A shared vocabulary for family history, research, and remembrance
Genealogy comes with its own language. Some terms are technical. Others are inherited from historians, archivists, or enthusiastic relatives who’ve been “doing this forever.” This glossary exists to create shared understanding—not to overwhelm, enumerate, or instruct.
The definitions below favor clarity over completeness and meaning over mechanics. When a term matters, we explain why it matters.
Core Family & Kinship Terms
Ancestor
A person from whom you are descended. Parents, grandparents, and earlier generations all qualify.
Descendant
A person who comes after an ancestor—children, grandchildren, and future generations included.
Collateral Line
Relatives who share a common ancestor but are not in your direct line, such as siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles. Collateral lines often preserve stories and records that direct lines do not.
Nuclear Family
Typically, a household consists of parents and their children. Useful for structure, but often too narrow to tell the full family story.
Extended Family
A broader network that includes grandparents, cousins, in-laws, and others connected through kinship or shared life.
Records & Evidence
Primary Source
A record created at or near the time of an event by someone with direct knowledge, such as a birth certificate or original census entry.
Secondary Source
Information recorded later or by someone without direct involvement. Often helpful, but best confirmed with primary evidence.
Informant
The person who provided the information in a record. Their relationship to the event affects reliability.
Vital Records
Official documents recording births, marriages, and deaths.
Probate Record
Legal documents related to estates after death. These often reveal family relationships, property, and disputes.
Places, Movement & Identity
Place of Origin
Where an individual or family lived before migration. This may differ from birthplace.
Immigration vs. Migration
Immigration crosses national boundaries; migration refers to movement within them.
Naturalization
The legal process by which a non-citizen becomes a citizen. Records can provide birthplaces, dates, and family details.
Research Practices & Methods
GEDCOM
A standardized file format used to exchange genealogical data between software systems.
FAN Club
A research approach focusing on Friends, Associates, and Neighbors. Families rarely lived—or moved—alone.
Negative Evidence
The absence of a record where one would reasonably be expected. Silence can be meaningful.
Correlation
Comparing multiple sources to confirm or challenge conclusions.
Proof Standard
The expectation that conclusions are supported by sufficient, reliable, and reasonably exhaustive evidence.
DNA & Genetics
Autosomal DNA
DNA inherited from all ancestral lines, useful for identifying relatives within recent generations.
Y-DNA / mtDNA
DNA passed along direct paternal (Y-DNA) or maternal (mtDNA) lines, useful for deep lineage studies.
Match
A person whose DNA shows shared segments, indicating a biological relationship.
Stories, Memory & Interpretation
Oral History
Family stories passed through conversation. Often emotionally rich, sometimes factually imprecise, always worth recording.
Family Lore
Stories repeated across generations may blend truth, memory, and interpretation.
Context
The social, economic, cultural, and historical conditions surrounding an event or life.
Narrative
The story formed when records, memories, and context are woven together.
Common Misunderstandings
“Family Trees Are Finished”
They aren’t. Research evolves as records surface and interpretations improve.
“One Record Is Enough”
Rarely. Confidence grows through patterns, not isolated documents.
“Names Are Fixed”
Spelling, usage, and identity change across time and place.
A Closing Note
This glossary is intentionally curated, not exhaustive. Its purpose is shared understanding—not authority. As research grows, language evolves. When words change meaning, stories often do too.
Understanding the terms helps us understand the people.