RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Matt R on Wednesday 23 June 10 08:41 BST (UK)
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Just thought I would start a topic on what I generally perceive to be "larger than life" trees, and was wondering at roughly what figure people would start to be suspicious of when hearing the total of individuals/documents tallied in other people's research on correspondences.
I myself have been at this tree for four years and have not confirmed all ancestors yet but have mostly, and my tree numbers 4,000 people including all branches, mostly dad's side going back to 1500's.
Where do you all start to get suspicious? I have had a fair few tell me of their thousands of ponds worth of purchasing certs and thousands of documents...and I just think "Pull the other one". I once saw a tree on GR with 78,000 people in it. I somehow felt very unkeen to trust any information on it.
Thought I would throw this one out there and see what response it gets :)
Regards,
Reayboy!
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i emsiled someone not long since, they had a couple of matches with my grandparents. when i went to the website they had around 250,000 names on there. as you will guess it was a very distant link ::) ::) ::)
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My thoughts are that it gets a bit ridiculous. Even going back 7 generations (parents counting as one) to the 5xG grandparents, we share less than 1% of our genes with them. And with the wider family it gets even less.
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250,000... I hope every one of them was properly documented ::) ;D.... all a bit absurd ::)
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I know there's always comments about the "larger than life trees" on the net - and most people tend to be rather suspicious of these - possibly with good reason in some cases ::)
I thought the same thing until a person with whom I have been corresponding and sharing research for some years, admitted that they had abt 35,000 on their tree. If I didn't know better, I'd be doubtful of the content but to my surprise they have well over 600 wills (fully transcribed), thousands of certs and has spent more money on archive records than I will ever see.
Sometimes the preconceived notion of "name collectors" is not always correct.
Di
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250,000... I hope every one of them was properly documented ::) ;D.... all a bit absurd ::)
it was just trees added to trees added to trees. all the names where indexed and i got told what the connection was and invited to put mine on there. i declined :) :)
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I don't know. I still think it's name collecting, even with that many wills and documents.
It's a hobby turned into an obsession and a compulsion.
Time to do an OU course or something similar by then I think.
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It's not FH as we all understand and practise it. It's a different thing alltogether. Best left alone, I'd reckon ::)
charlotte
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Geeees, I'm just a pup then. :D I just had a quick wizz through my Legacy files, the highest number I noticed was 1897. What a relief to know I'm not as addicted or as obsessed as I thought I was. :-\ :D
Altho' I have been invited to check out a cousin's tree, I took one look at the number of files and gave it a miss. I couldn't cope with numbers that big.
Leonie.
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Gosh and I thought my tree had drifted into the realms of bushes and weeds !
I've got 420 names ... and documentation or certainty for about 2/3 of those ...
... the rest are possibles and probables ... which need working on ... one day ... when its winter !
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i have about 100 names in my tree like to focus on certain lines i have found a lot of off shot branches put dont put them in my tree(we often dicuss mane collecting on roots but no ones ownes up to doing it there must be some lol)
neil
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Just to add that some people are doing one-name studies.
It's a different task compared to an actual family history and some of those will incur many many individuals - of course there will be many additional surnames as they fill in the spouses. They will also be unlikely to have a close connection to many of the people in their research.
So long as the results of the research are accurate then the number of names shouldn't be an issue.
Of course there are plenty of "trees" that are simply made by adding other people's trees together with little to no care for accuracy what so ever (parents born after children and the like).
I'd rather find a well researched and documented "tree" of 50,000+ rather than one badly done "tree" with no regard for accuracy but only a couple hundred names.
I've got close to 2,000 individuals in my (admittedly very small) one-name study, with several distinct branches that I can not yet find a common ancestor for and so can only claim one branch as being "related to me".
My personal "Family History" has just over 5,000 but does include my husband's side as well as following down some branches other than direct lines (purely because I found them to be interesting) which I guess falls under "name collecting" but hey ho hum. In several cases following the non-direct lines has filled in gaps in the direct lines.
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My thoughts are that it gets a bit ridiculous. Even going back 7 generations (parents counting as one) to the 5xG grandparents, we share less than 1% of our genes with them. And with the wider family it gets even less.
As long as we find the people and their lives interesting, why should it matter?
I still think it's name collecting, even with that many wills and documents.
It's a hobby turned into an obsession and a compulsion.
Time to do an OU course or something similar by then I think.
You could say it's another angle to studying history. I know I've learnt a great deal more about all sorts of things by delving into the family tree. I think your condemnation of it as "obsession and compulsion" is a bit harsh.
