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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: IgorStrav on Sunday 13 March 11 13:55 GMT (UK)
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Hello all
I know we often have queries here about whether people should only research their direct lines, or go off on tangents to cover less direct branches of the tree.
However, I have now found two very interesting connections which would never have emerged unless I'd followed up the sidelines fully.
My great great great grandfather was illegitimate, and his mother didn't marry until he was about 8, and he was 10 when she had more children (or at least the ones I know about).
So I busily followed through my direct line for some time, taking no note of these half siblings. Quite honestly, there was enough to do tracking down all my greatx3 grandfather's children. If I thought anything, I sort of believed that, being illegitimate, he wasn't part of a family, so to speak.
But I've now discovered, firstly, that one of my greatx3 grandfather's children married her cousin - they share the same grandmother - this came out from following up the half siblings and their marriages.
And, secondly, I've now discovered something else - pause, whilst I think how to describe this to you ::) - the widower of one of these half siblings married his first wife's cousin (his mother-in-law's neice).
So this tells me a lot about my greatx3 grandfather and his connection with his mother's new family, and how close they all were in Kent in the 19th century. They didn't live far from each other, but not in the same village, and also moved from census to census.
So I'm now thinking of creating a spreadsheet with the various people and their locations in the various censuses, because I think I may be able to find some more connections in where they lived
I bet I'm not alone in fiddling with my Ancestry tree and thinking that some of the addresses on the censuses ring a bell with me, and that they link with other parts of the tree........
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Great story Igor
I havent particularly gone down side lines alot as I have not had the time.
One thing I did find on my line was they all lived very near each other and I was born in the same area so I knew where the streets were. It would appear to me in my families case that it was the boy or girl next door syndrome more than the fact they were related.
I dont think we have that kind of idea about marriage nowadays as they did in the 1800/1900's. In those days there was no social security or handouts, you married a man who went to work and the wife stayed at home and did look after the children and probably both sets of parents as well if they were ill.
I am always surprised how quickly the men who are widowers get married again so quickly when they have children. If they didnt have anyone to look after the children, they couldnt work and everyone would starve, so need was the necessity in those days.
Very interesting and I love everyday I am researching my ancestors or helping others to see how those people lived and survived in very hard circumstances. Its a great thing to read about and I am so pleased 4 years ago I decided to start doing my family tree. One of the best things I have ever done.
regards
Sandymc
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I'm a great believer in researching everyone. So often you find pairs of sisters marrying pairs of brothers, or a neighbour or niece of someone else who's married into the family already.
Apart from anything else, it gives you a clearer picture of the times our ancestors lived in. Knowing Grannie had 3 brothers who died young gives you more insight into what her childhood was like, for example.
I found that my gt grandfather's niece married the son of a widower who married another of gt grandfather's sisters. The son was a lodger in the household for some time and the widower was gt grandfather's next-door neighbour for over 30 years.
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Oh yes, on I think two occasions I found that daughters from my family married sons of the family who lived next door....
How many times have I found things by looking really carefully at the census images themselves?
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Of course our own direct line may have been witnesses to their siblings' weddings or informants on death certs, which again gives another glimpse into their lives. I was able to link two families because the death of a child in one family was registered by a member of the other.
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I too have found lots of lovely bits of info following the side routes, particularly 'missing' married sisters who have a known niece or nephew to stay :)
The best thing was finding that my parents lines had in fact been joined many generations ago when a 3xs grt grand aunt on my mother's side had married a first cousin 4 times removed from my father's!! And no I didn't work out the exact relationship, my family tree program did all the hard work ;D
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Well, Momo, you have people here who will share the thrill of finding that relationship. ;D Fantastic!
I bet your family didn't appreciate it much after the 10 minutes it will have taken you to explain it to them...... ;)
I was so excited last night when I found the link I posted about, but I somehow knew no-one else in my close family would be interested.
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Oh do keep up with all the sidelines!
Some of us in modern times (even without the help of genealogy) know and interact with very extended families. A fellow recently died in my town whom my father grew up with and knew his whole life as "family" - despite the man being a first cousin once removed of my father's first cousin once removed. Likewise, my brother is good friends with our first cousin once removed, and their children are about the same age and will grow up not only as friends but knowing each other as "family".
