell it either individually or as part of a larger package. Enjoy!

In the Magazine, New Era May 1997, President Thomas S. Monson wrote:

"One warm summer afternoon when I was about 12, I took a large, inflated inner tube from a tractor tire, slung it over my shoulder, and walked barefoot up the railroad track which followed the course of the river. I entered the water about a mile above the swimming hole and enjoyed a leisurely float down the river.
 I was about to enter the swiftest portion of the river, just at the head of the swimming hole, when I heard frantic cries, “Save her! Save her!” I saw the top of her head disappearing under the water for the third time, there to descend to a watery grave. I stretched forth my hand, grasped her hair, and lifted her over the side of the tube and into my arms. At the pool’s lower end, the water was slower as I paddled the tube, with my precious cargo, to her waiting relatives and friends. They threw their arms around her and kissed her. Then they hugged and kissed me. I was embarrassed and quickly returned to the tube and continued my float down to the Vivian Park Bridge. The water was frigid, but I was not cold, for I was filled with a warm feeling. I realized that I had participated in the saving of a life. Heavenly Father had heard the cries, “Save her! Save her!” and permitted me, a deacon, to float by at precisely the time I was needed. That day I learned that the sweetest feeling in mortality is to realize that God, our Heavenly Father, knows each one of us and generously permits us to see and to share His divine power to save. "

While we may not often find ourselves saving actual mortal lives, we are often able and encouraged to be engaged in the saving of souls. This power to save has been entrusted to us both for the living and dead. The first chapter of Preach My Gospel asks a question that applies to every member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: "What is my purpose as a missionary?" The answer in short, is to bring others to Christ. 


As concerns our dead, while we cannot personally help teach them, we have been given the privilege of performing the ordinances they need to enter into salvation. Some of them have already been brought to Christ by missionaries beyond the veil and wait only upon us to do their work by proxy. When you consider that an estimated 107 billion people have been born upon this earth, we have a staggering amount of work to do.

I will admit that a love of and desire to do genealogy research is a gift that I have been given.  So it's of little credit to me that I lack no desire in spending time and effort finding as much as I can about each person within my family tree.  But not everyone has this strong desire. We each have been given different spiritual gifts and at times it may seem difficult to pursue something we've been asked to do when we have so little motivation for it.

Some see this task as beyond their abilities, some see this task as unbelievably boring, some see this task as being fulfilled by others within their family and some may even see the task as fearful, after all some of us know we are more likely to pull heretics than heroes out of the pages of our family book. But do we realize how much we need to do this, not just for our ancestors, but for ourselves? 

Elder Theodore M. Burton has said, "We have assumed that temple work was to be done merely as a gesture of grace on the part of the living for those of our ancestors who are dead. This is a misconception which comes from not understanding the full meaning of the gospel. The plan of salvation is the plan of saving the children of God in a family relationship."

And Joseph Fielding Smith explained, "When everything gets finished, we will all be one family—every member of the Church a member of one family, the family of God.  It is not merely enough that we be baptized for our dead or for ourselves, but also we have to be sealed to our parents. We must have the parents sealed to their parents and so on, as far back as we can go, and eventually back to Adam"




 Family History work helps create some of those loving family relationships. As Elder Dennis B. Neunschwander has said, "Family history research provides the emotional bridge between the generations. Temple ordinances provide the priesthood bridge."  If possible, we should try to build both halves of the bridge to receive a fulness of the blessings promised.

As Joseph Fielding Smith has stated, "There will be cases of course, where some of our ancestors will not be able to be saved in the family of God, but the links will have to be joined without them...The Lord cannot save the willfully wicked.. nor [they] who refuse to accept the work."

But it is up to God to decide whether or not someone is worthy. As for us, if an ancestor hasn't had their work done, we do it. 

Elder Richard G. Scott has said, "Perhaps you have been prompted to look for ancestors but feel you are not a genealogist. Can you see that you don’t have to be anymore? It all begins with love and a sincere desire to help those beyond the veil who can’t help themselves...Any work you do in the temple is time well spent, but receiving ordinances vicariously for one of your own ancestors will make the time in the temple more sacred, and even greater blessings will be received."

It's not too late to start. You don't need to devote countless hours to research or visit the temple every single weekend, our leaders have not asked each of us to do everything, but they have asked each of us to do something. I know that even doing something is of course difficult when we have no desire so I would say, along the lines of the words of Alma, that even if you can no more than desire to have the desire to do your Family History, let this desire work in you. Pray for help in catching the vision of this work, and more than that, I would encourage you to go and do. For often we receive no witness of the truth and importance of a commandment, or love for it, until after we have put it to the test.

And you will have help. Elder Richard G. Scott has said, ""This work is a spiritual work, a monumental effort of cooperation on both sides of the veil, where help is given in both directions."

Remember what Nephi has said in 1st Nephi 3:7 - ..."the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."
Many of these people from whom we descend but never knew, know us and love us. They prepare the way for us to fulfill the commandment of God to do their work. They bring to light hidden documents and pictures, they sometimes preserve and protect things and help them make their way into the right hands and they often do so much more than this.

Brother John A. Widtsoe once stated that “Those who give themselves with all their might and main to this work...receive help from the other side, and not merely in gathering genealogies. Whosoever seeks to help those on the other side receives help in return in all the affairs of life.”

I testify to you of this. I know this. I cannot doubt it for I have experienced it time and again.

Aside from that, Elder Boyd K. Packer has stated that while family history work has the power to do something for the dead, it has an equal power to do something to the living. Family history work ... has a refining, spiritualizing, tempering influence on those who are engaged in it."

This is all true. There is no principle we can follow that will refine us more. As Elder Packer has said, "Was not the sacrifice of Christ a vicarious offering for and in behalf of all mankind? The very Atonement was wrought vicariously. The Lord did for us what we could not do for ourselves. Is it not Christlike for us to perform in the temples, ordinances for and in behalf of those who cannot do them for themselves?"
What an incredible privilege, perhaps the closest we will ever come in mortality to being like Christ, when we do for others what they cannot do for themselves!

President Harold B. Lee taught "Where is the spirit world? Is it away up in the heavens? That isn't what the scriptures and our brethren explain. They have told us the spirit world is right here round about us... And if our eyes could be opened we could see those who have departed from us--a father, mother, brother, a sister, a child. We could see them, and sometimes when our physical senses are asleep, sometimes our spiritual self...will be very keen and awake, and a departed one may come while we are lying asleep and come into our consciousness. We'll feel an impression. We'll wake up. Where does it come from? It comes from the spirits of those whom we are sealed to."

President Ezra Taft Benson taught us, "On the other side of the veil, the righteous are taught their duties preparatory to the time when they will return with the Son of Man to earth when He comes again, this time to judge every man according to his works. These righteous spirits are close by us. They are organized according to priesthood order in family organizations as we are here; only there they exist in a more perfect order."

I testify that those we have loved and lost and those we have never known who dearly love us, surround us. They are always close by, they are always aware of us, they are always anxious for us. They come in dreams, sometimes they come in thoughts and impressions. They are eager to help us whenever and however they are permitted. Death is only a rebirth into another plane of existence. We will see them again someday.