How wide do you cast your net?

[LynneB]

As a new family historian (five years ago), I pushed all my direct ancestors back as far as I could, then started working on their siblings. I followed every 'hint' and collected data on relationships that now read like this: "husband of sister-in-law of half-sister of wife of grand-uncle" (as an example)! I just loved the chase and would go wherever it led me until I realised what a drain on my time it was!

Nowadays, as a more experienced researcher, I tend to record only the blood relative's spouse's parents and siblings. If I happen to find a relationship beyond that, I record it in my notes, rather than as an un-blood-related person on my tree itself.

I was very messy in my recording of data (digitally) in the early days so I've been tidying my files on FTM 2010 (before upgrading) and cross-referencing these with my entries on "Lost Cousins". I've deleted some of my LC entries -- I don't need to find living relatives of my blood-relatives' employers, for example. As I come across examples of tenuously connected non-blood relationships, I wonder whether I should record these relationships in notes then delete people (such as the "husband of sister-in-law of half-sister of wife of grand-uncle" mentioned earlier).

My hesitancy is this: many of my blood relatives lived in small, rural communities and inter-marriage between the same families was common. Until I finish with all the relatives in a particular community (probably never), I hang on to all the relationships I can find, no matter how tenuous.

I know that I have to make a judgement for myself on which relationships to keep and which to delete but I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts on the matter.

 

[Tim]

A great summing up Lynne of the learning curve that many genealogists go through. It's very easy with FTM hints, to keep adding more and more supporting data and non related people.

I think your plan is a good one. Until you can see the complete picture you can't know who is relevant or not. And then you can start the cull.

 

[emjay]

I was very messy in my recording of data (digitally) in the early days so I've been tidying my files on FTM 2010 (before upgrading) and cross-referencing these with my entries on "Lost Cousins". I've deleted some of my LC entries -- I don't need to find living relatives of my blood-relatives' employers, for example. As I come across examples of tenuously connected non-blood relationships, I wonder whether I should record these relationships in notes then delete people (such as the "husband of sister-in-law of half-sister of wife of grand-uncle" mentioned earlier).

I have begun to remove such entries from my tree, but move them into a relative's notes section,to be followed up or not at a later date. Having loaded a tree to FTA and seen all the 'loose deaths',missing census records etc. it seemed I had too many loose ends to contemplate which prompted this course of action.

 

[peter]

I've sometimes researched a family quite extensively, convinced that there would eventually be a connection - for example, I've traced several generations of a Calver family who lived just 5 miles away from the village where my ancestors lived for 5 generations. However the only connections I've found so far involve two marriages, so I'm keeping them as a separate tree for now, and haven't included any of them on my My Ancestors page.

However, one day I might enter some of them in the hope of finding a male line descendant whose DNA can be compared with mine (note: the DNA Research category is the one to use in a case like this).

 

[Martin C]

I was very messy in my recording of data (digitally) in the early days so I've been tidying my files on FTM 2010

I too started by adding just about anyone linked through marriage, but came to the conclusion that this was taking my focus away from the brick walls in my direct ancestry. As a general rule, I now only include the spouses of blood relatives. Where I have their parents’ names, I record these as Mother and Father facts. So far, I have resisted adding a Siblings fact. By recording their names in this way, I retain the ability, through the associated sources, to expand the spouse’s tree if necessary. The main exception to my rule is where I find more than one marriage between two families. I have to accept that by not building spouse’s trees, I may miss an important connection, but hopefully someone else in the genealogy community following that line will spot the link and share their discovery.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

I've sometimes researched a family quite extensively, convinced that there would eventually be a connection - for example, I've traced several generations of a Calver family who lived just 5 miles away from the village where my ancestors lived for 5 generations. However the only connections I've found so far involve two marriages, so I'm keeping them as a separate tree for now, and haven't included any of them on my My Ancestors page.

However, one day I might enter some of them in the hope of finding a male line descendant whose DNA can be compared with mine (note: the DNA Research category is the one to use in a case like this).

I was doing this sort of research that eventually led me to start a one name study of my own surname. By entering every last snippet of surname info I come across I have been able over the years to piece together various sized leave/twigs/branches etc. Some are a couple of individuals some are whole multi-generational branches.

Frequently I find two snippets join up and I can merge two or more individuals into a bigger branch. It is extremely satisfying when you find these links and makes doing a one name study very rewarding. I'd have imagined Calver was a suitably rare name to be worthy of a one name study if only you had the time.