Not everybody is aware of all the relationships, but there are plenty of distant ones still maintained. Despite several years of research, my father still only knows the same number of related males bearing his surname as he did before. I can imagine that such situations were far more common a hundred years ago.
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Just thought I'd tell you that following posting this message, a Rootschatter got in touch to say that my avatar, my dad, looked as if he had a family resemblance, and the names matched.
And I think we have just discovered we are fifth cousins once removed! Now there's a side line and a half......... ;D
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What an exciting time for you, Igor!
Just goes to prove when it comes to FH research - no boundaries. ;)
Mrs. T.
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I always noted the 'side lines' but did little about them until, by chance, I found that in the 1850s, a brother of one of my grt.grt.grandfathers from a tiny village (which isn't much bigger even now), emigrated to the USA. He stayed a couple of years, came back, married a local girl then took his new wife back to America where they remained and raised their family. By the 1900 American census he'd 'amassed' some $10,000 in property and money. Not bad for an illiterate AgLab.
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Without those sidelines I'd never have got where I am. Hughes (a nice common name!) was the bane of my life. Due to family arguments, no-one knows anything about that line.
I obtained the marriage cert for a gt gt aunt (who didn't have children either, just more details to fill out the tree), and an unknown Hughes was a witness.
Found them on the 1911 census, found their death (witnessed by a son) in 1972. Son still lived at the same address after 30+ years, and from there I've gone back to 1780 and tracked the family to Somerset and Hereford! I'd not got back before 1881 previously.
Sidelines are an invaluable source of info in my opinion
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Now in my book Igor those later children would not be a sideline, they "blood".
I have a similar incident of my g/g/grandfather remarrying after the death of his wife and his new wife was younger than some of his older children (not that uncommon) and I have looked into all of their lives. And am in regular contact with a cousin from this 2nd family.
What I do not do is look into the families of those who marry in, unless I get an inkling of "scandal" and I must say that one side of my fathers family (his mothers) is full of them and his fathers side just seem to be whiter than white I cannot get even a hint of scandal there, much to my disappointment. ;)
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On the other hand, in my husband's tree, one of his gran's sisters, Florence, looked after her 8 siblings (apart from my OH's gran who was married) after their parents died and didn't marry until the youngest was 21. One by one the other siblings married. I feel very sorry for Florence who wasn't really free to marry until she was 38.
Lizzie
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I like looking up all the links. I have found that my surname branch links up with other branches of the surname by marriages when there was no clear connection. So having a copy of someone else's tree helps sometimes. Probably very far back they will link---please!!! Also it's helped me to help others with their trees.
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Having followed my family tree, in the direct line, back to pre census days I was having great difficulty confirming anything, especially one line the Taylors, I started researching known Children of John & Mary Taylor.
I also started a separate tree for Mary Taylor whom I found in th 41 & 51 census living with relatives,was she the right one? Im still not 100% sure but it seems very likely,she had a married daughter who died in 1847 and when I got her death certificate I found that she had died at the home of another taylor whom I had connected.
I try and follow siblings you find children who were missing from home,a great many marriages of relatives and clues,particularly for 2nd marriages or common law relationships.
Liz
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Having typed my previous posting about my husband's gt.aunt looking after all her siblings after her parents deaths, I decided to do a bit of searching around for the eldest daughter. I found her marrying in 1893 in Leeds (the family had lived there after the 1881 census until at least 1893 when they had a child there, but were back in their native Lancashire by the time the next child was born in 1895).
Having married in 1893 Martha went on to have 4 sons in 1895, 1897, 1901 and 1904. There may be more if I do a search, but that's the info from the 1901 and 1911 census. Now what is interesting ::) is that the 3rd son born in 1901 was given the names of her sister's husband - now why was that? Am I adding 2 and 2 together and making 5, or did she just like his names?
Lizzie
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How wonderful to find others who research sidelines I always feel a little embarrassed about the extent to which I do this. Am I therefore one of the dreaded name collectors - I would say not because I try to give each person the same research as my direct line. I do have a rule, which I try to stick to, which is I do not research anybody futher back who marries into the tree except obviously in my direct line but other than that I research everybody and anybody.
