Ancestry Messenger

[ggrocott]

Yep, all my trees have a 9.8 on Ancestry, although how much of a recommendation that is I'm not sure.  :-)

I have found that the trees grow exponentially when one of the family members emigrates, particularly if they go to the USA where they have huge families, all of whom survive, who in turn have huge families ....................  A certain Joseph Montague on my tree springs to mine, without him the extended tree would be a LOT smaller but he has produced lots of useful info and the DNA links confirm that the paper trail is correct back to his parents.

[Boongie Pam]

I have c8000 not because of DNA stuff but because I merged mine and my partner’s trees.

Plus I’ve followed my birth father and my Dad who brought me up - having 3 parents adds to the body count lol.

Oh and many branches are those mega families of 15+ kids and successful parents as most survived (except for the 2 families decimated by measles).

When you have mega families who use the patronymic naming convention so you end up with 7 Henry Lowthers all born in/around Wigton within a decade you need to follow them all to know you are following the right one to war or prison or whatever.

The other drivers for my larger wider tree… (and I know it’s not huge yet)

My lot are incredibly dull - no drama, no stories- if I find someone on a collateral line with an interesting name I’ll expand out of curiosity.

Illegitimacy- when you lose whole branches early on what are you going to do? Give up this amazing hobby or workout what happened to the uncle of your 3rd cousin twice removed’s husband when he went to South Africa?

Collateral lines and distant relatives have knocked down my brick walls - my lot often ended up being servants to richer distant cousins.

Yes I was a stamp collector. This is the same kind of hobby for me. That doesn’t mean the veracity of my research isn’t good.

On Ancestry I look at the record counts on an individual - I don’t care if it is on a tree of 10000+ if it has a good record count - good means more than I have.

All my core tree have high record counts which someone can see when they search. A message will get them access. The ones with low record counts are either peripheral interests or in a time/place of minimal records.

One thing I am passionate about if anyone wants my info I’ll help. There are two points on my tree where lots of other trees get it wrong - a bigamist and a clerical error. My aim is to contact everyone who has it wrong! If they were correct I wouldn’t exist!

Sorry for the essay I have time in my hands, I just wanted to defend the big tree and how it can come about!

(I’m a 9.7 due to the way back when women I don’t know the surnames for!)