What Information Should You Record in a Family Tree?
Record names, relationships, dated events, places, sources, uncertainty, and privacy—not just the dates that fit on a chart.
A trustworthy family tree records people and relationships alongside the evidence for names, events, and places. At minimum, capture each person’s names, key life events, family connections, sources, and uncertainty. Add only information you can explain, and keep sensitive living-person detail private.
Names
Record the name as it appears in each relevant source, then choose a display name without erasing variants. Useful fields include birth or original surname, married names, aliases, nicknames, titles, prefixes, suffixes, and spelling variants.
Avoid putting a married surname into a woman’s birth-surname field merely because it is familiar. For unnamed infants or unknown parents, use a clear unknown value rather than “?” as though it were a literal name.
Relationships
Record parent-child, partner or spouse, and household relationships with appropriate roles. Distinguish biological, adopted, foster, step, guardian, social, and uncertain relationships where the system allows. Record marriage, civil partnership, separation, divorce, and other events without assuming every couple married.
The relationship itself needs evidence. A shared surname or appearance in one household does not automatically prove parentage.
Events and dates
Common events include birth, baptism, naming, marriage, residence, education, occupation, migration, military service, naturalisation, divorce, death, burial, and cremation.
Preserve date precision: exact, month and year, year only, before, after, between, or about. Do not convert “aged 40 in 1901” into an exact birth date. Record both event date and registration, publication, or record date where they differ.
Places
Store the place as written in the source and a standard place entry used for searching and mapping. Include the historical jurisdiction relevant to that date. Add coordinates and precision where useful, but do not turn a parish-level fact into a house-level pin.
Keep addresses as event details and protect living people’s precise locations.
Sources and citations
Every significant claim should link to a source citation identifying the item and where it was accessed. Distinguish the repository, source collection, and exact citation. Attach the complete record image where rights permit and preserve a transcription when handwriting or language may be disputed.
Record who supplied family information and when. “Aunt Mary said so” becomes useful evidence when Aunt Mary is identified and the conversation is dated.
Evidence quality and uncertainty
Keep conflicting dates and places rather than deleting the inconvenient one. Add notes explaining informant knowledge, record type, identity match, and why a conclusion is preferred. Use confidence labels only alongside reasoning.
Separate fact, interpretation, family tradition, and question. A tree can contain a probable relationship as long as its status is visible.
People around the family
Witnesses, godparents, neighbours, employers, household members, informants, and travelling companions can solve future identity problems. Record them as people or associates when they are significant, even if their exact relationship is unknown.
A tree limited to direct ancestors discards the network that often proves those ancestors.
Media and objects
For photographs, letters, certificates, recordings, and heirlooms, record title, creator, date, people, place, current owner, provenance, rights, restrictions, and related events. Preserve the original file and a sharing copy.
Do not attach an image without a caption and source. Future relatives may not recognise the faces or know whether the label was contemporary.
Research notes and tasks
Keep transcriptions, analysis, hypotheses, negative searches, and research logs connected to the relevant person or question. Create specific next actions. The finished-looking tree should not hide the work still needed.
Stories and historical context
Add oral histories, narrative biographies, timelines, maps, occupations, local context, and family traditions. Cite factual statements and label reconstruction. A tree gives structure; stories explain why the people and evidence matter.
Privacy and permissions
For living people, minimise dates, locations, contact details, photographs, health information, DNA data, adoption details, and private stories. Record consent and sharing restrictions. Test exports because privacy flags and media exclusions may not transfer between apps.
A practical minimum person record
For a deceased ancestor, aim for:
- preferred name and variants;
- birth/baptism and death/burial with date precision and places;
- parents, partners, and children with relationship type;
- residences and occupations that help identity;
- at least one citation for each major event and relationship;
- notes on conflicts and confidence;
- one next research question where incomplete.
What not to record as fact
Do not promote algorithmic hints, copied trees, search snippets, family assumptions, approximate ages, or plausible maps to facts without evaluation. Keep them as leads. Also avoid unnecessary sensitive data simply because the software offers a field.
Review the tree periodically
Look for uncited relationships, exact dates derived from ages, people over implausible ages, children born before parents, duplicate profiles, broken media, inconsistent places, and private information in public notes. Export a backup and a readable report.
The best family tree is not the fullest. It is the one where a relative can tell what is known, how it is known, what remains uncertain, and which material may be shared.