Family History: Record Keeping

What sort of information should you collect about your ancestors and other family members:

• Name full name including any alternatives such as nicknames or name changes due to deed poll
• Titles/Rank if your family member was in the military, a minister of religion or a baronet etc.
• Date of birth
  
• Place of birth be as full as possible including county/state and country, if you have actual street address this is even better
• Baptism/Christening/other religious ceremonies these can help pinpoint Date of birth even if you haven’t got the actual date
• Parents’ names
  
• Occupation(s) this adds more interest to your tree
• Marriage date/place where applicable – you may find your family married in same church through the generations
• Spouse/Partners full name where applicable
• Children’s full names and date of birth where applicable
• Place of residence with date you can track the movements of your family through addresses on birth, marriage and death records as well as census records
• Other names if you find other people’s names on records then it can be worth noting them down as they may turn out to be family members
• Military service information dates, ranks, medals etc.
• Miscellaneous information photographs, newspaper articles, schools – basically anything that makes the person more interesting or provides clues for finding out more

It is essential to keep good track of your family history data not only the actual data but the source of it. It may well be that a few years down the line you get a conflicting piece of information on an ancestor and you may need to go back to the other source to double check.