One result of this is that I have found that on one line all people with the surname Baverstock who can trace themselves back to Blandford area of Dorset almost certainly descend from a particular couple who lived Cranborne/Pimperne Dorset between 1700 & 1774.
Another fascinating outcome is that I have been able to trace the movement, occupations BMDs of a complete line of a family through the 19th century. My only trouble is that I as yet haven't found family tree/web type program that will enable me to truly analyse the data - any ideas would be most welcome.
Regards Sarenid
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At what point do you become a name collector? I have over 600 individuals in my tree at the moment (with about 50 more sitting in the wings until I can connect them), but all people in my tree are blood relatives or their spouses - I don't bother with the spouses families, only blood relatives, no matter how distantly related.
Let's face it, if you didn't at some point looks at the side lines, you wouldn't be able to connect back another generation, so you may as well do a little more digging.
I don't necessarily obtain certificates for all these distant relatives, only if I'm absolutely stuck and I think an address or witness may lead to a further resource or connect the family with certainty
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Having followed my paternal line back to 1745 I struck the proverbial brick wall even though I wasted a lot of time on the most obvious local family.
I eventually decided to explore his wife's family but even then her father was a waste of time however her mother's side turned out to be very interesting and helpful because they left wills and were mentioned in land records. Even though they changed parishes several times I have been able to trace them roughly back to the 13th century.
Also by tracing her family to a different parish I was able to connect my paternal line to an ancestor in that parish.
On a more obscure tangent I found that my ancestor worked for the man who had bought the land which had previously belonged to the family who shared my surname of whom I had previously failed to connect. Not only that but my ancestor's employer was also related to the man who I think was the employer of my ancestor's father.
I am now back to the Civil War period and I am still looking at the possibilities of family connections through employers and land owners.
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Yes I think I shall use this tactic for a baptism of someone who I believe to be an ancestor if I cannot as yet find any direct proof. I want to do that with a Matthew Bradford born in 1765 in Cambridgeshire who could be my ancestor who wed in Essex in 1798. Matthew died in 1849 aged 85 and said he was not born in county in 1841.
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I don't think you are a name collector if you can find out something about the person involved. For instance my g.aunt's husband's young brother was drowned aged 3, so I got his death cert to find out the details. There was an inquest and I managed to find the details on the 19thC newspapers. I don't think that is name collecting, even though a brother of my g.aunt's husband who died aged 3 can't be considered an ancestor of mine at all.
(Why can't I find any info about my g.grandad whose death also required an inquest - c'est la vie!).
Lizzie
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I have a James Smith who died in 1849 in Oxfordshire and was not born in the county so if I did happen to find any possible siblings that would be a godsend.
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halfasheep - 600 is not name collecting, I would think that was quite normal.
I am always wary of the trees with twenty thousand + in!!!
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On genes I have 550 people in my tree. And same for Rootsweb. Quality not quantity. I have that Matthew Bradford ancestor as born Cambs but have a question mark next to it to show only a possibility until I find confirmation. But yes I shall research side lines to see if that throws anything up.
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I've got 2600 in my tree, well that is a joint tree with my OH. However, my ancestors had many large families and for the ones born in the mid 1800s on, I do know all about most of them. My mother got lots of info from her mother and I have been in touch with other branches of the family with whom I have shared info. Also, one branch of my tree were amongst the rich and famous in the 1400-1700s, so are easy to research as their histories are in British Library, Dictionary of National Biographies and I also have quite a few wills.
I don't consider myself a name collector, just an enthusiast. ::)
Lizzie
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Earlier in my research I have to admit I was a bit of a name collector. I used to research every line down as far as I could possibly go. And then I joined RootsChat a couple years ago...and you guys taught me what real family tree research is.
Now I have pruned the tree so that I don't research (well I don't enter into my family tree program ;)) any relatives further than 1st cousins on any given line. This means that I research the siblings of each of my ancestors, and their children, but not any grandchildren. This way I can keep focused on the main lines while keeping in mind that there were many intermarriages - two of my great grandparents were cousins for instance.
