The two main formats that you will need to use to record the information that you are collating include the ancestor chart and family group sheet. An ancestor chart details the full name, birth date, place of birth, date of marriage, place of marriage, date and place of death. The spouse of this person is put alongside with all these details included as well.

A link is added to include the offspring of this couple along with the people they were married to and the chart continues. It is obvious that you shall not be able to put all the information on one chart and therefore you will need to indicate the chart number that holds the information further to the one provided for each person that appears at the end.

A family group sheet is useful for tracking information about each nuclear family. This should contain more details than you can put in the ancestor chart and therefore is more detailed in the content.

It is recommended that you use a pencil to put down all the details in these charts till you are completely sure about the authenticity of the information in order to ensure that you do not overwrite. You should make it a point to identify females with their maiden names and also their married names too. For dates that you are not sure about you can add in a 'prob' and for those that you are sure about you can use 'circa'. Leave blanks for the information that you do not have to try and get it from elsewhere.