Checking for ancestors missing from LostCousins

[Maid of Kent]

I love the idea of the FTA. However, it will take me quite a while to enter those ancestors who I have already put onto my Lost Cousins My Ancestors page and in the meantime I decided to opt for something quicker.

Here is an easy way to check if you have missed entering any of your Direct Ancestors on your Lost Cousins My Ancestors, page.

First download the free Lost Cousins Ancestors Chart and print a copy

Fill in the names relevant to each Ancestor number e.g.grandfather at #4, gt.grandmother at #13 and so on.

Now go to your My Ancestors page and select the button at the top named Type. This will give you each relative in sections starting with Blood Relatives, then Direct Ancestors followed by those employed by your rellies and finishing with those related by Marriage.

You will see that your Direct Ancestors are listed in numerical order which shows up any missing numbers in the sequence 1 to 63.

Take your filled in Ancestor Chart and compare it with the list of Direct Ancestors to pick out any that you might have missed from your My Ancestors page.You might find that an ancestor’s lifespan covers 2 censuses and in that case, their number will show twice on the list.

 

[Carla]

Thanks for that. It's very helpful.
I am in the process of going over my tree to add ancestors to Lost Cousins but keep getting side tracked. Ages ago Peter suggested not just adding direct ancestors but also their siblings, and then their families, to further the chance of a contact. That's what I have been doing recently. The problem is as I look through my tree I keep seeing indirect ancestors that I could investigate further, ie. by checking out their children and descendants. This means it's all taking me so long to do and I am ending up with lots of tabs open on my net book in order to add everything in one hit to all sites.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

As Carla says the method you identify works for direct ancestors but gets bogged down when you try to apply it to siblings and their descendants. The method in FTAnalyzer allows you over time to whittle down the list of ancestors you have already found on a census and tag them as entered on Lost Cousins. By tagging an ancestor (adding a custom Lost Cousins fact to them in your family tree program) as entered on Lost Cousins you are automating the process. Once tagged they will forever be understood to be on the Lost Cousins site.

This way you eventually get to a situation where you can check the Lost Cousins report in FTA and see no-one listed ie: everyone is entered on the Lost Cousins website. Then as you find more people on the census and enter them into your family tree program then ONLY these new people will popup as needing entered to Lost Cousins as a reminder.

Note this can work for EVERYONE in your tree you just select what relation types you are interested in. For most people they will start with just directs, then directs, blood and married to direct/blood, then possibly expand that to related by marriage or even (typically for one name studies) for those who are unrelated. All by just ticking a box.

It takes some effort but the idea is that the program rewards the effort. Your advise is valuable though for those starting out as even entering just a couple of households for those who get Peter's newsletter but have yet to enter a single family would dramatically boost the number of relatives entered on the site.

 

[Maid of Kent]

Thanks for that. It's very helpful.
I am in the process of going over my tree to add ancestors to Lost Cousins but keep getting side tracked. Ages ago Peter suggested not just adding direct ancestors but also their siblings, and then their families, to further the chance of a contact. That's what I have been doing recently. The problem is as I look through my tree I keep seeing indirect ancestors that I could investigate further, ie. by checking out their children and descendants. This means it's all taking me so long to do and I am ending up with lots of tabs open on my net book in order to add everything in one hit to all sites.

Not sure what a net book is. I use a piece of family tree software and with that I can have just one person or family open to work on at one time.
It sounds like you have several online trees that you update all at the one time. I only keep one online tree going and to do that I update my computer tree and at the end of, say, a month I create a new GEDCOM file, delete my online tree and replace it with the newly updated GEDCOM. Any help?

 

[Carla]

Just so you know a netbook is like a small laptop

I have two trees I update. My base tree is at Genesreunited, and that's purely because it's the one I first started with and has my husbands ancestors on there too. It's also a matter of habit and I have had a lot of contacts from there. My other one is at Ancestry because that's the site I tend to use to find information the most, although recently I have been using Findmypast a lot more. I havent updated my Gedcom for a while but while I am off work I am trying to update my two trees and then upload the Gedcom. Both sites offer a Gedcom but I cant decide which one to upload at the moment.

I take it most people only have one online tree then?

 

[Tim]

I take it most people only have one online tree then?

No, I have loads

I have my main one on Ancestry, which is private. I then have others, which are cut down in size and content, which I load to GenesReunited, and a few others so that I can go "fishing" with. When I get a bite, and they are genuine family members, I invite them to my private tree on Ancestry.

 

[Maid of Kent]

Just so you know a netbook is like a small laptop

I have two trees I update. My base tree is at Genesreunited, and that's purely because it's the one I first started with and has my husbands ancestors on there too. It's also a matter of habit and I have had a lot of contacts from there. My other one is at Ancestry because that's the site I tend to use to find information the most, although recently I have been using Findmypast a lot more. I havent updated my Gedcom for a while but while I am off work I am trying to update my two trees and then upload the Gedcom. Both sites offer a Gedcom but I cant decide which one to upload at the moment.

I take it most people only have one online tree then?

Thanks for bringing me into the 21st century about the netbook

I used to have several trees online but they can be time-consuming so I brought it down to just my GenesR one. But for doing actual work adding to my tree, that is just done on the one offline on my computer. So much easier and quicker to use that way. It sounds as though you just have the online ones to work on?

I took my tree off Ancestry when I found they had changed their privacy statement and that all my information could be sent to anyone overseas - presumably so that Ancestry could sell the information.

I guess the more of your trees you have on different sites, the greater the possibility of getting connections but, like you, I have found lots through GenesR. Unfortunately the only ones I've found through LC have been 'cousins' I had already been in contact with but it's such a great and safe idea that I will continue with it and add as much as possible.