How do I add my Spouse's family on Lost Cousins?

[Tim]

Incidently, this discussion is very interesting but seems to have wandered away from the initial thread. Perhaps one of the moderators might like to consider copying/moving some of these posts to a new thread?

Done

 

[Bob Spiers]

Can you imagine the amount of work to achieve this? And the chances of getting something wrong?

I have entered names into LC and their relationships to me, including the Direct Ancestors and Ahnentafel numbers.

So if I now took your approach and pretended I was one of my children, then yes I could add the wife's family. But I would have to recalculate all the existing Ahnentafel numbers. And then if they have children, do it all again?

And how would I answer the question if we made a match, How are we related? It's just too confusing and risky.

There is a simple solution provided by Peter, for an extra £2.50 you can register your spouses details. It keeps it clean and simple.

I think you have slightly misinterpreted what was being suggested -as nothing would change with regard to your current LC registration and Ahnentafel numberings/relationships - you would merely run a secondary account and view everything (including subsequent 'hits') from the viewpoint of your spouse and offspring.

A fair amount of work but at least half of it would mirror your original root setup -with Ahnentefal & relationship adjustments as you mentioned- before starting afresh with your spouse's family detail.

I think your reminder that one can register a spouses detail for an additional £2.50 may well achieve the same ends and certainly is a cheaper option. However those who seek to relate ancestry from their children's point of view (which is were we came in) may decide a merged line is a better option.

I think I will just stay as I am and consider the spouse option later.

 

[PaulE]

I joined LC in 2007 when, as far as I can recall, there was no advice as to what to do about spouse's ancestors and I don't think the possibility of a secondary account existed. I wanted to include my wife's ancestors so I pretended I was one of my children and entered relationships and ahnentafel numbers accordingly.

I've carried on in the same way ever since, and it means that some of the "cousins" I've made contact with are actually my wife's cousins. None of them seems to have been bothered by this fact; we've just got on with the task of helping each other's research where and when we could.

It seems to me that the reason for LC's existence is to provide a means of making contact with other people whose research overlaps with your own. It's not really about recording a family tree. If you meet a cousin through LC you are probably going to share (some of) your family tree with them but you will be using a method that is external to LC. By that time your cousin will have much more detail of your relationships with your ancestors than is recorded in LC.

Although I know I'm doing it the wrong way now that it's possible to open a secondary account, I really don't feel inclined to change all my entries now.

 

[Bryman]

I wanted to include my wife's ancestors so I pretended I was one of my children and entered relationships and ahnentafel numbers accordingly.

I've carried on in the same way ever since, and it means that some of the "cousins" I've made contact with are actually my wife's cousins. None of them seems to have been bothered by this fact; we've just got on with the task of helping each other's research where and when we could.

This approach may not appeal to the purists but I believe it is certainly a practical way to proceed. I have not gone down this route, mainly because I am finding just my ancestors are more than enough to keep me occupied. Hopefully I shall reach a point where I would like to add details for my wife's family and would prefer a clear approach to be identified so that I would not have to redo anything.

Tim is right to suggest that one should just set up a second account for the spouse's family details but I was trying to think further ahead. We have all invested a lot of time and effort in obtaining and entering ancestor details into LC and I think that there should be an easy way to avoid too much duplication by future generations. I am not looking to push a lot of extra workload on to Peter's shoulders but obviously the more that actions can be automated by the system, the easier the job becomes for the likes of us.

I had overlooked the matter of Ahnentafel numbers and that does add a certain amount of extra complication. Thank you Tim for pointing that out. However, that is one of the areas that I feel the computer should be able to help. There must be a formula that could be applied to recalculate such numbers where the root person is changed.

One of the people that I have recommended LC to is my 1st cousin. I now realise that with such a close relationship (common grandparents), there will be an enormous number of matches identified which will tend to smother the reports. The same would be true if my son were to spend a lot of time and reenter his ancestor details. Peter has made provision for one's LC data to be passed on to a nominated relative but that may then need considerable rework by the recipient to meet their situation. I would like to suggest that a little thought be given to this now so that any development can be done before it becomes a big issue.

 

[peter]

There's no inherent problem having an account in the name of a son or daughter to enable you to include both your ancestors and those of your spouse - the LostCousins system will handle it fine.

