Genealogy Chat

And in my family, the tradition seems to be to take a second wife from a pool of left-over unmarried female relatives, or as my dear brother puts it, the ugly ones! OC

Another avenue not to ignore is previous or subsequent marriages of a direct ancestor, I have a case of step cousins marrying. The family emigrated to Canada and relatives out there (contacted via GR) had done research over many years but had never made the connection.

Hi I would just like to add my comments on following the female line (or blood line). My daughter became very ill when she was about 11years old (now 21), we found out she had renal failure and need a transplant. As any parents would, we were both tested for compatibility, to give our daughter a kidney. to our shock neither of us had the same blood group as our daughter. This for a moment caused doubts and suspicions from her father and his family until it was explained by the doctor that the blood type would not necessaraly be the same as the parent but it would have been passed down the line. My mother was tested and has the same blood group as my daughter and was a compatibley match with my daughter. Fortunatley a kidney was made available before my mum had to go to surgery. Don't disregard the female line, it is very important, especially for me. Beverley X

The female lines on my tree have been some of the most interesting ones. One of my family names has been very rewarding to research but when I look at the generations back on that line it is the women who marry into it and their ancestors who have given me the really interesting results. Like just about everyone I suppose I have a lot of women on my tree with first names only but my own maiden name only gets me back for certain to the early 1800s. If I'd only been interested in following that then I would miss an awful lot of my tree. It's odd sometimes how family likenesses can pop up. For example, my friend and near neighbour has turned out oddly enough to be my half third cousin (bit remote I know but fun to discover). One day my daughter was round at her house playing with her half fourth cousins when my friend's father was visiting. He hadn't met my (then little) girl before and didn't know she was in the house but was really startled when she came down stairs and met him suddenly. It seems she was the spitting image of his sister when she was small. So a close physical resemblance can exist between two people separated by a couple of generations and several degrees of cousinship. One of the fascinating things for me about doing Family History is finding out about the real people when I can and wondering what we have in common and whether we share traits in common. I've always felt a sort of bond with my maternal grandmother's father......he died some 30 years before I was born but he was an artist like me and his palette is one of my precious possessions. Sue

Maggie I take your point about fathers being more likely to be wrong than mothers...but I do have a child in my tree born to a different mother than the one on his birth certificate. (Illegitimate, family members took him on and registered him as their own child). I still want to know why this man told Sue that you cannot trace men through their genes? The Y chromosome is an easily-identified gene, which is as accurate at pinpointing a male line, as is the mitochondria of a female. OC

Robert, And here I was thinking your beliefs might be due to some odd religious sect! :-) Rose

There is also the point that the female line is more likely to be 'true' than the male line!! The mother knows she gave birth to the child, but the 'father ' can't be sure it's his :o) maggie

Sue Eh??? Why can't you trace males through their genes too? Did he explain this? OC

I went to a family history talk two weeks ago and it was on genes. He said the genes were easy to trace through the female line, you can go back centuries through the female line but it dosn't work with the male.

As has been said, our genes come from all our blood ancestors, whatever their sex. Going down the twiglets has led to so many contacts and findings of e.g. marriages of cousins and so on, that a far more detailed tree has been built up far quicker than would have been possible by a skeleton tree (no pun intended0.

Roger, I agree totally. I follow every line I can, because far from being a name 'collector', often in the past I have thought a line was so distant not worth bothering with, only to find a link or marraige way down the line that in one fell blow opens up a flood of priceless info on my direct relatives. I think people who don't do this are shooting themselevs in the foot somewhat, perhaps without realising it. Certainly some of the very best info I have had here so far has been from very distant relations, rather than close ones.

Go from your grandmother, say she had ten children they are all related to her, so if your parents had ten children it does not matter how you put it on your tree but they are all related to her, and so on down the line, so anyone who says do not follow kids of aunts and uncles are distorting the facts there are related to you one way or other. ie cousins.

Yes Richard I take your point about lack of connection, but we also need to bear in mind that as family historians we take much on trust as far as paternity goes anyway. This is why Judaism is carried by the female line. We can all be fairly sure who our mothers are!

Whereas obviously you are going to feel a strong link with someone you know and love, no matter what the genetics, fair enough, it is hard to feel equally linked to say their ancestors one or two hundred years back, if your not actually 'genetically' related to them, so important to know I feel. Thanks for all the info, and Robert for putting my mind at rest!

Also, what matters in my opinion is how you feel about that person- my Granddad was technically my step-grandad, but he brought my mum up as his own and was a massive part of our family, I would not dream of leaving him out of my tree just because we are not genetically connected, we are connected by the most important bond of all- love !!!

Do we also need to consider here what makes us the people we are? is it just our genetic make up? Or is it also the environment in which we grow, develop and hopefully prosper? Do we discount all non-blood relationships? What about step relationships and adoptions? My friend has two adopted children who share share no genetic material with her, but are so influenced by her that bit is striking. They even look like her in some ways, as they begin to acquire her mannerisms and tone of voice. genes are important, but we are more than simply our genetic make up. All the people in our families are important.

Hi all Most interested in your discussion I have researched many off shoots to my tree as i find along the line some are related to other branchs, a few of them married cousins, I find the argument that we are only 25% genetically matched to our grandmothers so why bother researching them quite sad, my maternal grandmother and her family are a huge part of my life. Our family trees are about our families surely not what dna we share, if that was the case how can we really be sure our grandfather or fathers really are our blood relatives without dna tests. lorraine

Cheryl, Just corrected the typo. Richard, I think he was confused and assumed all DNA is attached to the sex X and Y chromosomes. Rose

So if I understand correctly, this guy was completely wrong as your just as likely to have as much genetic inheritence from either grandmother, whether dear grandma is paternal or maternal? Really doesn't make a difference as he seemed to suggest.

I agree, very disturbing, I think the maternal side is the most rewarding. By the way the term is mitochondrial eve (lil typo there I suspect!). Thanks for that - wikipedia has a great bit about it! Cherilyn