Genealogy Chat

I think a lot of people forget that no-one has a tree which is completely unique to them. In my own case both of my parents were only children so my exact tree is only shared with my sister and then it is half of my children's and my niece's trees. But if I go back to my great grandparents then they all had a lot of descendants who'd share much of the same ancestry as me. Then of course I am a 2nd cousin to quite a lot of people and 3rd, 4th 5th etc to many many more. You don't actually have to go back very many generations to find ancestors who have thousands or even millions of descendants. Parts of my tree I have done with what I think is totally original research using documents I found in my local records office. Having found these ancestors I have felt myself getting possessive about them from time to time but then I find a GR contact who links in and remember that they are not just 'my' ancestors and not everyone is going to be able to spend hundreds of hours hunting in that particular records office. So I have willingly shared what I have discovered. I've made friends with people who are perhaps 4th or 5th cousins and some of my contacts have generously shared a lot of research with me. I believe the real problem on GR is the way a lot of people seem to use this tree as a recording system for all their findings and they are adding loads of living people including children. If a 4th cousin for example becomes a friend and shares details of their close living family (as some have done) then all that information is kept offline and never shared with anyone else. I sometimes come downwards on my tree on branches where I have dead ends in the hope that a distant cousin may appear who knows a bit more about this branch. So long as the people on my GR tree are dead (and I tend to make sure they are my grandparents' generation at least) then I see no problem with that. Sue

Another poster has deleted the two messages to which my replies (directly above) were related, the substance of which was that he/she had found her parents in another online tree, and was upset that they happened, also, to be someone else's 4th cousins, and that that was a degree of relationship too remote to be appropriate for inclusion.

90% of the people in my tree are dead: who could I ask? As for the living, if we are connected, we are connected, and that's what family trees record. But I couldn't endorse more clearly the elementary courtesy (never mind the rules) about respecting others' privacy in published trees.

In my quite large tree I would consider a 4th cousin once removed to be quite a close relative. They would have a direct blood relation to me, and I would tell anyone else who thought they had a veto over who, out of my own extended family, I should include or exclude in my tree to go forth and multiply. If the relations were living, then I would still include them, but of course not in any identifiable form, in a published tree. As far as the scope of a tree is concerned (the original point of this topic), I would happily include any and all identifiable descendants of my own ancestors. In my own tree, I have several living tenth cousins, and allowing for the possibility of mistakes having been made by either of us, it is marvellous that we have reached so far back into our pasts to find a common ancestor. I usually look for a spouse's parents (and if I am interested) grandparents. I have lost count of the number of times that I find a grandparent who is an existing relative, and so make a new set of connections. My most recent new GR contact is a 4C, 5C, 7C, 7C1R & 8C to me. If I had stopped at spouses, I could never have known anything of the lesser cousin relationships, but in fact, while the contact remains an almost complete stranger to me, our families and pasts are closely woven together, linking hundreds of souls. When you look at the extended families that we don't share (as well as the ones that we do), the total number of people we could both claim any connection with must have represented a significant part of the entire population of the small village from which we both originate. So leave my near-cousins alone: even if they are your parents (although by all means complain if I am invading anyone's privacy by publishing personal details of the living or very recently departed). Get to know your new relations instead.

WOW! 18500 names - I would be inclined to drastically prune this tree, BUT save the full 18500 tree for future reference - you never know when you might need to refer to it. I use an external hard drive where I store lots of info I might need - I have had to refer back many times - discard the unwanted names, and they are gone for good! David

It is entirely up to you what you do. I keep a smaller tree on GR which just has relations on it. Even then it is over 2,000 names. I do this by creating a Kinship Report on FTM and then exporing it as a Gedcom which I upload. If you try this method, make sure that you have selected sufficient No of Generations to match the No of Cousins in your report, otherwise you end up with unlinked branches.

