Ancestor Profile Sheet

Who this is for

Everything known about one person, on one page. The header holds the fixed facts, the tables hold the dated events, the addresses and the work, each with its source, and the space at the foot is for the story that the dates do not tell.

Family historians who have gathered enough on one ancestor to need it in one place rather than spread across certificates, census returns and a notebook — and anyone writing that person up for the rest of the family.

What this helps you track

• Names, including the spellings and nicknames the records use
• Birth, death, burial, parents and partners as far as they are known
• Life events in date order, each with where it happened and the source
• Where the person lived, and what they did for a living, over time
• The story in your own words, separate from the facts that support it

How to use it

1. Fill the header with the person's name and any other names the records give them, then birth, death, burial, parents and partners.
2. List life events in date order: baptism, marriage, a move, a bereavement, a court appearance, an emigration — whatever the records show. Give each a place and a source.
3. Record residences with the years they cover, taken from census returns, directories, letters or whatever you hold.
4. Record occupations the same way, as the records describe them, even where the wording is old-fashioned or hard to read.
5. Write the story at the foot: what the facts add up to, what is uncertain, and what you would still like to know.
6. Keep the sheet with the group sheet for the family the person was born into. In the browser version the profile saves locally and prints as a completed PDF.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The online version keeps what you enter in your own browser and builds the completed PDF on your device.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

How is this different from a family group sheet?

A group sheet is about a couple and their children. This is about one person across a whole life — the moves, the jobs and the events in between the birth and the death that a group sheet only has room to date.

What goes in the source column?

Whatever you would need to find the record again: the archive or website, the collection and the reference. If you keep a source log, the source number from that log is enough.

Should the story include things I cannot prove?

Yes, as long as it says so. Family stories are worth keeping; the profile keeps them in the story area and the proven facts in the tables, so nobody later mistakes one for the other.

The person had more events than the rows.

Use the browser version, which has no row limit, or continue on a second printed sheet with the same name at the top and number the sheets.