- Ancestor
- Someone from whom you are directly descended, such as a parent, grandparent or great-grandparent.
- Archive
- An organisation that looks after historical documents and makes them available for people to study.
- Brick wall
- A research problem, usually a particular ancestor, that you cannot get beyond despite repeated effort. See our article on getting past brick walls.
- Census
- An official count of the population, often taken every ten years, that lists the people in each household.
- Citation
- A note recording where a piece of information came from, so it can be found and checked again.
- Civil registration
- The recording of births, marriages and deaths by the government. These documents are also called vital records.
- Collateral relatives
- Family members who share an ancestor with you but are not in your direct line, such as aunts, uncles and cousins.
- Cousin, and "removed"
- First cousins share grandparents and second cousins share great-grandparents. "Removed" means you are in different generations; your parent's first cousin is your first cousin once removed.
- Derivative record
- A copy, transcription, summary or index of an original document.
- Descendant
- Someone who descends from a particular ancestor, such as a child, grandchild or great-grandchild.
- Family group sheet
- A page that records one couple and all their children, with key dates and places for each.
- Generation
- One step in a line of descent. As a rough guide, a generation is often counted as about 25 to 30 years.
- Maiden name
- The surname a person had at birth, most often used for women who later took a spouse's surname.
- Maternal line
- Your ancestry through your mother's side.
- Original record
- A document created at, or soon after, the time of the event it describes.
- Paternal line
- Your ancestry through your father's side.
- Pedigree chart
- A chart showing only your direct ancestors: parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and so on.
- Probate
- The legal process of confirming a will and settling a person's estate after death. Probate files often name heirs and other relatives.
- Research log
- A running list of the searches you have carried out and what each one found, including searches with no result.
- Transcription
- A word-for-word typed or written copy of a document, helpful when the original is hard to read.
- Vital records
- Records of the key life events of birth, marriage and death.
Family history glossary
Genealogy comes with its own vocabulary. Here are the words you are most likely to meet, explained in everyday language.