Research guides on Charted Roots

I want to add a new family member

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when something has happened in the family — a baby is born, a marriage takes place, a death occurs — and you want to update your tree with the new person, the related event, and any documentation (birth certificate, photo) in one efficient pass. The example below uses a new baby; the same shape works for any life event.

By the end you’ll have the new person linked to both parents bidirectionally, a birth event note linked to the person and the place, and any photos or certificates attached as media.

I want to add my first person from scratch

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when you’re starting a tree from your own knowledge — no GEDCOM file, just notes, memory, or family interviews. By the end you’ll have a person note with the right frontmatter, you’ll know how to add another, and you’ll see the path from a single person to a connected family group.

What you’ll need
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Charted Roots installed and enabled.
A folder where person notes will live. The default works; pick a custom one if you prefer.
One person to start with. Yourself or your oldest known ancestor are both common choices.

Steps
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1. Open the Create Person modal
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Three paths get you there:

I want to analyze FAN clusters to break through a brick wall

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when an ancestor’s direct paper trail has gone cold and you need to widen the search to the people they appear next to in records — witnesses on a deed, bondsmen on a marriage license, sureties on a court filing, neighbors on a census, fellow buyers at an estate sale. The FAN principle (Friends, Associates, and Neighbors) holds that genealogical brick walls usually break by tracing the people around the ancestor, not the ancestor directly. By the end of this guide, you’ll have FAN-relevant roles captured on at least one source document and a Sources by Role report showing every record where a person of interest appears in any capacity.

I want to assemble a family history book

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when your research has accumulated enough that a single artifact would serve readers better than a scatter of notes — a printed family history for relatives, an archived snapshot for posterity, a manuscript for self-publishing. Book Builder assembles person profiles, family group sheets, photos, and narrative chapters into a configurable book output.

By the end you’ll have a PDF (or ODT) book file containing the chapters and entities you picked, with optional table of contents, bibliography, and name index.

I want to attach one source to multiple people

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when a single document names multiple people — a census household, a probate packet that lists heirs, a marriage certificate naming witnesses, a slave schedule, or a family Bible page. By the end you’ll have one source note linked to every person it documents, with each person’s role within the source captured (principal, witness, informant, official, etc.) for FAN-network research and information-quality analysis.

What you’ll need
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A source note already created, or the materials to create one. See I want to set up per-fact source citations for source-note basics.
The person notes the source names (or willingness to create them as you transcribe).

Steps
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1. Open the source note
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Navigate to the source note. If you don’t have one, create one via Control Center → Sources tab → Create source, or right-click a folder → New sources base from template.

I want to capture a source from a website

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when your research surfaces evidence on the web — an obituary on a newspaper site, a Find a Grave memorial, a FamilySearch profile, a Wikipedia biography — and you want to capture it as a structured source note rather than copy-pasting into a blank file. By the end you’ll have the Obsidian Web Clipper extension installed, a Charted Roots template imported, and a real clipped note sitting in your staging folder ready for review and promotion to the main tree.

I want to delete a person and clean up references

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when you’ve discovered a duplicate entry, received incorrect family information from a relative, or otherwise need to remove a person from your tree. Charted Roots doesn’t have a one-click “Delete with cleanup” action, but the two-step workflow — delete the note, then sweep for orphaned references — is straightforward and safe. By the end the person is gone, all relationship fields pointing at them are cleaned up, and no broken wikilinks remain.

I want to filter and analyze my data with Bases

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when your tree has grown beyond what’s practical to browse note-by-note — typically 100+ person notes — and you want to ask analytical questions: “who’s missing a death date?”, “how many people were born in a specific county?”, “which decade has the most marriages?” Obsidian Bases gives you a spreadsheet-like surface across your vault’s frontmatter, and Charted Roots ships pre-configured Bases templates for People, Sources, Events, Places, Organizations, and Universes.