Still, my tree contains about 2700 people, though I have researched every individual myself, never just copied anyone else's research, and have only included information that is well documented. So I think Lizzie says it best... I don't consider myself a name collector, just an enthusiast. ::)
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When i started genealogy I took everything at face value and believed people were exact about their ages and knew exactly how old they were like today. But then I found the truth.
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Great story Igor
I havent particularly gone down side lines alot as I have not had the time.
One thing I did find on my line was they all lived very near each other and I was born in the same area so I knew where the streets were. It would appear to me in my families case that it was the boy or girl next door syndrome more than the fact they were related.
I dont think we have that kind of idea about marriage nowadays as they did in the 1800/1900's. In those days there was no social security or handouts, you married a man who went to work and the wife stayed at home and did look after the children and probably both sets of parents as well if they were ill.
I am always surprised how quickly the men who are widowers get married again so quickly when they have children. If they didnt have anyone to look after the children, they couldnt work and everyone would starve, so need was the necessity in those days.
Very interesting and I love everyday I am researching my ancestors or helping others to see how those people lived and survived in very hard circumstances. Its a great thing to read about and I am so pleased 4 years ago I decided to start doing my family tree. One of the best things I have ever done.
regards
Sandymc
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The amount of trees on Ancestry with false info is astronomical. That is why I dotn trust most of them as many submitters are just name collectors and have thousands upon thousands of people in their tree.
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Hi Coombs, I agree, most of the stuff on ancestry is sooo wrong >:( . As a newby, I believed everything they put up and I took my family tree back to Charlemagne (like, 10th century!) It was a heap of rubbish and I had to delete about a third of my tree. There was one parent who was a hundred years younger than her children, generations were mixed up, children added to the wrong family, alleged marriages never happened etc. I am a lot more careful now, checking all the way with sites like Family Search and various BMD's, government records etc. Some ancestry suggestions can give a starting point, even if they prove wrong, they cross out that possibilty... That's the fun of researching a family tree!
Here's an Irish one for ye! Got into Irish BMD's looking for a birth, yes it was a birth index - put in the name and all I got was four marriages! maybe that's the hint - marriage comes before birth!
Happy hunting
Annette
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If you have an ancestor who died inbetween 1841 and 1851 and in 1841 they said they were not born in the county then it is best to try and work sideways and depending on how common the name was research anyone else of the same name in the area. This may help finding the persons place of origin.
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It is possible to go back to the 10th century and I have on one of my branches, but that is because they were very wealthy and some of them are listed in Burke's Peerage and in the Dictionary of National Biography. Having an unusual name helps too.
Conversely, I can't find anything out about my g.grandfather (as most people on Roots will know) and he was only born mid 1800s. ::)
Lizzie
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I have a Lorken Wallaker who moved to Essex from Kedington, Suffolk with some of his siblings in about 1790.
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I've always researched all direct ancestor siblings. Often times I have found missing direct people who have been staying with relatives with either mistranscribed names or with a changed name ::)
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What an interesting discussion! I too have found some connections in the sidelines of my family through the 1800 and early 1900s. One in particular gave my great aunt (age 86) heart palpitations when I proved to her what the actual family connections were among generations of older relations that she knew well in her early years. Fortunately, she decided to be fairly open minded about it and now agrees that it can be revealed to other family as an entertaining, colourful piece of family lore.
On a similar note, when it comes to more recent relationships, what does one do with all the divorces with children, divorces without children, new spouses with step children & half siblings?
For instance, if a family member marries someone with children, has none together and subsequently divorces, does one include the former step children in the tree?
Or
If one has has a family member that married (for the sake of this example, a man), had a child, and subsequently divorced, the child of that union is blood family. The former wife (in this example) was family when married, and continues to attend large family gatherings. The grown child of that union would like to see the lineage of her mother in the tree so that her children have a single source of information. Should that be there or not?
This one gets even more complicated for me as the child of of the original union of the man & woman mentioned immediately above, also has a half sibling from the subsequent marriage of her mother. This sibling isn't related to my family by blood, but there is a push to have her included in the tree along with her children as they are invited to family gatherings. What do you think?
