• Only registered members can see all the forums - if you've received an invitation to join (it'll be on your My Summary page) please register NOW!

  • If you're looking for the LostCousins site please click the logo in the top left corner - these forums are for existing LostCousins members only.
  • This is the LostCousins Forum. If you were looking for the LostCousins website simply click the logo at the top left.
  • It's easier than ever before to check your entries from the 1881 Census - more details here

Public or Private Ancestry Trees

I've always only put up skeleton public trees but yesterday I caught up with a webinar with a very different perspective. It includes the vexed question of what happens to your research when you die? It's a fair way into the webinar but some of the other may be interesting depending on your experience. A Legacy Family Tree Webinar: Top 21st Century Genealogy Resources - A Baker's Dozen by Tom Kemp. One of the always free ones. All Legacy webinars are free for 7 days after the event but some are always free.
 
Oh and apparently I could trace myself back to Robert the Bruce....

I would have you all know that in a previous life I was Robert the Bruce - of 'Och aye the Noo' and King of Scotland fame. I was meant to be called Robert the Brute but due to a lisp and inability to pronounce my t's (came out as th') went down in history as Robert the Bruce. Keep it under your hat and nowadays I prefer plain Bob.
 
There have been postings about people getting things wrong in Ancestry; here is one of my early experiences which –at the time – proved a big disappointment.

I sought a Thomas Webb born Dawley, Shropshire circa 1845 and found such a person in another Tree with the right provenance in all respects; name; place & date. To cap it all the other Researcher claimed Thomas was the brother of Captain Mathew Webb (born 1848 in Dawley, Shropshire) the first recorded man to swim the English Channel in 1875, and the subject of a famous poem by John Betjeman ‘A Shropshire Lad’.

Googling Captain Webb did indeed reveal he had had a brother named Thomas so it seemed the provenance was spot on. I was almost ready to pronounce (to the family at least) that we could show a relationship back to Captain Mathew Webb (always supposing they knew who he was) when after dotting the ‘t’s and crossing the ‘i’s doubt descended.

I discovered Mathew Webb’s brother Thomas, to be a Doctor like their father before them. But wait a minute; surely my Thomas came from a coal mining family - like HIS father and brothers? This indeed proved to be the case and he and his family later moved to Selston in Nottinghamshire where Thomas found work in another Colliery.

I immediately checked with the other Researcher to ask if he was seeking the Thomas Webb coal miner or Thomas Webb the Doctor (and likely the brother of Mathew). I learned his Thomas was also a Coal Miner and he admitted he had not checked out the occupation of the brother of Mathew Webb. His disappointment was palpable, as was mine for that matter, but he had the good grace to thank me, even though I had dashed his dreams.

Of course we did jointly ponder on whether there was a 'Webb' tie in to the famous Dawley Village son -as indeed there might be – but I chose not to pursue further and put it down to experience.
 
I would have you all know that in a previous life I was Robert the Bruce - of 'Och aye the Noo' and King of Scotland fame. I was meant to be called Robert the Brute but due to a lisp and inability to pronounce my t's (came out as th') went down in history as Robert the Bruce. Keep it under your hat and nowadays I prefer plain Bob.

I've checked and it WAS Macbeth that I'm supposedly descended from after all. Such disappointment.
 
To be, or not to be descended: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
From Public or Private Trees on Ancestry?
Or to take arms against these trees of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
What shall happen to family trees then?
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
But take heart, for with FTAnalyzer we can endeavour,
To correct the wrongs that we hath wrought,
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
But when these descendants return,
No longer Lost Cosuins they shall be,
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
 
Can I suggest that we have an additional icon to click on when we come across something like Tim's wonderful epic.
Instead of the "Creative" option that several of us have taken maybe a big :) option to say that we like it would be equally if not more appropriate.
Please do not take this as a comment that it is not creative - it is exceptionally brilliant and would equally deserve an Einstein type image if I could find one to include here.
 
I started to search the name list when I typed "Co" by mistake and up came "Concubine" and a link to Charlemagne (742-818).

Actually, that isn't as improbable as it might seem. Pretty much anyone in the UK (or of Western European descent) who can trace a line reliably to even quite minor nobility will be able to trace a well-documented line to Charlemagne. The usual issues with those lines (from my experience anyway) are the robustness of the documentation around the 1500s/1700s, when the parish records can be quite patchy, rather than the older parts of the tree. Even Charlemagne and his unusual family arrangements (concubines and all, plus his numerous daughters who ended up as unmarried mothers) are quite well documented in contemporary sources.
 