I want to find and merge duplicate persons

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when your tree is large enough that accidental duplicates have crept in. Common after GEDCOM imports, Web Clipper batches, multiple data-entry sessions, or merging vaults with a relative. By the end, every confirmed duplicate is either dismissed (the two records are kept as separate people because they’re not actually the same person) or merged via the Merge Wizard — with all relationship references reconciled to point at the kept record.

I want to generate a family group sheet

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when you want a single-page summary of a nuclear family — the parents, their marriage, and their children — formatted for print or sharing. Family Group Sheets are a long-standing genealogy convention; they’re the standard handout at family reunions and the standard reference exhibit in research files.

By the end you’ll have a PDF (or ODT) document showing the group sheet for the couple you picked.

What you’ll need
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A couple in your tree, with their marriage event and at least some children documented.
(Recommended) Birth, death, and marriage dates for the parents and children — empty fields render as blanks on the sheet.

Steps
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1. Open the Report Wizard
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Control Center → Reports → Generate Report. Or via command palette → Charted Roots: Open report wizard.

I want to generate a family reunion report

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when you’re preparing for a family reunion and want a printed handout showing the family tree, key dates, and biographical info for relatives who don’t use Obsidian (or anything genealogy-related). The Report Wizard’s Descendant Report and Ancestor Report formats are the right shape for this — multi-generation, structured for reading, easy to scan and pass around.

By the end you’ll have a PDF document suitable for printing as a single handout or stapled booklet.

I want to generate a printable family tree

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when you want a printable artifact — for a family reunion, a wall mount, a gift, archival storage, or sharing with a non-Obsidian relative. The Tree Wizard handles four output formats from one entry point. This guide focuses on the PDF path because “printable” is what most readers came here for; ODT, Canvas, and Excalidraw outputs get pointers in Variations.

What you’ll need
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People notes connected via parent / spouse / child relationships.
One root person to focus the tree around — typically the oldest known ancestor or the central person of a family group.
(Optional) The Excalidraw plugin installed if you want hand-drawn output instead of standard PDF.

Steps
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1. Open the Tree Wizard
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Three paths:

I want to handle conflicting evidence between two sources

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when two sources tell you different things about the same fact — two census records giving different birth years, a tombstone contradicting a death certificate, a family Bible against a baptism record. Per the Genealogical Proof Standard, conflicts must be resolved, not ignored. This guide walks through Mills’ three-axis framework for doing that, and how to capture the resolution as a proof summary that holds up to review.

I want to help a non-technical family member get started

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This guide is different from the others. You’re not the user — you’re the supporter. A relative has expressed interest in using Charted Roots and asked for your help. You want to set them up without overwhelming them or committing to permanent tech support. This guide is a playbook for that role.

It’s based on real experience: the install process (Obsidian → BRAT → Charted Roots) succeeds technically, but leaves a non-technical user feeling overwhelmed if you skip the framing work. The setup is the easy part. The hand-off is the hard part.

I want to identify which facts in my tree need more research

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when your tree has reached the size where “what should I work on next?” stops having an obvious answer. Charted Roots offers three complementary surfaces for finding research gaps, and they answer different questions: a per-note list of open questions you’ve explicitly logged (needs_research), a per-fact aggregation card in Data Quality (unsourced and weakly sourced facts across the vault), and a comprehensive Gaps Report with research-level filtering. By the end of this guide, you’ll have used all three and you’ll know which one to reach for in different situations.

I want to import a GEDCOM file and clean up the result

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when you’re migrating a tree from another tool — Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic, Ancestry, Heredis, Reunion, MyHeritage — or when a relative hands you a .ged file. The goal isn’t just to import. It’s to land in a clean state, with place-name variants normalized, data-quality issues triaged, and any duplicates resolved against your existing tree.

What you’ll need
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A .ged file.
Charted Roots installed and enabled.
(Recommended) A Staging folder configured under Settings → Charted Roots → Folders → System folders, with Staging isolation enabled under Advanced → Folder filtering. Staging lets you review imported data before merging it into your main tree. Skip if this is your first import and the vault is empty.

