http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_(music)#Guitar_and_pop_chords

has a chart about halfway down the page where it offers all the varying ways of notating the chord, but says next to nothing about the roots of each one. It certainly gets confusing, as C+7 in one form is a Cmaj7, and in another it's a Caug7.

And it shows no less than SIX ways of writing the Cmaj7 chord, all of which are used somewhere! (but where, it doesn't say)

Me, I've always preferred the delta sign... much harder to misread

I think you need to find a Rosetta Stone piece, where you already know the chords, then write down the symbol they use, and go from there...

Best of luck...