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Beginners => Family History Beginners Board => Topic started by: coughlinja on Thursday 29 October 15 12:40 GMT (UK)
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Is there any reason to have in-laws in your family tree, other than the spouses of descendants? I was looking at a corner of my tree, and I found the Paternal Grandfather of the Husband of a 1st cousin 2x removed. Along with the Paternal Grandfather came a few of his relatives who are not related to me. Is there any reason to keep anyone beyond spouses of direct descendants?
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As it's a family tree I don't see the point in having anyone not remotely related.
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I only keep spouses and direct lines as I have found, especially when there were many children, that to list all their spouses etc makes the tree very cumbersome and confusing. I list the kids but no other info. ;)
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It is your family, your research, your tree. You can put who you want in it. If you want to record in-laws, then do it. If you don't want to, then don't.
I cant quite understand how you have people appearing in your tree that are not related to you.
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Okay, these make sense. I've been wondering how the non relatives ended up in my tree. Slipped in on a Census I did not pay enough attention to?
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I cant quite understand how you have people appearing in your tree that are not related to you.
If you added census info for the pre-marriage years of the spouse the rest of the family would be added to the tree (I'm assuming this is on Ancestry)
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For the OP
Any one of those in-laws might have left something in a will to your family that changed their lives. They may have emigrated to Australia and your family followed them or they might just be genuinely interesting in their own right.
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I do have parents of "anyone" married "into" my family (although not always related to me) but only for reference of who the incomer was as it is easier & quicker than typing up info. in the "notes" section but I don't include their siblings or anyone else who isn't a relative.
It will help future generations (of their descendants) who may follow my genealogy interest.
Annie
ADDED......I have FTM i.e. if I print an "all-in-one" tree I just copy my tree & delete the people not related to me (those in-laws).
I find it a handy tool having them in the tree for research though as others may be descended from the same couple & info. can be exchanged for my own line.
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I have found they can also come from matches found in other online trees. I have had it happen and then had to go and take them all out. So I am careful and vet matches before adding them ;D
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You can do what ever you like. But I do not add them as a new person on my tree. Ancestry.com tree as a place for custom facts and I have add in-laws of spouses and cousins as part of there fact list so they do not effect any other part of my tree. So this way one has a record of them so you know how everything fits. Some of the in-laws were close friends before they became in-laws, so by doing this I can put an explanation in explaining this which makes it clear how the relationship started.
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This is very helpful. Thanks all.
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I have never had an online tree, and as I read some of these posts I see more and more reasons to back up my decision!
I keep mine on paper, so I add what I want, and leave out what I don't want. Paper is the TOOL I use to record my tree.
I appreciate that others like to use a FH programm, or an online service to record their trees. But surely that is just a different TOOL with which to record YOUR research! Not a MASTER telling you what to put, or recording things off its own bat without you knowing, whether they are correct or not, and whether you have actually researched them or not! And then to add to this, there are people who will then copy an online tree, and call that research, and the tree a "source".
Keep online trees to what they should be - someones actual research, of what they want to research, and that they have researched, using online facilities as the tool to record it.
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I have an online tree as well as paper records. I like to have the paper record because it is an easy reference but I also have a programme on my computer which I use as my handwriting is so awful ::) then I print it out and use that. ;D
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I have never had an online tree, and as I read some of these posts I see more and more reasons to back up my decision!
I keep mine on paper, so I add what I want, and leave out what I don't want. Paper is the TOOL I use to record my tree.
I appreciate that others like to use a FH programm, or an online service to record their trees. But surely that is just a different TOOL with which to record YOUR research! Not a MASTER telling you what to put, or recording things off its own bat without you knowing, whether they are correct or not, and whether you have actually researched them or not! And then to add to this, there are people who will then copy an online tree, and call that research, and the tree a "source".
Keep online trees to what they should be - someones actual research, of what they want to research, and that they have researched, using online facilities as the tool to record it.
I understand what you are saying, but it is still easier for me to keep organized when I use my computer.
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Of course it's possible to have in-laws who are related to you. My g.gran married and then her brother married her husband's sister. So the in-laws of my g.grandmother are also the in-laws of her brother and likewise the in-laws of my g.grandfather are also the in-laws of his sister. ::)
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Of course it's possible to have in-laws who are related to you. My g.gran married and then her brother married her husband's sister. So the in-laws of my g.grandmother are also the in-laws of her brother and likewise the in-laws of my g.grandfather are also the in-laws of his sister. ::)
I had that as well in the case of my grandmother and her sister marrying two brothers and my mum and her sister marrying brothers ;D
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With FH software, yes, the information is stored in a database, mine wouldn't normally display non-family members other than spouses in a tree unless I asked it to,
Ancestry's slightly different, it's more of a chain rather than a tree
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With FH software, yes, the information is stored in a database, mine wouldn't normally display non-family members other than spouses in a tree unless I asked it to,
Ancestry's slightly different, it's more of a chain rather than a tree
Slightly embarrassed at my newness. I do use Ancestry. What other software can you use to store your tree.