So in my main file I have my own tree and all the one name study stuff. Like Lynne I started with extra paths but I now limit this to the parents & siblings of someone who married into my family. I've not gone beyond that unless there was some other tie in. This is made a lot easier by the marriage certs in Scotland which give the full names of all four parents of the married couple (including mother's maiden names).

 

[Bob Spiers]

An interesting topic 'how wide do you cast your net' and one that has concerned me on and off over time. I began my family research many years ago with the usual aim to find out about my bloodline. Once this was well under way, it was a natural progression do the same for spouses marrying into bloodline. Then returning to bloodline siblings (grand uncles and aunts) I had to add their spouses and children. The Tree grew exponentially until the day dawned when - as LynneB so graphically illustrates - came the decision what to do with the "husband of sister in law of half sister of wife of grand uncle". It was truly time to stand back and take stock.

The answer for me was resolved after trying out the free Tribal Pages (TP) website to which I downloaded a basic Gedcom. Sadly it was restrictive because my Tree was large so I chose to upgrade (at pretty modest cost it seemed to me) by paying an annual fee to uplift to the standard grade. This satisfied for a couple of years but in the end the Tree grew so big (not to mention the several hundred photos now added) that I opted for the unlimited deluxe version which I have had now for over 3 years and renew annually. It offers great name search within the webpages and you can select your own security and privacy protections. Best of all you can offer the family free access and provide them with access codes.

So in what way did it help overcome the problems previously mentioned? Well for a start it offers great scope to add narrative to ancestor pages and even better to write separate stories and link them to the ancestor page. This is beneficial in many ways and especially when you arrive -as you will - at that 'end of the line' person and so instead of extending his/her line back into infinity you just record why you opt to go no further. Should you ever have need to change your mind, it will act as an aide memoire later and be beneficial to a family member with an interest in the person or his/her family.

So whilst now I do have natural stop off points in my Ancestry Tree and related databases on my computer, I always refer back to TP (memory being what it is) to read what I wrote when first researching. It is amazing how quickly it all comes back once you read your notes.

 

[LynneB]

As a general rule, I now only include the spouses of blood relatives. Where I have their parents’ names, I record these as Mother and Father facts. So far, I have resisted adding a Siblings fact. By recording their names in this way, I retain the ability, through the associated sources, to expand the spouse’s tree if necessary. The main exception to my rule is where I find more than one marriage between two families.

Adding mother and father facts is a great idea; much better than 'hiding' that information away in the birth notes. I'm going to try it and see how it fits in FTM.

Because FTM allows users to have entries that are not attached to someone else in the tree, I have also been considering a new "tree" where I store the information that I have already gathered about parents, siblings, grandparents, etc. of my blood relatives spouses, just in case I need it in the future. Why waste all that information on which I've already spent time?

Its just after 7am, and bitterly cold (for Australia) in the house but the air-con is on and I'm ready to give these new ideas a whirl!

 

[LynneB]

I was doing this sort of research that eventually led me to start a one name study of my own surname. By entering every last snippet of surname info I come across I have been able over the years to piece together various sized leave/twigs/branches etc. Some are a couple of individuals some are whole multi-generational branches.

Alexander, do you include variations of your surname in your one-name study? I am thinking of doing something similar -- my maiden name is quite unusual as was my maternal grandmother's maiden name.

 

[Bryman]

I have often wondered if I might be going too wide in my searches but recent discoveries might be justifying such an approach.

Including parents and siblings of someone who marries into one's core bloodlines would seem to be a reasonable minimum approach because they will often all appear on the same census return. I hate to waste my research efforts and having found extra individuals and their relationships then I feel that I ought to make use of them and enter them into LC. Of course, there has to be a cut off point but I think that a couple of marriage links is not excessive and sometimes even a third is acceptable. A recent line of my research may illustrate this point.

Several of my ancestors lived in small villages near the south coast of England, particularly in the vicinity of Chichester. Most of those villages only have about 30-40 dwellings even now so there were probably a lot less a couple of centuries ago. Parish registers also suggest that there were only a dozen or so different surnames so there was significant inter-marrying between those families.

In one instance, my blood relative Ellen married William who had a younger brother, Edward, who married Caroline. That is . . .
+---------------------------------------+
William B === ELLEN W and Edward B === Caroline L

Using the above minimum approach, Caroline would be lucky to get even a mention, let alone further investigation.

