The Grafton plan of work calls for a notebook in which the display of the genealogical statistics of a family takes a subordinate place. What is wanted is a notebook in which an indefinite number of pages may be devoted to the data of each ancestor, with some index system which will make all instantly accessible, and some ready means of rearranging the pages. These ends are achieved by a notebook equipped with the Grafton Chart Index, which is quite different from the notebook mentioned in the last chapter.
The Chart Index affords a diagrammatic display of one's ancestry for ten generations--spaces for writing in the names of every one of our 1,022 theoretically possible ancestors, each in his proper place. Each name is located by a Roman numeral, indicating the generation to which it belongs, and by an Arabic figure, indicating its place in that generation. With each name also appears a blank space in brackets, to receive the number of the page of the notebook where the data of that name begins. And at the top of this page in the notebook are written the generation and place numbers of the name in the diagram.
Do we wish to know where to look for the data bearing upon a certain person? We glance at his place in the chart and there find the page reference to his place in the notebook. Or, with our notebook open at a certain place, do we wish to know the ancestral connections of the individual there treated? We glance at the numerals which head his data, and thus learn his place in the chart, which displays at a glance his relations to all the lines and other individuals of our entire ancestry, so far as determined. The body of the notebook is detachable from the cover and chart-index. When its pages are full, another section may be attached, which becomes Section B of one great notebook, this process being repeated as often as desired, the one index covering the whole. If the data on John Smith begins on page 50 of the first section, the page reference in the chart will be A50, or simply 50. If it begins on the same page of the next section, the reference will be to B50, and so on.
The leaves of the notebook are perforated and easily detachable. When the work of investigation is complete, or at any time in the process, the data can be rearranged in any order desired. When the data for one complete line has been gathered, we may wish to arrange it in the order of descent and begin the delightful task of working it up for the printer while other lines are still being investigated.