Genealogy is a pursuit of clarity—piecing together our past, connecting names, dates, and stories into a meaningful whole. But how we communicate those connections can be just as important as the research itself. Without clear, consistent language, our findings can become tangled, confusing, or even misleading.
One of the greatest pain points in genealogy communication is the great-great-great problem—how do we refer to distant ancestors without making our writing (or speech) cumbersome and hard to follow? This isn’t just a small issue—it’s a universal challenge. Over 54,000 people have visited my blog post on this very topic. I posted that nearly nine years ago and 500 more genealogists still find their way to that post every month! And I wonder how many more are frustrated by the lack of a consistent standard, but never find the post.
Genealogists almost always become communicators—if not in writing or public speaking, then in telling the stories to descendants. Developing best practices makes all the difference in your effectiveness. And if there is not a group “best practice” for a particular pain point, create a personal one.
Why Communication Best Practices Matter
When we establish best practices for how we communicate genealogy, we gain three essential benefits:
- Saving Time – Every time you have to stop and figure out how to phrase something, you’re losing time that could be spent on research or analysis. Once you establish a rule—whether it’s how you refer to an ancestor or how you format citations—you don’t have to stop and rethink it every time.
- Ensuring Consistency – Communication inconsistency can be frustrating for both the communicator and the audience. Have you ever written about an ancestor one way in one place, then formatted it completely differently somewhere else? Consistency in style and terminology makes our work cleaner and easier to follow, whether we’re writing a family history, a blog post, or just our own research notes.
- Making It Easy to Understand – Genealogy research is complex enough without adding confusion through unclear communication. When we standardize how we refer to ancestors, places, and records, we make our work more accessible not just to others, but also to our future selves when we return to notes months or years later.
The Great-Great-Great Example
The great-great-great dilemma illustrates the value of establishing best practices. Writing out “great-great-great-great-grandfather” every time becomes unwieldy fast. Some people use “ggg-grandfather,” others shorten it with numbers (e.g., “3rd-great-grandfather”). Until you decide on a system, you’re left rethinking it every time. The sheer number of genealogists searching for answers on this topic proves that many are looking for a better way.
The solution? Pick a format and use it consistently. If you’re writing for a genealogy journal, follow their specific style rules. But for personal use, research logs, or public sharing, take the time now to decide on a best practice that works for you and stick with it.
If you are not aware of the best practice I recommend for the great-greats, I’ve created a new video to speed you to the answer:
Your Turn: What Communication Challenges Have You Faced?
The great-great-great problem is just one example of how genealogy communication can become a stumbling block. What about you? Have you ever found yourself losing time because you didn’t have a clear style? Have you struggled with inconsistencies in how you present research? Have unclear terms ever confused your audience or yourself when revisiting old notes?
Use the comments below to share your experiences. Let’s talk about where a lack of a clear style or best practice has cost you time—or where adopting a system has made your genealogy research and communication easier.
By identifying pain points now and deciding on best practices, we set ourselves up for clearer, more efficient research—making genealogy more rewarding not just for us, but for those who come after us.
Hi Donna, The great-great-great naming convention is a simple example for sure but represents the tip of the iceberg as far as things go. The general answer to achieving best practice is about having a consistent, systemised approach that is shared in common with practitioners. Lots has been written, but still there is lots chaos. So here a few things I can share:
a) approach to great-great problem is simply to use single capital for generation e.g. GG for great-great, or GGG for great-great-great.
b) organise the potentially thousands of digital files in a simple way before using any tools: i) name files consistently: I use convention YYYY-MM-DD—-.. This helps me organise, sort and filter. ii) place files in folders for relevant people where each folder is also named according to a convention: I create an individual folder for each person according to a standard ,<first name(s) (birth year-death year). e.g. Smith, John (1900-1960). For females I adopt the western convention of , (birth year-death year) e.g. Jones (Smith), Mary (1902-1965).
c) Use a consistent approach for citations. This is easier said than done. If this is done using standard word processing, then ok. But crunch time comes when trying to use genealogical software programs that all appear to implement a different approach while claiming “best practice or standards approach”. It is so common an experience that data loss occurs with exchange of data and information between genealogical programs because they interpret (GEDCOM) standards differently. And citations are an area that is compromised.
Thanks very much, Andy. I repeat my thanks (see Eddie Black’s comment-reply) for mentioning the complication of women’s birth surnames and married names. I can see that this is a pain point much needing deep thought. My solution for the citation consistency has been Zotero, but that doesn’t help anyone who is publishing reports out of tree software–also a topic in much need of more scrutiny to get best practices–especially for genohistorians, who are researching history and genealogy in tandem. On the great-great issue, how do you refer to the multi-great ancestors verbally? Do you speak out the greats?
Thanks again!
1. I use 4th-great-grandmother/father
2. for date formation my data base uses dd/mm/yyyy which I like; when I’m writing notes I use yyyymmdd, because I don’t always initially have a complete date.
3. The usage that I find annoying is not maintaining a woman’s maiden name. If I don’t have a maiden name, the married name that I have, I put in square brackets and I add additional married names in individual brackets.
blank_Mary_[Brown] (I found her married to John Brown)
blank_Mary_[Nelson]_[Brown] (I found her married to Elmer Nelson with Elmer’s Brown step-children)
Arnold_Mary_[Nelson]_[Brown] (I found her living with her brother Henry Arnold, Henry’s mother Molly Arnold, Henry’s nephews Stephen Nelson and Isaac Brown)
s Brown s
Thanks so much for this, Eddie. You and Andy Clarke did raise one of the major pain points, certainly. How do we refer to married woman–especially women married multiple times? How do we alphabetize their material for storage and retrieval. This one would be a great pain point to get many opinions on and determine what works optimally. I wrote my history masters’ thesis on a woman who married three times through the course of her story. As I got to each new section of her life, she had a new name. I stressed over how to communicate this in the best way for history, on the one hand, and for the reader, on the other. And we can also complicate things further when the proper spelling of a person’s name isn’t known–or not YET known. And for married women, we may never know their birth surname.
To reply to your question in the video, when I write for a reader, I write “2nd cousin one removed (2C1R)” and use the abbreviation in any repeat of the term. In my notes, I consistently use the abbreviation. The same is true for terms used in genetic genealogy. I don’t want my readers to leave my blog to look up an acronym and forget to return. I spell it out the first time and then use MRCA, ICW, cM, etc. This is especially important when the abbreviation may mean other things. What comes to mind is non-parental event (NPE) as others use it for non-paternity event or not parent expected.
That’s definitely a “best practice,” Cathy. Every week, newbies are joining this grand adventure. We need to keep them in mind before talking in initials and acronyms. Spelling them out the first time for all but the most commonly known initials (like DNA) makes perfect sense.
Right now I am researching the family’s Civil War Ancestor William Crum’s ancestors. I will be sharing this with living families of up to four living generations as of today. Question is: what are some best practices to clearly state who the original person is the base for the 4th-great-grandmother/father?
Not all ancestors are as easy to describe as a Civil War Ancestor for the _______ family.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Joan
Great question, Joan. In this case, I’d recommend that you flip the script and let William Crum be the anchor point, referring to his 4th-great-grandchildren, rather than referring to William as the 4th-great-grandfather. Am I understanding the question correctly? Good luck with your project!