Steps
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1. Open the Import Wizard
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Three paths:

I want to map an ancestor's life

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when you want to see one ancestor’s geographic story — where they were born, where they lived through life, where they died, and the routes between. By the end you’ll have a map view showing the journey with chronologically-ordered place markers and (optionally) animated playback that walks through the timeline.

The same workflow extends naturally to families and lineages — once one ancestor’s life is mapped, scoping the same overlay to a person’s descendants or siblings is a single filter change.

I want to migrate from Ancestry

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when you’ve been building your tree on Ancestry.com and want to move it (or a copy of it) into Charted Roots. By the end you’ll have your tree’s structured data — people, relationships, dates, places, sources — imported into your vault. Photos, stories, and Ancestry’s hints/research tools won’t come over (a known Ancestry limitation), but the structured genealogy comes through cleanly.

You don’t have to abandon Ancestry to do this. Exporting a GEDCOM doesn’t delete or modify your Ancestry tree; it’s a one-way snapshot.

I want to migrate from Family Tree Maker

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when you’ve been maintaining a tree in Family Tree Maker (FTM) and want to move it to Charted Roots — either to switch tools entirely, or to use both side by side. By the end you’ll have a .ged file exported from FTM and an imported tree in your vault, with the FTM-specific gotchas (media paths, custom tags) handled.

What you’ll need
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A working installation of Family Tree Maker with your tree open. Versions 2014, 2017, 2019, and 2024 all support GEDCOM export.
(Recommended) A Staging folder configured under Settings → Charted Roots → Folders → System folders so you can review before merging.
Familiarity with where FTM stores your media files (typically a Media subfolder next to your .ftm file). You’ll need this for the path-stripping step.

Steps
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1. Export from Family Tree Maker
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Open your tree in FTM. Then:

I want to migrate from Gramps (with media)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when you’ve been maintaining a tree in Gramps and want to move it to Charted Roots. Gramps users have an advantage other migrations don’t: Charted Roots has dedicated Gramps XML import that preserves more than GEDCOM, and the .gpkg package format bundles your media files so they extract automatically into your vault.

By the end you’ll have a .gpkg file from Gramps, an imported tree in your vault with media in place, and Gramps-specific entities (notes, source citations, custom event types) carried through more faithfully than GEDCOM allows.

I want to migrate from RootsMagic

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when you’ve been maintaining a tree in RootsMagic and want to move it to Charted Roots. RootsMagic produces some of the cleanest GEDCOM exports of any major genealogy tool — citations, source templates, and media references all carry through reliably. By the end you’ll have a .ged file from RootsMagic and an imported tree in your vault.

What you’ll need
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A working RootsMagic installation with your tree open. RootsMagic 7, 8, and 9 all support GEDCOM 5.5.1 export.
(Recommended) A Staging folder configured under Settings → Charted Roots → Folders → System folders.
Knowledge of your RootsMagic media folder location if you want to bring media across.

Steps
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1. Export from RootsMagic
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In RootsMagic:

I want to organize a multi-document source collection

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when a single source-name doesn’t capture what you’re working with. A probate packet might span a will, an inventory, an appraisement, an advancement, a sale bill, and a final settlement — six documents in one record group, each with its own date, its own information, its own citation needs. Likewise for military pension files (application + supporting affidavits + Bureau correspondence), Civil War service records, multi-page census enumerations, and court case files. By the end of this guide, you’ll have a parent source representing the collection, child source notes for each component document, and a structure that lets you cite individual documents while preserving the relationship to the collection as a whole.

I want to research enslaved ancestors (Beyond Kin methodology)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when you’re researching African American genealogy across the 1865 documentary divide. Pre-emancipation, enslaved ancestors typically appear as named property in slaveholder records — probate appraisements, sale bills, advancements to heirs, plantation account books — rather than in vital records. The Beyond Kin Project methodology treats these records as the documentary surface for reconstructing family relationships before emancipation. By the end of this guide, you’ll have a slaveholder’s probate packet structured as a parent source with its component documents, named enslaved individuals tracked as a source role, and a workflow that scales as more records surface.