Caroline's mother was Ann F.
Ann's mother was Krezia T.
Krezia's mother was Mary W, yes (I think) the same W as Ellen, allowing for slight discrepancies in spelling of like sounding names.
Further checking is now under way to confirm this positively.

This all happened within 2 or 3 villages only a few miles apart.
So what initially was recorded in LC as "by marriage" relationship for several generations may now have to be updated to "blood relative".
This has already led to a new match, in spite of census transcription difficulties which Peter will no doubt mention in a future newsletter.

Therefore, I would suggest that a slightly more open approach, to include at least those connected via a second marriage link, could prove beneficial and lead to many more worthwhile matches at the LC site. One should still concentrate on known blood relationships but don't shut the door on those who are separated by an apparent extra marriage link. All may not be as it first appears.

 

[LynneB]

Including parents and siblings of someone who marries into one's core bloodlines would seem to be a reasonable minimum approach because they will often all appear on the same census return.

I started including them because I thought it added interest to my family story; rather than "Person A was born, lived and died" I wrote "Person A was born the third child of Person B, a "his occupation", and Person C." The more I could find out, the better it became. As I've written on another thread, I began researching my family history as a gift for my (then 75yo) mum. She would never look at a digital version, so I had to write a book that would hold her interest.

Several of my ancestors lived in small villages near the south coast of England, particularly in the vicinity of Chichester. Most of those villages only have about 30-40 dwellings even now so there were probably a lot less a couple of centuries ago. Parish registers also suggest that there were only a dozen or so different surnames so there was significant inter-marrying between those families.

I have a similar situation with my maternal grandmother's family. They came from a small group of villages on the Wiltshire/Hampshire border and there was a lot of intermarriage between a small number of families.

I hate to waste my research efforts and having found extra individuals and their relationships then I feel that I ought to make use of them and enter them into LC.

My feelings exactly! That's why I was considering a new "tree" to hold all that extraneous data. What I had in mind was a forest of little family trees ("saplings") all hanging out together. As soon as I added the second blood relative to the first "sapling", I realised I was going to end up with a duplicate of my main tree!

example: Dorothy K, my grand-aunt, married Frederick A. They had two daughters, Dorothy and Lilian. As soon as I added Dorothy junior's spouse, I could see where I was heading! The solution, it seems, to maintaining a whole forest of little "saplings" is not to enter the blood relatives. Now I ask myself if I really want to spend a large amount of time creating a new "tree".

However, I find my tree very frustrating because I have gone too wide (as opposed to too deep with parents, grandparents and great-grandparents). In the example I used in the first post in this thread:
My grand-uncle, Ernest L, married Elizabeth P. Elizabeth P had two half-sisters. The elder was Martha C. She married George T. George had a sister, Emily T. Emily married Daniel S, the afore-mentioned "husband of sister-in-law of half-sister of wife of grand-uncle"! I probably would have kept going if there had been some hints for Daniel! Even now I could go back and look at the hints for Emily T which I have, so far, ignored. This all happened in the area of London so the chances of running into other members of Daniel's family are pretty small but I'll keep the information, just in case!

It is these "out there" relationships that make things cluttered and untidy that I want to remove from my tree. However, like you, I don't like to waste my research efforts. Some further thought is needed.

 

[patzy]

I find it a geat temptation to get lost in the 'by marriage' people. Especially if they have unusual names or I find them mentioned in newspapers.
Some of the connections I've added to my tree (I use Gramps) and the rest I keep as snippets in Cherry Tree, a data collection software which accepts all types of media and where I can easily find cross references. This is a great program and is free. Here is the website

 

[Bryman]

My feelings exactly! That's why I was considering a new "tree" to hold all that extraneous data. What I had in mind was a forest of little family trees ("saplings") all hanging out together. As soon as I added the second blood relative to the first "sapling", I realised I was going to end up with a duplicate of my main tree!

I don't understand why you need a 'duplicate' tree to hold the 'extra' information. Is that a result of the particular software that you are using?

I have several hundred trees, notionally one per surname, all hyper-linked together using GenoPro but manage to have very little duplication.
I view and update my trees from the graphical charts, clicking on each individual/union to bring up windows in which to enter details.
I don't worry (too much) about going wide all the time that finding new information is easy. When I reach a dead end or there are just too many possible choices then I go back to more central family areas.

