Family history forms - a timeline for each name

Use these family history forms to create biographical outlines for your Irish ancestors

Good family history forms should help you to delve beyond the birth, marriage and death dates of each of your Irish ancestors. You can get a real feel for their time on earth by recording their personal milestones in chronological order on a biographical outline form.

These forms are my favourite way of recording family history because I can see the life of one of my forebears unfold with each new snippet of information added. In effect, they are a timeline for each name on my family tree.

Although I normally use pen or ballpoint when completing this family history form, I prefer pencil when I'm filling in a biographical outline. The reason is that until I know all the events experienced by one of my ancestors, I can't usually be sure of the order in which they occurred. So, I use pencil (and plenty of eraser!) and rearrange the facts into the correct order as I establish them.

When I am satisfied I have more or less exhausted all sources and am unlikely to discover more about a particular individual, I enjoy completing a fresh form in ink. Very gratifying!

Download these biographical outline forms for your Irish ancestors. (You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. If you don't already have it, you can download it for free from www.adobe.com.)

Where next?

More advice about organising your Irish genealogy data.

See the full range of free family history forms.

Return from Family History Forms to Irish Genealogy Toolkit Home.

Hester Christina Doyle

The young girl on the left is one of my grandmother's older sisters, Hester Christina Doyle. Born in Wicklow Town in 1899, she moved with her family to co. Carlow while still an infant and grew up in Bagenalstown.

The photo was taken shortly before she left her home in the High Street, aged 17, to train as a nurse at the Seamen's Hospital in Greenwich, on the banks of the River Thames in London (see below).