Managing Your Family Tree

These tips will help you to get your family tree up and running. Your goal is to do the best that you can to keep it organized, so it is easy for you to use later.

• Group each person by the family that they belong too. If they have more than one connection, place these families near one another, and show their relation.
• Group families by how they are related. If the two men are brothers, note this. Discover how each family relates to one another and note it.
• Sometimes, using index cards can help you to keep large families organized. Even for those that are alive, create an immediate family index card, which includes the family, members, dates of birth and location that you can refer to later, over and again.
• Place blank spots near those people that you have not found. For example, if you find out there is a sister to one of your cousins that you do not know their name, mark there is a sister. Later you may find their name and information.

Every once in a while, go back to the beginning of the project and see if there are any blanks that you can fill in. Often, you can learn a lot without realizing it.

It also pays to include others in the information that you have found. For example, if you are working on your genealogy project with your sister or aunt, when they see your family tree laid out, they may remember some extra information from the information that you have gathered. This information is important to gather.