Can I suggest that we have an additional icon to click on when we come across something like Tim's wonderful epic.
Instead of the "Creative" option that several of us have taken maybe a big :) option to say that we like it would be equally if not more appropriate.
Please do not take this as a comment that it is not creative - it is exceptionally brilliant and would equally deserve an Einstein type image if I could find one to include here.
Lol, it was nothing, did I ever mention I was related to Dai Shakespeare? :)
 
Actually, that isn't as improbable as it might seem. Pretty much anyone in the UK (or of Western European descent) who can trace a line reliably to even quite minor nobility will be able to trace a well-documented line to Charlemagne. The usual issues with those lines (from my experience anyway) are the robustness of the documentation around the 1500s/1700s, when the parish records can be quite patchy, rather than the older parts of the tree. Even Charlemagne and his unusual family arrangements (concubines and all, plus his numerous daughters who ended up as unmarried mothers) are quite well documented in contemporary sources.

Yes it's the links into the royal lines in that period when records are far from complete where the mistakes are usually made. It's too easy to grab the wrong person because they are the only one that fits in the records we have access to. I have a friend who was startled by a suggestion that one of her lines connected to aristocracy and then royals - especially since it was in a completely different branch to the family stories that she had already proved false. It took her lots of research and many months before she accepted the link though still would like more proof. After that, it's much more straightforward for the royal lines but not so easy for the aristocratic lines where the established trees sometimes conflict - and there are scholarly disagreements. It's certainly helping me learn English history:D
 
To be, or not to be descended:
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns,
Bourn(e)? Wasn't that the chap with identity problems Tim? If we start dragging in people who start public trees and don't even know who they are we will all have our "currents turned awry". Then it will take more than a bodkin AND a fardel AND a FTA analyzer AND an Avatar to prevent us joining poor Ophelia on a sea of troubles. You might remember that Hamlet also said "I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum " and that's a tree that might give us all "a thousand natural shocks" even if the current didn't already do so.
 
what happens to your research when you die?
It passes to the person you nominate in your will (or perhaps on your My Details page at LostCousins).

I don't know what, if anything, the webinar recommends, but creating an Ancestry public tree isn't the solution. For a start you're not around to be contacted, but more importantly there will inevitably be parts of your tree that have been sourced from relatives who don't want their data published online.

There's also the question of what happens to original documents and heirlooms - certificates, photos, scrapbooks, family bibles, correspondence, medals, and the rest. Surely they have to be passed on to someone who will care for it (and about it)?
 
Bourn(e)? Wasn't that the chap with identity problems Tim? If we start dragging in people who start public trees and don't even know who they are we will all have our "currents turned awry". Then it will take more than a bodkin AND a fardel AND a FTA analyzer AND an Avatar to prevent us joining poor Ophelia on a sea of troubles. You might remember that Hamlet also said "I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum " and that's a tree that might give us all "a thousand natural shocks" even if the current didn't already do so.

Do any of us know who we really are? o_O

Yes, 40k people would be a big tree, I better find some more people to add to mine!
 
Do any of us know who we really are? o_O
I certainly have genealogical doubts because my lineage through my surname appears to have taken a crucial turn through the simple exchange of one vowel for another only three generations ago. I also didn't mean to imply in my response that adopted people or others with no solid information about their birth parents have no right to search for their roots. It is what makes Lost Cousins ideal for careful research out of the public eye. I am surprised you weren't immediately challenged by someone claiming it was their ancestor Fred Smith who wrote the Danish play not our buddy W.S.
 
Actually, that isn't as improbable as it might seem. Pretty much anyone in the UK (or of Western European descent) who can trace a line reliably to even quite minor nobility will be able to trace a well-documented line to Charlemagne.
My eyes have certainly been opened on that score.... I searched Google Image ( thanks forum folks for the Avatar advice) for possible source of information on my Norfolk roots and there were many US public tree links listing Charlemagne with great pride. Of course many traced their heritage to the "Founding Fathers" as well and then I have to tune out in respect for my children's aboriginal heritage.
 
Back
Top