However it can be confusing for you, since it won't be immediately obvious which of the entries on your My Cousins page are your relatives and which are relatives of your spouse, nor will it be obvious which relatives are whose on your My Ancestors page.

In the early stages, when you only got a handful of cousins listed, and only a few hundred relatives recorded, it may not be too much of a problem - but it's better to prepare for the future. If you are going to separate the two trees it's better to do it as soon as possible.

 

[peter]

One of the people that I have recommended LC to is my 1st cousin. I now realise that with such a close relationship (common grandparents), there will be an enormous number of matches identified which will tend to smother the reports. The same would be true if my son were to spend a lot of time and reenter his ancestor details. Peter has made provision for one's LC data to be passed on to a nominated relative but that may then need considerable rework by the recipient to meet their situation. I would like to suggest that a little thought be given to this now so that any development can be done before it becomes a big issue.

There will only be one entry on your My Cousins page no matter how close the relative that you've been matched with. When you recommend LostCousins to a known relative always use your My Referrals page so that they don't have to re-enter the relatives that you share.

If and when your account is inherited by a child or grandchild they'll only need to alter the Ancestor Numbers - a 10 minute job at the most. All the relationships will remain exactly the same.

 

[Bob Spiers]

.... I wanted to include my wife's ancestors so I pretended I was one of my children and entered relationships and ahnentafel numbers accordingly.

I've carried on in the same way ever since, and it means that some of the "cousins" I've made contact with are actually my wife's cousins. None of them seems to have been bothered by this fact; we've just got on with the task of helping each other's research where and when we could.....

Yes I think that more or less answers the questions being asked about a secondary account and how it would work, as you set up a primary account this way right from the start. The account also has the advantage of being 'ready-made' to pass on to your child(ren).

I quite accept that any contacts will quickly understand the relationships involved -via your own roots or those of your wife- and either way will share a united bond with your offspring.

 

[Bryman]

There will only be one entry on your My Cousins page no matter how close the relative that you've been matched with. When you recommend LostCousins to a known relative always use your My Referrals page so that they don't have to re-enter the relatives that you share.

Sorry if I did not make myself clear. When I refered to "an enormous number of matches identified" I was meaning matched entries on My Ancestors page and not My Cousins page. The closer the relationship, the more matches of common relatives that would be expected.

I have used the My Referrals page but did not understand that replies from that would get common relatives entered automatically. Thanks for the enlightenment. Does LC have some means of automatically determining the shared ancestors/relatives based on information submitted or does this re-entry of details only get avoided if the details are manually sent to the new member? How is that done?

 

[Bryman]

There's no inherent problem having an account in the name of a son or daughter to enable you to include both your ancestors and those of your spouse - the LostCousins system will handle it fine.

However it can be confusing for you, since it won't be immediately obvious which of the entries on your My Cousins page are your relatives and which are relatives of your spouse, nor will it be obvious which relatives are whose on your My Ancestors page.

In the early stages, when you only got a handful of cousins listed, and only a few hundred relatives recorded, it may not be too much of a problem - but it's better to prepare for the future. If you are going to separate the two trees it's better to do it as soon as possible.

I don't have any obvious confusion about which of my parents relatives relate to so don't understand the point made in the second paragraph of the quote.
I think that all relatives of my father have different surnames to those of my mother.

Perhaps my insignificant number of relatives recorded from census data is not enough to worry about but I will keep that in mind if ever I should be so lucky to find a few thousand more.

 

[Liberty]

I don't have any obvious confusion about which of my parents relatives relate to so don't understand the point made in the second paragraph of the quote.
I think that all relatives of my father have different surnames to those of my mother.

Perhaps my insignificant number of relatives recorded from census data is not enough to worry about but I will keep that in mind if ever I should be so lucky to find a few thousand more.

You may be just lucky on this point, or maybe have a comparatively small tree, but it CAN be a problem. One set of my Great grandparents were both called Cooper, and were (apparently) completely unrelated. I can't immediately tell you, by name and dates alone, which Cooper came from which side of the family, except that my 4G GF, 3G GF, GGF and great great uncle in one line were all given the name Joshua. Otherwise it's a free for all with the Johns, Elizabeths, etc.