Building your Tree – hints and tips

Getting it right!

Creating a family tree is more than just listing names – it is about carefully documenting your family’s story in a way that is accurate, consistent and meaningful both for yourself and for future generations.

Good record-keeping ensures that information remains clear, verifiable and easy to expand on as new discoveries are made.

Work with one record at a time and record all the information you find on it eg witnesses of an event or visitors on a census. Find out where they fit into your tree or put them on a to do list. You may not realise that something is significant until much later.

How you achieve the following will vary depending on the site you are using to build your tree but most tree building software will allow for the correct use of all of these items.

Names

✓  Record full legal names (first, middle, last) instead of nicknames, which can be added in separate fields or in descriptions.

✓ For women, use maiden names and note married names separately.

✓ Be consistent with capitalisation, spelling and the order in which names are written.

✓ Make a note of variations of spelling.

Dates

✓ The accepted format is Day Month Year (e.g 12 Mar 1980) to avoid confusion across countries.

✓ If unsure of an exact date, note approximate information (e.g., “circa 1900”) and mark it clearly.

✓ Try to always add a date of birth at least so that when you are searching your tree, you can see what part of it names fall into. You may guess this in the following ways:

• If a marriage record gives an age, assume that the groom is 25 and that the bride is 23.

• Using a birth or baptism record, assume that the father is aged 30 at the time and the mother slightly younger.

• Use a sibling’s birth date as a guide.

Locations

✓ Write the full location, including town, county/state, and country.

✓ In Ireland/Northern Ireland, write the townland, parish, county and country.

✓ Do not abbreviate as others in another country may not recognise the shortened version.

✓ Use the location that was correct at the time of the event. For example, use Ireland for events prior to partition and Northern Ireland for events afterwards.

✓ A street address or a building such as a church is not a location. These details should be recorded separately in a dedicated field or in the description/biography.

Sources

✓ Every fact you record should be accompanied by a source so that you and others always know where you got the information .

✓ Always record the type of source eg birth certificate, census record, family interview, etc.

✓ Include details of the source (record number, page, archive) to make verification easier later.

✓ Add a link to the website where you found the source.

Accuracy

✓ Only add events or people that you are certain about to your tree.

✓ Use research notes or comments sections to explain or add uncertainties and alternatives.

✓ If you want to create a “quick and dirty” tree (one without sources) to see if an hypothesis might work, keep it private so it does not mislead others.

Add photos/documents

✓ Do not add documents or images to your tree unless you absolutely own them. You may be breaching copyright if it is downloaded from a website or copied from a record in an official depository.

Add stories

✓ Bring your family tree to life with biographies containing occupations, military service, migration patterns or significant life events.

✓ Invite your family to contribute