If you now feel that you have gone too wide in your researches just limit your scope in future but don't discard what you have already discovered. Not only will any census references produce matches (eventually) but other details may be invaluable to other investigators in the future.

 

[LynneB]

I don't understand why you need a 'duplicate' tree to hold the 'extra' information. Is that a result of the particular software that you are using?

I'm told, by someone that has what I would call a large tree (over 100,000) that FTM can hold all that information. Since I have a tiny tree of just 2,300 names, the software isn't the problem. My thought of having a separate tree for non-blood related connections was just an idea that hasn't worked and therefore has been shelved (for the moment).

If you now feel that you have gone too wide in your researches just limit your scope in future but don't discard what you have already discovered. Not only will any census references produce matches (eventually) but other details may be invaluable to other investigators in the future.

Never thought about that! Very good idea!

I started this thread to hear other people's thoughts on the topic and decided to share my own experience when it all went pear-shaped just in case someone else had thought of doing the same thing!

 

[AdrienneQ]

I have just over 6000 people in my tree. This is made up of my husband and my families and those of family spouses. I have 1 or 2 more distant lines where I have offered to do a family tree for the children of cousins.

As someone who has manipulated computer data for most of my working life I:-
Try to hold data only once.
Never remove data once found
Never ignore data (so will enter all the individuals on a census).
I also revisit my direct line at irregular intervals to check it for any new data.

I must also admit that as well as loving the links Family History gives to my direct ancestors I also enjoy the hunt and will sometimes go off on a tangent on a line until I think "this is silly".

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Alexander, do you include variations of your surname in your one-name study? I am thinking of doing something similar -- my maiden name is quite unusual as was my maternal grandmother's maiden name.

With my surname there aren't that many variants, basically Bisset or Bissett. Further back there are Bizet's as the name is Norman French from the Norman Conquest. Typically I stick with the two primary variants and so far have 2100 Bisset's in my tree. Almost all from North East Scotland. There are other large concentrations elsewhere in Scotland and now a days overseas in USA/Canada/Australia/New Zealand. However I've only really recorded those that are in my own blood line at present. I've also got a secondary one name study tree for the Bisset Y-DNA project that is an open tree that anyone who has tested can contribute to.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

My feelings exactly! That's why I was considering a new "tree" to hold all that extraneous data. What I had in mind was a forest of little family trees ("saplings") all hanging out together. As soon as I added the second blood relative to the first "sapling", I realised I was going to end up with a duplicate of my main tree!

It is these "out there" relationships that make things cluttered and untidy that I want to remove from my tree. However, like you, I don't like to waste my research efforts. Some further thought is needed.

It is because of this that even for my one name study I keep everything in the one tree. Remember graphical trees and reports won't mention the unlinked people so there is no problem with having lots of unrelated individuals and various twigs - really good if they grow big enough to be saplings.

My advise would be to keep things in your main tree you'd be surprised how quickly you find extra links because the info is already there. If its in another file you waste hours cross referencing if you ever bother to cross reference. I found the idea of cross referencing became a "I really should do that from time to time" rather than a regular task. Eventually I thought this effort is wasting time what are the downsides of having everything together? Having thought about it I really couldn't see downsides, and it matched AdrianneQ's test of only holding data once which is an excellent principal and appeals to my inner Database Administrator soul.

 

[peter]

I'd have imagined Calver was a suitably rare name to be worthy of a one name study if only you had the time.

It's not rare, but there are sufficiently few of us that a One-Name Study would be feasible. However for now I'm going to focus on my Y-DNA Surname Study (which has already told me more than all the research I've done into my surname).

 

[Alexander Bisset]

A Y-DNA project and a One Name Study are actually complementary. The data from one can inform the other. eg: data from a one name study can suggest candidate males to approach for Y-DNA testing. And Y-DNA testing is aided greatly by already having a tree build from paper records so you can work out where the common links might be between two previously unlinked branches.

 

[peter]

A Y-DNA project and a One Name Study are actually complementary. The data from one can inform the other. eg: data from a one name study can suggest candidate males to approach for Y-DNA testing. And Y-DNA testing is aided greatly by already having a tree build from paper records so you can work out where the common links might be between two previously unlinked branches.

The two studies would indeed complement each other, but there's an enormous difference between the two projects in terms of the amount of work involved. If someone else wants to run an ONS they'll have my support, but the Y-DNA project is much more likely to provide the answers I'm seeking.