Thanks everyone for your input. I just wanted to know if I was the only one. I don't mind my huge tree because there are some fascinating and well known names in it. However I do like the idea of having 2 trees one with all and one with just blood lines. Great idea. Regards, Gail

My tree also includes info on people I'm vaguely related to by marriages etc and their trees - I find it fascinating, it gives me something to work on if another branch dries up for a while, and it can be interesting to study patterns in villages/towns or see if there are other links further back. Again, it's personal choice. Yes I get lots of irritating hot matches, but I don't use these that often anyway. Laura

I think what you have on GR probably needs to be only what is likely to provide useful contacts. If you make this tree too huge then the Hot Matches you will get could get very silly and irritating to wade through. I've got a much bigger tree offline plus collections of trees for groups of people who I think may be related but I haven't linked them yet....I am doing an unofficial one name study so save family groups from censuses. I also had an offline tree which I was working on for a contact in Canada. We felt there ought to be a connection but couldn't find it for several years. Eventually our shared ancestry (back in the 17th century) was found and one of my offline trees has our two combined trees but I wouldn't put all of her recent ancestors on my GR tree. The GR tree is limited by the inability to do cousin marriages and my early ancestry has a lot of very complicated interelated families so I don't go that far back on GR for most lines. If you have that number on your tree then I am assuming that you've found a medieval link into nobility and royalty perhaps. I suggest you don't try putting that lot in or all your Hot Matches will be for people born hundreds of years ago. Otherwise you can do what you like. It's not a good idea to add living people to your tree though. If your tree is one that goes sideways a lot and has other people's research in it then it would be wise to do your own checking as far as you can plus ask them if they are happy for their research to be used by you. Best wishes Sue

I add husbands and wives of siblings but unless I find anything interesting I stop there- when asked for info from someone else who was interested in one of my rellies who was related by a second marriage with no children I just gave the parents and no further back but was interested to see her first marriage and all the children and their children listed in his tree and her first husband's parents in fact anything you could find out on ancestry - for somereason I did not want my entire tree being used ( although I would willingly share with someone who was a long lost cousin etc.. ) so was glad I did not share the whole lot!!Hope\ i wasn't being mean - just could not see the point! But as everyone has said - it seems to be personal preference. Alice

I do add the parents of the wives/ husbands of siblings to my direct ancestors......But I do not personally research them further back than census entries, where applicable......And my research on those lines stop there. Doing this I have had 'Hot Matches' ,which although has found me giving more info than receiving, has confirmed my match for a sibling marriage without having to buy a cert. Chris

I include all my direct ancestors and hubby's direct ancestors along with their siblings and spouses of siblings. I include any children to the siblings, but I don't go further back on the spouses who married into the family (as these have no blood relationship to me). Basically I just keep to anyone who hasa blood relationship (however distant). Kath. x

I also only show Siblings & their spouses in order to keep the tree manageable. Ken

Hi Gail, I agree....... your choice entirely. I have a tree that has every name I have found including those from others trees (with permission of course) and another tree that contains just those directly related and those I am interested in knowing more about. The pruned version is about half the size of the other and is easy to manage and when I upload onto a site will only match with those people I am really researching. Helen

My reply was going to be the same as Reggie's. Its your tree so its up to you how far you want it to outreach. I have added spouses & children to some of the siblings of various rellies simply because i found them in searching but have resisted going too far down each branch. But that's my preference, If you feel its got out of hand and gone off kilter then it may be due for a prune ,but its up to you. Shirley

Your tree............your choice. If you feel that the present size makes it unmanageable, pruning might be a good idea, but it really is up to you. Reg

Hello all I am wondering something 'In your tree, do you include offshoot relations and ancestors of cousins, their spouses and family?' My tree is HUGE-18,500 names- as a result of downloading a GEDCOM file for a direct ancestor that also included the offshoots. It makes for an interesting tree but there are so many names that have no direct relationship to me or my other half. Should I leave it as is or do some pruning? I appreciate all the input Thanks, Gail