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Question & Answer

We are discussing Tracing family history
With Antoinette Buchanan, Stephanie Ryan and Jennifer Higgins

Question:
Do you have any advice for creating a matrilineal tree? (Answered by Antoinette)

Answer:
Antoinette - The easiest way is to change how you record information is on your pedigree charts.

Pedigree charts are the fundamental tool in recording our family history. There are many available in printed and online sources. Traditionally we record the male partner first when recording a relationship. Some published pedigree charts even label this spot as "male".

You could use a non-specific chart, and record the woman in each partnership first, thus giving more prominence to the female line.

This is easy to achieve in paper-based recording but most software systems have set recording and reporting patterns. It may be possible in some of the more recent software packages to report matrilineally but I'm not up on the latest software.

Things get more complicated if you are really asking about genetic genealogy and mitochondrial DNA tracing of female lines.

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