The Generation Grid

Some English family historians use the Generation Grid to sort out the families in their research. This is a particularly useful concept when trying to sort out groups of people when their relationship to each other is not known.

You will often come across this problem when trawling through a document and extracting all the names listed. By allocating them an index letter from the grid they will effectively sort themselves out into their generations. You can then have a better chance of determinining their relationships to one another.

The grid uses the following prefix letters:

1380–1409	A	|	1410–1439	B	|	1440 1469	C	|	1470 1499	D
1500–1529	E	|	1530–1559	F	|	1560 1589	G	|	1590 1619	H
1620–1649	I	|	1650–1679	J	|	1680 1709	K	|	1710 1739	L
1740–1769	M	|	1770–1799	N	|	1800 1829	O	|	1830 1859	P
1860–1889	Q	|	1890–1919	R	|	1920 1949	S	|	1950 1979	T
1980–2009	U	|	2010–2039	V	|	2040 2069	W	|	2070 2099	X