I keep track of the royal family tree to help identify which princes are sons and which are brothers of the heir. Even then it gets complicated when both the King and heir are married and you get the “given birth to a son” message, how do you know if it applies to the King or the Prince? I also like to track which faction marries into the royal family, so 20 years or so later I don’t have my heir marry from the same faction (kissing cousins) and have 6-toed offspring.

The only way I have found to ensure that a titled general hasn’t died in battle is to cycle through the Province scroll and make sure the Governor line is occupied by Lord Xyz and not the word None