Written by Generation Archives. This is about the form, which long predates any one website. We offer a blank family group sheet you can print, and the same idea shows up in almost every genealogy program.
How to read a family group sheet
A family group sheet is one household on one page. The top of the page is a couple. The rest of the page is their children, usually in birth order. Where a pedigree chart walks backward through ancestors, a group sheet looks sideways at brothers and sisters.
The couple at the top
You will see two blocks, often labeled husband and wife on older forms, or parent and parent on newer ones. Each block has room for a full name, birth, marriage, death, and burial, with places beside the dates. The marriage date and place may sit between the two people or under both of them. Read it as an event that belongs to the couple, not as a second birth date.
Older blanks say husband and wife even when you are recording a couple the form's printer did not imagine. Use the boxes for the two parents and ignore a label that does not fit. What matters is which two people these children belong to.
A person who married more than once needs more than one sheet, one for each set of children, or one sheet with a clear note about the other spouse. Do not squeeze two families into one list of children without saying which parent is which. Half-siblings get mixed that way.
The children
Children are numbered down the page. The sequence is birth order when the compiler knew it. A number in parentheses, or a child out of order with a note, sometimes means the order was uncertain. If a child died young, the sheet may still list them, with a death date and no marriage. That child belongs on the page. Leaving them off is how families forget them.
Each child line is a short version of the parent block: name, birth, death, spouse, marriage date. There is not room for that child's own children. Those go on a new group sheet where that child is now the parent at the top. The page number or a note such as "see sheet for Anna Hale and James Wright" is how you move to the next family.
A blank child line at the bottom is unused space. It does not mean there was another child. A compiler who thinks there was another child, name unknown, should write "another child, name unknown" rather than leave a mysterious empty row.
Dates, places, and empty lines
Read each date with its place. "Regina" on the line under a birth date is the birthplace, not a later home, unless the form says otherwise. "Abt" means about. A dash or an empty field means unknown. Copy the empty field as unknown.
If the handwriting is hard, compare the same person's name in the parents' block and in a child's spouse column. People repeat. A name you cannot read in one place is sometimes clear in the other.
What to check before you trust the page
A group sheet is as careful as the person who filled it in. Look for a name and a date at the bottom, the compiler and when they wrote it. A sheet signed by a granddaughter in 1978, citing a family Bible, is a different source from an unsigned page of neat guesses. If there is no source line, treat every date as a lead.
Compare the children to a pedigree chart for the same family. The pedigree will not list the children, but the parents' dates should match. When they do not, keep both and note the disagreement. Then look for the photo, the letter, or the record that would settle it.
One sheet, one couple, their children in order. That is the whole form.
Frequently asked questions
Where are the grandparents?
They are not the subject of this page. Each parent on this sheet becomes a child on their own parents' group sheet. A pedigree chart is the form that lines the grandparents up in one view.
What if a child was adopted or was a stepchild?
Say so on that child's line. A form that only says "child" will be read as a biological child of both people at the top. A few words prevent that.
Can one sheet cover a couple with no children?
Yes. Fill in the couple and leave the children blank, or write "no children" if that is known. An empty list and a known empty family are different facts.
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