Citing a Pedigree Chart

A 5-generation pedigree chart compiled in 1982 on my maternal grandfather. New information has NOT been added, but known errors have been removed.

Pedigree charts. Years ago genealogists compiled them on a regular basis, usually with nary a source. There were companies that sold blank forms and, because photocopies were not all that great, the repetitive typing of certain pieces of information is probably why I have certain ancestor’s dates of vital events memorized better than I do things that occurred a few years ago.

Times have changed.

Occasionally one still needs to cite a chart of this type in their actual research. My personal preference is to use information on such a chart as a guide and not enter in into my database until I have obtained a hopefully more reliable source.

I realize that there are those who wish to include these charts among their cited sources in their database and there are times when other records are not available and a chart of this type is the only source for a specific event that can be found.

The chart illustrating this post is one that I created in 1982 using a blank form from the now-defunct Everton Publishers and my mother’s manual typewriter. I completely forgot about it. The chart was stuck in my grandparents’ copy of the privately published “Ufkes Family History & Genealogical Record” from 1980. Actually “stuck” is the incorrect word. The book had a removable metal binding and this chart had been inserted as a page towards the end of the book. I’m still debating whether to remove it from the book or leave it where my Grandmother had inserted it.

A rough citation for the chart follows:

Michael Neill, John H. Ufkes (born 1917) Ancestor Chart; supplied by Michael John Neill, [address for private use,] Rio, Illinois, 2016. This chart contains no sources or references and was found in a copy of the 1980 “Ufkes Family History & Genealogical Record” in the private collection of John H. and Dorothy (Habben) Ufkes.

Analyzing the information in the chart is another matter entirely. Since I compiled the chart and it begins with my grandfather and moves backwards in time, the information is secondary. Every piece of it. I suppose if the date of marriage had been wrong, Grandma would have corrected it. But the only information my grandparents would have had primary knowledge of would have been their date of marriage.

The only primary information on the chart from the viewpoint of the compiler is my mailing address as of 1983. Interestingly enough, my “rural route” number is incorrect. The “compiler information” was written by my grandmother and she inserted her rural route number in place of the one I actually lived on (rural route 3).  The only handwriting on the chart that is mine is in the section on the ancestry of my grandfather’s mother.

For publication purposes, I chose to block out dates or locations that I now know are incorrect.  I would not mark out information on a chart that I did not compile. While that is a modification of the original document, I have no interest in spreading incorrect information. I would not have done this if the chart had been compiled by someone else, but since I compiled the chart to begin with I’m only modifying my own original content.

If I’m going to use the information from the chart in my genealogical database, I need to cite it.

And don’t forget–we don’t just cite information from a source.

We also analyze it and evaluate it.