Which route to take ?

[brynsw19]

I'm not a beginner but I would like some guidance.

Can someone advise me what is the best plan of action when building a family tree. Should one start with oneself, find parents (2), find their parents (4) and their parents ( ? That way you have a very narrow tree but one which hopefully goes back many generations.

I find that I am not focused enough and tend to go very 'wide'. i.e. I tend to add all brothers and sisters, their parents brothers and sisters and I have a very large tree containing hundreds of people, many who are not that directly related. I find that with the abundance of information available online it's easily to get distracted.

Could some 'old hands' at this tell me what their method is and hopefully I will be able to decide on a strategy and stick to it.

Many thanks.

[philipsearching]

Personally, I don't think the "parents only" approach gives a true sense of family.  I add the siblings with their BMD details to my tree, but unless I know them personally I don't include their children.  "Quality rather than quantity" is a fair rule of thumb and I just do not have enough time to research distant cousins.

I have had a lot of fun picking one line and seeing how far back I can trace names, but I have had just as much fun (and learned a lot more!) by selecting a family in one era and finding out everything I can about them.

Honestly, the best advice I would give is to do what you enjoy most. 

[taffie01]

I agree with philipsearching.

What suits one person does not always suit another.
 
At the end of the day you will know when you want to learn more about certain individuals you unearth, as you know we have to go side ways sometimes in order to go back.

By doing so I have discovered living relatives I never knew existed!

enjoy
taffie

[lostintimeandpace]

I find that with the abundance of information available online....

is possibly incorrect and should never be taken for granted. Its not until you dig deeper do you get to the truth. Couple of examples in my family of two women, one had an affair whilst married so the child wasn't "ours", another had a child out of wedlock and people assumed the child was the future husbands.

Quality over quantity.

[FionaO]

I’m with less is just less.  I’m delighted to say I’ve found one branch of our family not encountered since the 1970’s, a new cousin we lost during an adoption in 1914! And finally, a whole new branch of the family via a second marriage - half first cousins and only twice removed – and lovely they are too!

Also, the family makes more sense when seen in the broader sense, where the names, jobs and locations repeat and interestingly when they differ.

Go W I D E I  say – they’re all your family (no you can’t swap them).

Stick with your current strategy and revel in those distractions as that's part of the fun.

Fionaohwheredotheyallcomefrom

[ThrelfallYorky]

Like many others, I started with my direct line, and when that stalled started hunting round siblings and offspring of those, and "married-ins". Several times, spotting one or more of those with someone I felt may be "mine" assisted me to narrow the field, or even confirm - a boon where the same few first names were used several times in each generation! At one point I'd eight "George"s, all born in the same area, all within a year or two of each other - and it was via In-Laws that I found the right one.
There's a lot to be said for both methods, but even if you start "focussed" you'll almost cewrtainly braqnch out!

[brynsw19]

Thanks everyone. I appreciate your thoughts. I think I will just plod on doing what I have been doing. I am going "wide" and slowly I suppose going further back. The main thing, as you said, is to enjoy it. Thanks again.
Onwards and Upwards !! (but with me, probably Sidewards)>

[iluleah]

My research has some what dictated how I research, my maternal side of my tree spent centuries in one village, so I soon found lots of connections into the different families within the village, so as I progressed on my direct line I realised I was not getting a full picture and also started to wonder if there could be 'inbreeding' so using my framework of direct line I researched the siblings and their spouses/children etc and found so much more.
As they all go back to the same parents sometimes it is easier to find information via them about my direct line ancestors.
Even in such a small village I have not even found cousins marrying cousins, what it has done is answered how someone met and married someone who was born/brought/lived  300 miles away, such as being the sibling of  a servant in a 'family' home, so I feel it has given me a much more realistic picture of their lives.
Even down to how contracts to design/build large public buildings were given, just this week I found the connections as to why/how an ancestors house was turned into a Jewish boarding school for girls especially with no Jewish connection in my family this puzzled me however next door lived an 'MP' the first Jewish leader of the local council who in the 1870s donated money to the city, my ancestors brother, an architect 'won' the contract to design the new town hall and town hall square fountain, it certainly gave me a better perspective of the lives of these people and how they intertwined.

[Rudolf H B]

Hi,

are you a hunter or a collector? Where is the fun? 

You don't have to do things you don't love. 

A collector could collect all children, stepchildren, siblings, half siblings ... Lifestories, stories about the houses, the village, the next town, ... regional history ... I knew a person, he had a his ancestors in a circle 50 km around his living place and he had a complete collection of the signatures of his ancestors over 300 years. (In Palatinate everybody was able to write at least his name.)
 
A hunter could have a lot of fun breaking brickwalls, looking for circumstantial evidences and footprints of his ancestors until he will get the final evidence.

I started twenty years ago with a box of old photos, no names written on them and tried to arrange them for an album. There had been a photo:  I found out: The date has been the silvermarriage of my gt grandparents (1901) with about 40 guests, all unidentified. I went back to there parents and grandparents, then forward to 1901, got all siblings and cousins. Then a tried to find out my cousins third and fourth grade. I wrote letters, did phone calls, we had been visiting exchanging photos and up to now I have identified two thirds of the group. The last third might have been finds of the family ... And I started to look for cousins of higher grades ...

It has been fascinating to meet cousins and uncles of a higher. They had photos, even a youth painting of a gt gt grandfather, antic chairs, other indivisible things and a lot of stories, they heard from their grannys. Stories are the salt in your ancestor's soup. -

I don't want to collect a cemetery of gravestones with names and dates only.

One day I met a German President (I am sure you know his name), introduced myself and as farewell he said to me: Kind regards to your mother, my cousin sixth grade. Two weeks later I have got a nice letter from him! 

At RootsChat I am a BEGINNER (!) - I am looking here for my cousins third grade in UK and fourth grade in Australia. Researching ancestor lines which are more important for them as for me, I have broken a brickwall and I was able to add eight generations to a line on my tree (not from a copy &  paste source).

As hobby I am researching trees of German and German-American Forty-Eighters from Palatinate.


Best regards
happy hunting or happy collecting

Rudolf

NB: My avatar is an example of such a single piece treasure on glass plate. Carol (treetotal) was so kind to identfy it as a tinted ambrotype. He is my gt gt gt grandfather, surname Kummerer, a surname which can be found for German pork-butchers in Scotland.