Oh yes, I can't forget the adoptions. Several in the family were open adoptions where the parentage (at least of the biological mother) is known. There has been a desire expressed to include both the biological parents and the adopted parents in the tree.
Yikes!!! Believe it or not, these have become heated topics within the family. I feel like I've become the evil sheriff of the family tree. Thoughts?
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I found that my gt grandfather's eldest brother married a woman who already had an illegitimate child.
The wife later died and gt grandfather's brother then married his step daughter. They then had a child who they named after her mother/his first wife!! Weird!! :-X
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Naming patterns can be good although not reliable. And yes if you believe a baptism of someone is that of your ancestor it is good to see if they had any siblings. And dont always be put off by distance. It could happen. You still need to prove if it is or isn't your rellie though. I may have found the baptism of the wife of Matthew Bradford 30 miles away from where she married. Her age at death points to that time this woman was baptised. I just need more compelling evidence.
It does seem many of my south Essex ancestors have parents or grandparents who originated in North Essex or south Suffolk and South Cambs.
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If one has has a family member that married (for the sake of this example, a man), had a child, and subsequently divorced, the child of that union is blood family. The former wife (in this example) was family when married, and continues to attend large family gatherings. The grown child of that union would like to see the lineage of her mother in the tree so that her children have a single source of information. Should that be there or not?
This one gets even more complicated for me as the child of of the original union of the man & woman mentioned immediately above, also has a half sibling from the subsequent marriage of her mother. This sibling isn't related to my family by blood, but there is a push to have her included in the tree along with her children as they are invited to family gatherings. What do you think?
....these have become heated topics within the family. I feel like I've become the evil sheriff of the family tree. Thoughts?
But whose tree is it? If it's your tree, then obviously your mother would be on it and her forebears will make up half of your tree.
A family tree isn't going to be the same for all the members of that family; for instance, first cousins will only share one half of the tree in common. You can't have a 'one size fits all' tree without things getting very messy and confusing, so I would suggest having a separate tree for each branch (or each interested party).
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I found a distant connection between my mother and my father by researching sidelines! :o You never know what you'll find.
Convictlass
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I found a distant connection between my mother and my father by researching sidelines! :o You never know what you'll find.
Convictlass
I found that too. My dad's family came to Canada from Scotland in 1743. My mum's family came in 1883. However, I found the first marriage between their families about 1810.
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But whose tree is it? If it's your tree, then obviously your mother would be on it and her forebears will make up half of your tree.
Well true, but my grandmother is still alive (just celebrated her 100th birthday) & is a wonderful matriarch. As a result, the family on that side is all delighted in the work I've undertaken and all feel an ownership of it.
I do like your idea of breaking off certain branches so that they can do their own work. Likely the problem lies in the fact that I'm the one that has time, inclination & interest, and others see it as an opportunity to get added value.
The blended and unblended families do provide an challenge that we haven't seen near us much before 1950.
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I found that my gt grandfather's eldest brother married a woman who already had an illegitimate child.
The wife later died and gt grandfather's brother then married his step daughter. They then had a child who they named after her mother/his first wife!! Weird!! :-X
That is a weird one.
So this just makes me too curious. Ignore this if you prefer not to share, but may I ask how old the illegitimate child was when her mother married you g grandfather? Did her mother have children with your g grandfather before she passed away? How old was the dear illegitimate child when she married you g grandfather's brother?
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But whose tree is it? If it's your tree, then obviously your mother would be on it and her forebears will make up half of your tree.
Well true, but my grandmother is still alive (just celebrated her 100th birthday) & is a wonderful matriarch. As a result, the family on that side is all delighted in the work I've undertaken and all feel an ownership of it.
I do like your idea of breaking off certain branches so that they can do their own work. Likely the problem lies in the fact that I'm the one that has time, inclination & interest, and others see it as an opportunity to get added value.
The blended and unblended families do provide an challenge that we haven't seen near us much before 1950.
I can't see any difficulty here, tbh. Like most people I have my tree with my father's side and my mother's side. My cousins on my paternal side have little interest in my maternal ancestry, and vice versa, so I share with them the relevant half of the tree, the part we have in common. That seems to be what you have done.