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MY Heritage has Family Tree Builder which is free to download to your computer. It is also quite easy to use.
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MY Heritage has Family Tree Builder which is free to download to your computer. It is also quite easy to use.
Thank you.
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Slightly embarrassed at my newness. I do use Ancestry. What other software can you use to store your tree.
Here's a sample,
http://genealogy-software-review.toptenreviews.com/
with their top 3 being
The top performers in our review are Family Tree Maker, the Gold Award winner; Legacy Family Tree, the Silver Award winner; and Family Historian, the Bronze Award winner.
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Slightly embarrassed at my newness. I do use Ancestry. What other software can you use to store your tree.
Here's a sample,
http://genealogy-software-review.toptenreviews.com/
with their top 3 being
The top performers in our review are Family Tree Maker, the Gold Award winner; Legacy Family Tree, the Silver Award winner; and Family Historian, the Bronze Award winner.
Building a tree in Family Tree Maker. :) Thanks again.
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Ancestry's slightly different, it's more of a chain rather than a tree
A shambles in that case & they need to sort it....no wonder people have names in their tree who don't belong there.
Glad I stopped using their tree facility yrs ago when I got my FTM.........any mistakes are my own & easily recognised.
Annie
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I'll add/keep anybody because you never know when you'll find more information that makes sense of something. e.g. if somebody suddenly turns up in a census 100 miles from home you might spot that it's their great-aunt's second husband's sister they're staying with.... helping you to form ideas/opinions about how close the families were .... and getting more of a "general picture".
My GG-grandmother was a housekeeper in 1901.... it turns out it's her dead great/aunt's husband (so her great/uncle), who she went to live with/look after for 4-5 years until he died. Without knowing who everybody was I'd have not spotted the name and thought it rang a bell and searched the tree for the old man's name that I half recognised.
I do wish, however, that there were "switches" on software where you could instantly "hide" anybody not blood related and other choices, so you could highlight/hide parts of trees.
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What good ideas, StanleysChesterton!
I tend to include in-laws / married ins, because as you say, they can help you find odd people here and there.
I'd like something that showed adoptions, especially where the true parent is known, and I'd love a button that eliminated any hint NOT in England!
Also "unknown relative" might be nice....
Also like a "floreat" box, when one's not sure about birth or death but has documents showing existence at that time...
Save a lot of time browsing about in idle moments ... but then: what would one do with the time saved?
Seriously, I also use paper and a "Main tree" - and branch trees in both directions are on other sheets, for cross reference when needed
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These comments about Ancestry trees do annoy me.
Ancestry trees are as good as their owners - Ancestry themselves don't add individuals to trees!!
They offer hints based on their record collection and entries in other people's trees - no tree owner is bound to add them to their tree. There is always a facility to ignore the record/hint and if not ignored then the hints/records can be reviewed before adding them to a tree. If the owners are not good enough/interested enough/able to spot the wood from the trees then that is how these trees fill with erroneous info and spurious persons.
We don't all just add people willy-nilly.
Pheno
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I do wish, however, that there were "switches" on software where you could instantly "hide" anybody not blood related and other choices, so you could highlight/hide parts of trees.
Tribalpages do not have "switches" but they do have the facility to mark a line of various relationships with a coloured "flag". [ ie; blood relative of X / descendant of Y. ]
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I do have parents of "anyone" married "into" my family (although not always related to me) but only for reference of who the incomer was.
It's good for when printing reports as it will show Joe Bloggs married Jean Brown (daughter of said parents "in-laws") rather than simply Joe Bloggs married Jean Brown.
Annie
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Totally agree with Pheno.
You control which hints or people to add/ignore with Ancestry - not done automatically. Yes some users just add any old "rubbish" to their trees and it can be very annoying but again its down to you to sort out what is correct for your own tree. >:(
To get back on topic I have added some "in laws" if I think there is some relevance in having them there. It can sometimes be helpful with your research. I had one "brick wall" where I couldn't find a "rellie" in the census before he got married eventually found him living with his future in laws as a lodger although his future wife was not there as she had gone into service. ;D
Dorrie
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It's all grist to the mill