This is the sheet you will use most. It answers one question at a time and keeps a record of every place you looked.

What it holds

At the top: the ancestor’s name, their date range, the research question to answer, and the locality where they lived. Naming the question is the whole trick — “find out about Grandpa” is not a question, but “where was John Mercer living in 1870?” is.

The table below records, for each search: date of search, location of search or call number, description of the source, date of the source, image number, document number, and comments covering the purpose of the search, the results, and the years and names you searched.

There is a source citation block at the bottom, with space for a website URL and the date you accessed it, and a second page for research notes.

Log the misses too

A search that found nothing is still evidence, and writing it down stops you searching the same index for the fourth time in two years.

Try it

Drag each phrase into the sentence where it belongs.