I have not read Dawn of the Clans, and any info from jayfeather going through the tunnels is very foggy for me. I'd like to keep it foggy until I reach that point again.
That being said, here is one thing I'd like an opinion on:
When to start my non-canon breeding?
In my recreation, I have not touched the ancients, because many of the family trees just fizzle out after 1-2 generations and are not in any way connected to the main series.
However, I see this as an opportunity to potentially start from the Ancients, where I recreate them and their pairs, and once the canon trees are filled, I continue on based on info of where they end up in the series (as I do know vague stuff about how they were at the lake before, moved to the mountains and split to the forest)
But because my current knowledge is very minimal, and am still trying to keep it that way, this would be a further-down-the-road type project. As I am planning to read DotC in publication order, so I've still got quite a bit to do - up to DotC pub order, I am also reading chrono order for the most part here is the order I am reading in. Which is chrono-no-spoilers.

However, the alternative option would be just start at "19 years before Firestar" because thats when the dates are pretty planned out for pairing cats together. So it would start with Mapleshade's kits.

Example: I've already looked into allegiances of the cats who would have been unmentioned births/deaths around the time of Mapleshade's Vengeance and Pinestar's Choice. This led me to find Nettlebreeze, Hollypelt, and Mistpelt as being born somewhere between the two novellas, which would make good pairs with Larchkit, Patchkit, and Petalkit (they would be given randomly generated warrior names).

But to go on from there, is where I get a little lost lol Mainly due to not wanting to inbreed as much as possible (I know the series is okay with first cousins / neice-uncles like dustpelt/ferncloud, so I am okay with that much, I just don't want it to be too overwhelming long term).

So at this point, I'm looking for input.
1. Do I hold off until I get to the knowledge about the ancients + dotc books about clan creation
2. Do I just start with mapleshade's kits, and if so - would anyone be interested in just giving me pair ideas based on current allegiance at the time of that kit/warriors birth? I have a spreadsheet where I've jotted down all the births of each year, as well as bolded the names of cats who never had mates, and highlighted based on clan.
Another thing I would do, is maybe diceroll for the cats to have a chance at finding a mate from another clan.

Non-canon could also include su susanns kits if it didn't interfere with canon. (Ex. Blackstar x Tallpoppy)

I can DM the spreadsheet, but here is a screenshot example of what I've done so far in terms of finding mateless cats


Just give me your ideas.

NOTE: AGES for appropriate mate pairings
- Pinestar x Leopardfoot had a 9!!!! year difference (maybe a little yikes)
- Thornclaw and Blossomfall have a 5 year difference (better imo)

Also, the spreadsheet only lists births from the timeline I linked above, so there's definitely options of other cats that aren't listed, will need to find them in allegiances, ex. Tallstar x Reena could be a viable pairing