I want to set up per-fact source citations

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when you have source notes (or want to start making them) and you want a clear signal of which facts about each person are documented. Aligns with the Genealogical Proof Standard’s “complete and accurate citations” pillar without forcing strict GPS compliance. By the end, at least one person will have sourced_* properties wired up, and you’ll see coverage data appear in the Entity Profile View, the Control Center’s Data Quality card, and (optionally) on tree badges.

I want to track married women and placeholder surnames consistently

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when you’ve hit one of two common research problems: married women who effectively disappear from surname-scoped queries because they’re filed under their husband’s name, or people whose surnames you don’t yet know but who can’t just be omitted from your tree. By the end of this guide, you’ll have a consistent way to handle both, with maiden_name and married_names populated for women whose marriages are documented, plus a placeholder convention you can apply across Beyond Kin research, one-name studies, and ordinary unknown-surname cases.

I want to track research progress on a long-term project

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when you’ve been researching the same family for months or years and the work happens in fits and starts — a courthouse trip, a few weeks of follow-up, then a pause until the next archive opens. Without explicit progress tracking, returning researchers spend the first hour each session re-deriving where they left off. By the end of this guide, you’ll have two complementary tracking layers in place: a per-ancestor status (Hoitink’s Six Levels via the research_level property) and a per-question chronological log (research reports with a ## Research Log section). Pick one, the other, or both — the guide shows when each fits.

I want to write a proof summary for a contested fact

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use this when a fact about an ancestor doesn’t fall out of a single source — when you have to reconcile conflicting records, infer from indirect evidence, or argue why one interpretation outweighs another. Per the Genealogical Proof Standard, conclusions of that kind require a written proof summary: the evidence cited, how each piece supports or conflicts with the conclusion, and why the conclusion holds up. By the end of this guide, you’ll have a cr_type: proof_summary note in your vault that links to its supporting sources, records confidence and status, and shows up in the person’s Entity Profile View and Control Center.

Research guides on Charted Roots

I want to add a new family member

I want to add my first person from scratch

What you’ll need #

Steps #

1. Open the Create Person modal #

I want to analyze FAN clusters to break through a brick wall

I want to assemble a family history book

I want to attach one source to multiple people

What you’ll need #

Steps #

1. Open the source note #

I want to capture a source from a website

I want to delete a person and clean up references

I want to filter and analyze my data with Bases

I want to find and merge duplicate persons

I want to generate a family group sheet

What you’ll need #

Steps #

1. Open the Report Wizard #

I want to generate a family reunion report

I want to generate a printable family tree

What you’ll need #

Steps #

1. Open the Tree Wizard #

I want to handle conflicting evidence between two sources

I want to help a non-technical family member get started

I want to identify which facts in my tree need more research

I want to import a GEDCOM file and clean up the result

What you’ll need #

Steps #

1. Open the Import Wizard #

I want to map an ancestor's life

I want to migrate from Ancestry

I want to migrate from Family Tree Maker

What you’ll need #

Steps #

1. Export from Family Tree Maker #

I want to migrate from Gramps (with media)

I want to migrate from RootsMagic

What you’ll need #

Steps #

1. Export from RootsMagic #

I want to organize a multi-document source collection

I want to research enslaved ancestors (Beyond Kin methodology)

I want to set up per-fact source citations

I want to track married women and placeholder surnames consistently

I want to track research progress on a long-term project

I want to write a proof summary for a contested fact

What you’ll need
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Steps
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1. Open the Create Person modal
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What you’ll need
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Steps
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1. Open the source note
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What you’ll need
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Steps
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1. Open the Report Wizard
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What you’ll need
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Steps
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1. Open the Tree Wizard
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What you’ll need
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Steps
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1. Open the Import Wizard
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What you’ll need
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Steps
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1. Export from Family Tree Maker
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What you’ll need
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Steps
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1. Export from RootsMagic
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