The short answer
A family group sheet records one couple and all of their children on one page. Fill in each person's full name (women under their birth surname), then birth, marriage, death and burial with the date written as day, month abbreviation and four-digit year, and the place from town to country. List every child in birth order, including those who died young. Put a source number beside every fact, and leave a field blank rather than guessing.
A pedigree chart shows your direct line: parents, grandparents, great-grandparents. It leaves out brothers and sisters. The family group sheet fills that gap. It is the page that shows a whole household, and it is often where a stuck line starts to move, because a sibling's marriage or death record may name the parents your direct ancestor's records never mention.
FamilySearch describes a well-documented family group record as the roadmap for researching a new family: it shows what you know, what you believe and where each piece came from.
Before you start: one couple per sheet
Use one sheet for each couple, not for each person.
- If a man married twice, he gets two sheets: one with each wife and the children of that marriage.
- If a couple never married, use a sheet anyway and record the relationship honestly.
- Number the sheet with the ancestor number of the husband or wife from your pedigree chart (for example, "Sheet 6: parents of person 3"), so the two pages point to each other.
If you have not set up a pedigree chart and numbering yet, our guide to printable genealogy forms explains the system.
Step 1: the husband and wife
Write the husband's full name first, then the wife's.
- Full names: first, middle and surname as written in records. Put nicknames in quotation marks: John "Jack" Kelly.
- Women under their birth surname: Mary Doyle, not Mary Kelly. Her married name is already implied by the sheet. If you do not know her birth surname, write her first name and leave the surname blank or mark it "[unknown]".
- Use capitals for surnames if you like (John KELLY). It makes surnames easy to scan and avoids confusion with names that can be either.
Step 2: events, dates and places
For each spouse record birth, christening (if found), marriage, death and burial.
Dates. Write day, month abbreviation and four-digit year: 12 Mar 1885. This avoids the confusion between 3/12/1885 (March 12 in the US) and 12/3/1885 (12 March elsewhere). For uncertain dates use clear qualifiers:
- abt 1850 — about, estimated from an age;
- bef 1880 or aft 1880 — before or after;
- bet 1848 and 1852 — between;
- cal 1851 — calculated from another record.
Places. Write from smallest to largest: town, county, state, country. For example: Galena, Jo Daviess, Illinois, USA. Record the place as it was named at the time, and note the modern name if it changed. Borders moved often in Europe; "Austria-Hungary" may be the honest answer for 1890.
Step 3: every child, in birth order
List all children, not only your ancestor.
- Include children who died as infants. They appear in baptism and burial records and help you date the family.
- Record each child's birth, marriage (with the spouse's name) and death.
- If you only know a child from one census, enter them with "abt" dates and add more later.
- If birth order is uncertain, note it.
Siblings are often the way through a brick wall. A sister's death certificate, a brother's obituary or a younger child's marriage record may give the parents' names or the family's place of origin. Our guide to genealogy brick walls builds on this.
Step 4: a source for every fact
This is the step that turns a list of names into family history someone else can check.
- Give each source a number or ID: S1 for the 1880 census, S2 for a marriage record.
- Write the source ID next to each fact it supports.
- Keep a full citation on a separate source record: what the document is, where it is held, and the page or image number.
If one fact has two sources that disagree, write both on the sheet and resolve the conflict on a separate page. Our guide to conflicting dates explains how.
What usually goes wrong
- Guesses written as facts. "Born 1850 in Ireland" copied from a family story becomes "the record". Mark it as family tradition until a document supports it.
- Only the direct line recorded. Leaving out siblings removes the people most likely to solve the hard questions.
- Mixed date formats. 4/5/1890 cannot be read safely years later. Use 5 Apr 1890.
- Modern place names only. Writing "Poland" for a village that was in Prussia in 1880 sends you to the wrong archive.
- No sheet number. A loose family group sheet that does not point to a pedigree chart is hard to file and easy to duplicate.
- One sheet for two marriages. Children end up attached to the wrong mother.
Keep the sheet working
A family group sheet is a working document. Date it each time you revise it, and keep the latest version in front. When a new record changes a fact, correct the sheet, add the new source and note what changed. Our guide to building a family history binder shows how to file sheets behind each couple's section.
If you use family tree software, it can print family group sheets for you. Keep the printout as your working copy for open questions, and update the software when a question is resolved; see genealogy binder or family tree software.
Questions about family group sheets
What is the difference between a family group sheet and a pedigree chart?
A pedigree chart shows one person's direct ancestors across several generations. A family group sheet shows one couple and all their children in detail, with dates, places and sources. You need both: the chart is the map, the sheet is the record of each household.
Do I record a child who died at birth?
Yes. Record the child with whatever is known, even if it is only a burial record. Every child helps date the family and may appear in records you search later.
Where can I get a blank family group sheet?
The National Archives offers a free family group sheet, and family tree software can print one. A printable research binder is useful when you want the sheets to share one numbering system with your charts, source records and logs.
Should I write in pencil or pen?
Pencil for working sheets, because facts change as you research. Once a fact is proved and cited, you can ink it or move it to a clean copy.
Sources and limits
FamilySearch recommends beginning research with a well-documented family group record showing names, dates, places, relationships and sources. The National Archives charts and forms page provides a free family group sheet and census extraction forms. The date and place conventions here are widely used genealogy practice; individual software and societies may use slightly different formats. Step order and examples are Wiserta editorial guidance.