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It's not FH as we all understand and practise it. It's a different thing alltogether. Best left alone, I'd reckon ::)
charlotte
'All understand and practise it" is a bit of a sweeping statement isn't it? Why should everyone have the same understanding of what family history is? One cousin of mine is only interested in researching descendants of his great-great grandparents, and finding as much out about each individual as possible. I'm not much interested in anyone born after WW2, so we have a totally different approach, and yours may be different again. It doesn't make any of us wrong. When did an instruction manual get issued for a hobby ???
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I've never counted my names - I don't use Family History software ...
must do it someday.
My guess is 500-1000 and I don't expect to get any more, really
but I also have almost a one-name study on the Breslins (they were so hard to sort out - I just acquired everything I could on any Breslin living in the east of Ireland)
eadaoin
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I have over a thousand names in my tree with another possible 300 that are yet to be checked but I have only been at this for just over a year. :-\
If someone has been working on their tree for a number of years I could see how they can get very large especially if you follow down from your decendents for all their ancestors.
Admittedly some of the family links would be very tenuous but it is still family regardless of how small a link it is. :D
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Well I have no doubts...I love collecting people. :D The history bit comes when I try and find out as much as I can about them, their lives and what was happening around them.
I can't imagine just having a bunch of names. I have a whaling captain...or two....so of course I had to find out all about whaling in the early 1800'. It's fascinating. I have wives and children aboard whaling ships, a couple of births on whaling ships and several deaths. I even have one who was involved in the invasion of, and theft of, whales from a Japanese whaling village. Now there's a change about. ::) It's all history and some of my ancestors were in amongst it.
I admit it, I'm obsessed..... :-\ ;D
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LB, Just amassing a bunch of names has no appeal to me either. AS you say, finding out about the individuals and theu lives is fascinating and one learns so much about how things were.
Also the puzzle about how to cross reference the info to esatblish it's accuracy is part of the fascination... a dnit keeps the grey cells active ;D
charlotte
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And safer than racing motor bikes.... ;D
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:) It's all history and some of my ancestors were in amongst it.
I admit it, I'm obsessed..... :-\ ;D
I get that way - I'm tremendously interested in what my family have done with their lives, even though now there is only one person left who knew my great grandparents.
I have about 350 people in my tree - I've been "at it" for about 5 years and am keener on the "family history" side than the "genealogy" side, but I'd never say mine's the right way of doing things - everyone to their own and good luck tothem.
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Hello guys,
Well, thankyou for replying on this thread there are a lot of informative answers here.
I admit too I am very much fascinated by everything my ancestors have done, good and bad, which does not always go down with family too well, but that's life! As long as I do not cause any emotional trauma I tend to go ahead with the hobby, and digging up secrts lay buried sometimes for over three centuries.
I think the reason why i have so many ancestors on my tree after four years is because most of them were very poor, and I have found over the cours of my research that the poorest of the poor tended to be recorded reasonably well. Also, those who did have money ( a select few) all left Wills so I have "gained" more rellis due to that. I'd say I have been quite lucky in terms of surviving documentation, and I am sure this is the case with other genealogists too.
But one thing that gets to me more than most things (and there are a few ;D ) is the seeming ability ability for some researchers to tie themselves either to royalty, barons, or historymakers, so to speak. I know of one researcher who claimed to be related to Earl's all over the place and also Churchill, and it somehow gets to me that if that information is wrong and is passed down...maybe I am just an "always have to prove it is right" freak lol???
Finally, I tend to follow siblings of my direct ancestors too, and their children and grandchildren if I can. My reasoning for doing this is because I think it makes finding contacts more easy of a task. For example, I have my tree on GR and if I list a siblings grandchild somebody may contact me who has not gone further back than that grandchild yet, and they may have documents, photos, etc. So on that score I think it helps.
I just look at tree with 50,000 people and more and think two things.
1. Oh blimey!
2. I need to get some credits...I've alot to prove ;)
Thanks again for replying, this has turned into a rather interesting thread!!
Reayboy :)
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At the moment I have about 2500 people in my and my husbands joint tree, many found by working sideways.
The line I'm currently working on is throwing up an interesting and complex picture of how the family related to each other as they crop up as Will beneficiaries and executors, marriage witnesses and the use of unusual family names. It's taking me into new areas as some were businessmen and details of partnerships being dissolved appear in the London Gazette, there's a court case about a property dispute (waiting for an estimate of the cost of copies of documents from TNA).
Some of these people may be only distantly related to my husband but I don't think anyone could argue that they weren't a family.
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I know someone on Rootsweb who has over 100'000 people in their tree. name collecting to the max. My one only has 710 people and all relatives of mine.
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I think this problem occurs when people start looking into not just their "blood-line" but at in-laws as well.
