52 Ancestors: Week 2 - The Challenge of Organization: Forms and Charts

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This week's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks prompt is "Challenge". I have two great grandfathers by the names of John MCDONALD and James DOUGLAS that are challenges. I have yet to find which cabbage patches they came from. My biggest challenge however, is organization. I'm sure I'm not alone on that one, so I've decided to make my challenge post about forms and charts.

Once you start getting deeper in your family tree, being able to keep track of what you've looked at, what you have, and what you need to find becomes essential. Especially if you're like me and do the old school paper thing for at least some of your ancestors. I keep paper files of my direct lines. Collateral lines are kept on my Ancestry tree. I've built a little collection of links that I like to use to to find my forms.

Ancestry
Ancestry has a form for just about anything you might need for your research files.

• Pedigree charts to keep track of all those John McDonalds
• Research Logs for recording what record sets you've looked at
• Research Extract forms. handy when looking at charts and lists.
• Correspondence Logs to keep track of those letters/emails and phone calls
• Family Group Record Sheets to keep pertinent dates and children for each couple
• Source Summary Sheets to keep tracks of record sets that pertain to your ancestors
• 1851 Canadian Census Forms for New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, andCanada East and Canada West
• 1901 Canadian Census Forms in English and French
• 1906 Canadian Census
• 1911 Canadian Census Forms in English and French

Family Tree Templates.net

This great site has a ton of varieties of forms. They are free to use, though if you want fillable PDF versions for some of the forms, you'll have to pay a small fee.

• Pedigree Charts up to 12 generations
• Research forms galore covering everything from the standard ones to ones covering migrations and DNA

Family Search

• 1851 Canada Census
• 1861 Canada East and Canada West
• 1871/1881 Canada Census
• 1891 Canada Census
• 1901 Canada Census
• To Do List
• Possible Match Analysis Chart
• Time Line Chart

Family Tree Magazine

• Pedigree charts and Family Group Sheets
• Research trackers and Organizers

1916 and 1921 Canadian Census

I cannot remember where I first found these. Global Genealogy is in the main URL, but I could not find a way to find it on their main site now.

• 1916 Canadian Census Form
• 1921 Canadian Census Form 

Bailey's Free Genealogy Forms

Click here to access their free research forms:

• Pedigree charts
• Family Record Sheet
• Cemetery Logs
• Time Lines Forms
• Research Log
• Correspondence Log
• Relationship Chart