There's nothing to stop you from expanding your own tree, adding your mother's ancestry to the work already done, and of course your half-sister will be part of that. In turn she could create her own tree, half of which will be the same as yours but with a different paternal line.
What you could do is create a small tree-type diagram to show how the different branches link up; this could be done for the adoption cases too. Use these like footnotes to the main trees, but I would avoid trying to include too many lines on one tree as it would become increasingly difficult to follow.
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Often witnesses on marriage certs turn out to be relatives. I have found another direct ancestor who witnessed a wedding but had remarried after being widowed.
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I agree that a trip down a side line can reveal some interesting information and help plump up the family history.
I met my father's second cousin recently and she said her father had been brought up with a foster brother. I decided to see if I could find out anything about this boy's family and from the surname found that the vicar of the village in which my father's great grandfather had lived had the same surname. From there I found that my g. g. grandmother's sister was the second wife of the vicar and that the story goes that one of the vicar's grandchildren had had an illegitimate son who was then fostered into the wide family.
It's wonderful the stories that come to light through this research of sidelines and I feel it helps build a bigger picture than just names on a tree.
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I once found a sister of an ancestor by just researching his daughter from his first marriage. She was staying with a lady in Bermondsey who turned out to her her aunt.
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Oh doesn't that make you so PLEASED when you join up the strands like that! ;D
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Oh yes, I just so agree.
Only yesterday, I had a bit of a 'lull' in my tree, just wasn't getting anywhere, so I decided to look into my g.g.grandmother's brother. Found lot's of lovely war records, etc. and, found he was a widower by 1911.
To cut a very long story short, I came across a tree on Ancestry with lots of lovely old photos from his wife's side. Imagine my utter disbelief when I saw the exact same photo which I have in my collection, the only one that I haven't been able to identify. It's been sitting there for as long as I can remember with no name on the back. Turned out to be his sister in law and her children.
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Following the discoveries I made which led me to start this thread, I've been following up the siblings of my gx4 grandmother, and their children.
I'm trying to do this really well, not only attaching the sources to my tree, but looking closely at each census page and noting down salient points about exactly where they lived and their occupation (mostly Ag Lab ;) although I must investigate the difference between that and farm servant).
It's really reinforcing for me the fact that the siblings lived so close together (although they didn't all stay in the same village) and it must have been a very close knit family - various members turn up close to others.
I'm now seeing that I need a separate chart to log each member in each census and their various locations.
This is all in a small area of Kent, which I had literally never even visited till recently, and I cannot tell you how weird it is to feel such a connection to a place which I'd never known before.
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I dont feel the bond with side lines as I do with direct rellies but will still research them if needed.
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The usefulness of researching side lines was reinforced today when I received from a 2/3rd cousin two pictures of 2 different weddings within my family. One of the weddings concerned my paternal grandmother, the other her brother and my gr uncle. Both concerned people who were close the former obviously but the latter also because the grandmother lived for some 20 years with her brother, as born out by censuses, and his wife prior to her own marriage.
However, I had no idea how linked the two families were untill my relative pointed out. 1) Mother of the Groom in picture 1 was the aunt of the bride in picture 2 and the bride's sister in picture 1 married the brother of the bride in pciture 2.
I had actually researched the side lines to some extent but had missed this connection because the children concerned ie the bride in picture 2 was the daughter of a 2nd marriage and I had not found that 2nd marriage or even looked for it until the cousin pointed it out.
Maybe I would eventually have found it but if I had just researched my direct ancestors the links would not have been apparent and yet according to my cousin the relationship between the two families was very strong - such that during the WW2 the agricultural branch kept a pig for the town branch and after slaughtering would send the carcass to the family on a midland red bus!
sarenid
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sarenid i quite agree i often spend hrs way of the beaten track and have found some amazing links +have been intouch with many people all over the world who have passed on some great info and pic's of very close relies-research -all is my motto
jane
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Great story Sarenid. I really like the pig travelling on the bus! ;D
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Thanks for this thread.....it's prompted me to look into more of my side lines today and I've found more info on why certain family members moved elsewhere and why I haven't been able to find them as they were listed under different names etc. and/or mistranslated.
Extended families all over the country and now I have reasons why.