In my tree all my "blood" ancestors have been listed but unless I have found something interesting/mysterious I have only added the husband/wife, but not that persons parents etc. I have only done a little digging if they have been married previously, and this has in some instances proved to be very interesting, with bigamy etc.
So if I decided to look into all those in-law families and enter them on my tree I could probably double or treble my tree overnight, but then those people would be little more than names and I would not feel any connection with them, whereas all those in my tree who are "blood-line" I feel very protective towards them and often feel I know each and every one.
I do have one distant relative, who has taken all the people with the same surname in the village where she lives and it slowly trying to connect them all, well it stops her getting bored!! And I have occassionally helped ::)
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Someone on GR who connects into my tree via a 4th cousin on one of his other family lines has copied and pasted all of my family tree to hers and I asked her why and she said she shared a common ancestor with a distant cousin of mine though another family line.
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I started being fascinated by family stories as a child, and now I've done the same as Plummiegirl - I try to find my own ancestors and their brothers and sisters, and only add their husband's and wives. Some of the sibling lines have been expanded but it really depends if there's any known link, some cousins lines feel like close family, others do feel like 'just names'. I've got between 4-500 people on the tree and rarely put anyone on unless I'm absolutely sure of their existance and how they fit - if I do I make sure the comment shows it's work in progress.
It's the people that fascinate me, and the lives they led, and finding out all I can about them. I've got a book by a great great uncle who came out alive from the Charge of the Light Brigade, and another about the mission my grandparents worked in in Africa. I wouldn't swap those books for another few hundred names.
Nothing on my tree is particularly exciting, but some of the stories are heartbreaking and make me realise how privileged we are. I haven't managed to go any farther back than a lady born in 1649, because I have no gateway ancestors, just ordinary people. That lady born in 1649 seems pretty remote to me - she is just a name, I really know nothing else about her.
I've got ministers, publicans, doctors, an inventor, miners, farmers, at least one goalbird and some pretty feisty women who survived so much to drag their children up to better things. But they're my family and they all mean something to me, and as far as I'm concerned that's the only qualification for inclusion.
Each to their own, there's no right or wrong way, this is just what makes it so addictive for me.
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I do show interest in my grandparents siblings but after that I concentrate more on direct rellies even though I do add basic info to ancestor siblings. My 4 grandparents were born 1913, 1920, 1920 and 1922. Their total full siblings were born 1912, 1917, 1920, 1921, 1923 and 1926. My great grandad remarried in 1931 and had 5 further children who are my nans half siblings.
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I've been doing my Tree since December 2003 when I didn't know the proper names of my four Grandparents.I have over 6000 names in my Tree now but of that number maybe less than 50 that are on the dodgy siide.
Regards
William Russell Jones.
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My grans brother who was born in 1923 died in 1989 and the index gives his date of birth of 9th September. I can remember when he died. I was 7 then. I obtained his baptism when he was just weeks old at St Helen Auckland, Durham.
It is handy when great grandparents or grandparents or their siblings die after March 1969 as that is when the DOB was included.
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I mentioned before that I hadn't reached 2,000 in my Legacy tree yet, but there are many people who while not in my Tree, are still in my research notes.
We all have 2 parents, happily I knew both of mine. :D
Then 4 grandparents, I knew two grandmothers and my Dad,s mother's second husband who I called Pop.
We all have 8x G grands, 16x G G grands, 32x GGG grands and 64x GGGG grands.
I have in my tree most of those. I'm missing 2 of the 32 GGG grands and 9 of my GGGG grands.
Since this only adds up to 113 people....who are all the others?
Siblings of course. :D What would we be without our siblings and who are our ancestors without their siblings? They are all relative, especially when doing research. How can we 'know' an ancestor without also knowing their siblings.
To me, a list of names is nothing if I don't 'know' them.
Of what interest is John COOPER...just a name... But Captain John COOPER, master of the "Lady Blackford", husband of Eliza(nee PAPPS, formaly GLOVER), father of Emma, brother-in-law of Captain Lewin WILES..... this is a real person.
This is the reason I do Family History and Genealogical research. Not just to collect names.
Altho' if I did a 'One Name Study', I'd probably still go off and research all the side lines.... ::) as I said, I'm obsessed. ;D
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I always add the parents of someone who marries into my family purely because when I print the report It comes up with
Mary Aldam daughter of Edmund Aldam[3] was born in 1574 in Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, England[25].
Richard Muncey and Mary Aldam were married on 07 Dec 1596 in Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, England. They had the following children:
:)
There is also the family connected with your partner. I am doing this to pass on down the family(hopefully :P) so both sides of the family are needed