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

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.

What you’ll need

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• Charted Roots v0.22.17 or later.
• At least one ongoing research thread — a family group, a brick wall, an immigrant origin question. Open-ended “I’ll do some genealogy this weekend” doesn’t benefit from project-level tracking.
• A vault habit of opening notes by the same path each time. Tracking is only useful if you actually read it on the way back in.

Steps

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1. Decide what you’re tracking, per person or per question

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The two models answer different questions:

• Per-ancestor. “How thoroughly have I researched this person?” The Six Levels answer that — Level 0 (placeholder) through Level 6 (full biography). Sortable, filterable, queryable across the vault. Best when you have many ancestors and want to know which ones to focus on next.
• Per-question. “What have I tried for this research question?” A chronological log inside a research report answers that. Best when you have a specific brick wall or identity problem and need to remember which sources you’ve already exhausted.

Most long-term projects benefit from both — Hoitink levels on the people, research reports on the open questions. They don’t conflict.

2. Set the Hoitink level on each person you’re tracking

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Open the person note. Set research_level in the frontmatter:

research_level: 3

The scale (matching the canonical Hoitink framework):

The level is a qualitative judgment about exhaustiveness, not just a count of properties filled. Two people with the same number of facts can be at different levels: one has direct primary-source evidence for each fact, the other has census-only inferences. Level 3 vs. Level 2.

Distinction worth keeping: if research_level is unset, the person is treated as “not assessed” — meaningfully different from Level 0 (“placeholder, no name”). Don’t backfill levels on every person at once just to fill the property; assess explicitly.

3. Use the level to drive your next session’s focus

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In a Bases or DataView view of people, sort by research_level ascending. The lowest-level ancestors who should be researched further — direct ancestors at Level 1 or 2, say — are your next targets. The Brick Wall Report (Control Center → Reports) sorts the same way.

Conversely, sorting descending shows your most-developed lines, which is useful when deciding whose biography to write next.

4. Create a research report for each open question

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For brick walls and identity problems that span multiple sessions, create a cr_type: research_report note. Frontmatter:

---
cr_type: research_report
title: "Birth Location Analysis: William Anderson"
status: draft
up: "[[Anderson Family Research Project]]"
---

Status values: draft, review, final, published. Move the status forward as the question matures.

5. Use the report’s body as a living research log

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Add a ## Research Log section in markdown (not YAML — Obsidian’s property panel doesn’t support nested YAML, and Bases / DataView can’t query it). One bullet per research action, dated:

## Research Log

- **2026-04-30** — [[Lancaster County Baptism Register 1815-1820]] — Searched all surnames Anderson → negative. No baptism record located for William.

- **2026-05-01** — [[1830 US Census - Lancaster County PA]] — Searched "William Anderson" → positive. Anderson household enumerated, William as 3rd child consistent with 1817 birth.

- **2026-05-02** — Travelled to Lancaster County Historical Society. Pulled three boxes of unfiled probate. No new Anderson material located → negative for that repository.

Two formatting notes:

• → negative at the end of an entry flags it as a negative finding. The charted-roots-negative-findings block on the related person note will surface entries written this way (in research journal entries, research log entries, and ## Research Log sections within research reports).
• The cadence is yours. Research isn’t continuous — it pauses for archive trips, life, weather. Don’t backfill weekly entries you didn’t make. Log what actually happened, when it happened.

6. Link reports to persons and projects

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Use up: to point a report at its parent project (up: "[[Anderson Family Research Project]]"). Use subject: on individual research notes to point at the person. The wiki-linked structure means opening any one of {project, report, person} gets you to the others via backlinks.

Variations

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• Per-ancestor only. Many users get by with research_level alone, without research reports. Fine — the level is enough signal for most purposes. Add reports when a brick wall demands them.
• Per-question only. Some users prefer reports and skip Hoitink levels entirely. Also fine — research reports do the heavy lifting, levels become optional summary metadata.
• Research journal as catch-all. Instead of a cr_type: research_report per question, some users keep a single cr_type: research_journal note as a daily log of all activity across all projects. Good for “what did I do this month” reporting, weaker for “where am I on the Anderson question.”
• External system handoff. If you import re-imports from Ancestry / MyHeritage periodically, set external_id and external_id_provider on person notes so subsequent imports preserve your work and don’t overwrite manual research.

Related guides

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• I want to write a proof summary for a contested fact — proof summaries are the artifact that distinguishes Level 5 from Level 4
• I want to identify which facts in my tree need more research — research_level complements per-fact gap detection
• I want to handle conflicting evidence between two sources — research reports are where conflict resolution typically gets logged

Reference

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• Wiki: Frontmatter Reference — Research Level
• Wiki: Research Workflow
• Wiki: Dynamic Note Content — Negative Findings Block
• Yvette Hoitink, “Six Levels of Ancestral Profiles” — dutchgenealogy.nl

Found something wrong or unclear? Suggest an edit — opens a pre-filled issue with the guides label.