General Chat

In the beginning, mine was like that.

My ancestors came from the Isle of Sheppey - looking at census it was interesting to see how they lived next door to the extended family. If I hadn't bothered to research in all directions, they would just appear to be isolated individuals :-)

Hi Everyone

I've researched my own family and got to the stage than I'm limited to trace back further backwards. And I've collected unrelated stuff along the way and as I'm a Hon. Member of the Cheslyn Hay & District Local History Society I am doing a Local study of The People of the Local area and Its very interesting to see the best part of a Village interconnect together and I've traced the Lines backwards to see where the different families come from as far as possible for the Benefit of the Member's of the Society Also It helps me to answer many of the queries The Society gets as I'm one of there Researchers. The Tree Is like a Forest and you couldn't write the tree at Genesreunited without creating Dupilate Individuals as there Isn't a link to a Existing Individual Tool. which I ware out using Legacy Family Tree Software.

To Me its a Pastime and is a Personnel Choice whether one Traces non Blood Lines but Its Said we all Relate to each other as one of the comments as we live on a Island and we mingle.

Andrew

Thanks PME, I am going to copy that chart and file it so i don't forget how to work out a cousin again.

Off-side rule, when the balls passed by the attacking team and there's no defender other than the goalie between the person (member of the attacking team) recieving it and the goal. It though is not off side if when the ball was passed they were level with a member of the defending team (excluding the goalie) and they manage to out run them to get the ball.
Also before you say it I know this 'rule' gets tweaked but this is the basic explination, well the one I beat out of my brother when we were kids, been leaving men lost of words ever since.

Your cousins child is your cousin once removed, the removed bit describes how many generations apart you are so your cousins childs, child is your cousin twice removed.

I like to use this or a similar chart to help me figure out how I am related to someone;

www.genealogy.about.com/library/nrelationshipchart.htm

Hi Sue

Its not just first cousins i have had who have got married but i remember once that i had a marriage that by chance i found out they were distant cousins. I learn something everyday,i didn't know we could not had cousins marriages, I know for definite i have had distant cousins marry but i am sure i have had 1st cousins marry,i get every confused on the cousin subject,i have been researching on and off for 5 years now and it still confuses me,its like trying to explain the offside rule in football to a woman.

Could anyone tell me what i call my cousins child,do i call him/her half cousin or second cousin? and what do i call my parents cousin? and what's meant by once,twice removed?

Regards

mark

It gets more complicated than that in fact Mark, but the GR tree won't allow cousin marriages.
Obviously Henry VIII is only going to appear on anyone's tree as either a marriage or cousin link because he has no descendants. I think I'd probably add any first husband/partner of any other wife of an ancestor of mine but Henry is only there because I found it interesting.

I could put him on as a cousin......but the link is rather a lot of generations back and I don't normally come downwards on GR on any cousin lines for more than a few generations.

Once you get into medieval genealogy everyone whose records have survived is related and numerous times over in a multitude of ways! It's a whole different game then.

Like I said modern royals have millions of routes back to the Conqueror and anyone with a medieval link probably has dozens. That means a spouse's family are probably related too.

Sue

I tend to look only at the direct family - and find out as much about the 'nitty gritty' as I can. However, my ggg grandfather's brother was in prison in 1851, so I researched him - he'd tried to de-rail a train! He disappeared after that and may have gone abroad.
I also notice on one family, the same surname as witnesses on marriages for 4 generations , the children of one lot of my ancestors were also baptised with this family - finally found a marriage between the families - 2 generations later - and found my gran had letters from these cousins. The cousins grandmother had live to the age of 100, dying in 1933! Quite a feat and worth looking in to!!
I'm also sort of looking up my grandad's best mate, Stanley.
May seem a bit odd, but I know Stanley and his wife Hilda never had any children, so the chances of anyone doing their genealogy are slim.
Not sure if Stanley's brothers had any children.
What intrigues me is that Stanley was black - his mother was 4th generation (black) Hampshire born - Southampton to be precise - and his father was from Barbados.
I want to show that black immigration didn't come over on the Empire Windrush (which BTW, I (whitish) came over on too- from Malta!!) Immigration had been here for ages - particularly in port towns. Oh - and Hilda was white.
None of this is on my rather sparse tree on GR - it's nothing to do with my genealogy - just my butterfly mind!
Another thing , my gg uncle (white) worked in a Chinese Laundry - which have also been in port towns for decades!!

Hi Sue

You have a very interesting tree, but i could not personally put King Henry the VIII in my tree unless he was blood related. If i had the time to prove King Henry was related to a distant cousin of mine i would be the first to shout from the roof tops and say he is related to a cousin of mine but i would never say i was related to King henry without a blood line.
I found Boris Johnsons family tree interesting on WDYTYR as i believe he was related to royalty by blood, I don't think the excitement he had would be the same if it was only by marriage,i might be wrong.

mark

Sometimes Mark finding out about an ancestor's social group and doing what is known as a cluster genealogy can be fascinating.

People have to have met their spouses somehow and it can be revealing to discover the family circle, extended family and even their friends. I like to find out about the places people live and the times they lived in. I have been intrigued by business partnerships and trying to work out why people left stuff to other people in wills.

Sometimes you know it really is fun to add certain people to your tree just because you can LOL. I've just remembered I have Henry VIII on mine......and for a good reason (sort of!). He had a son with a mistress called Elizabeth (Bessie) Blount.

Elizabeth married my ancestor Edward Clinton-Fiennes. He was her toy boy and he married really well because she was a lot older than he was and seriously rich. Edward had been a ward of the King (so I reckon took Bessie off Henry's hands as a favour and Elizabeth's lands in Lincolnshire were right next to Edward's).

Edward had several daughters with Bessie and for a while he was stepfather to the only son Henry VIII had then (one Henry was considering as his heir). So he was nearly the stepfather of a king.

Bessie died leaving Edward everything (her son having died). Edward then married his second wife and their son was my ancestor.

So it's a by marriages connection but interesting to me anyway and possibly to anyone else who is descended from Edward.

Sue
x

I have myself used two sites that have helped me in my research when these sites collect a large tree of many different families from a certain area, one been Brotherton in Yorkshire and the other been the isle of Axholme in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. I would never find the time to do this kind of research and i was grateful for those sites as i may of struggled with my research, but sometimes they do make mistakes which luckily can be changed if the host agrees or disagrees with you.

I will change my argument to make it more clear and understandable 'i chose to only research blood relatives and not ancestors of relatives spouses and also chose not to copy living relatives of those contacts who show Living relatives,what's your opinion',I should of started my argument that way as that is generally the argument i was trying to make.

Yes it's Jacky!

She and I have found two ways we are distantly related to each other by two different Fenland families (the Fines and the Todds).

I came across her when discovering my Fines/Fynes/Fiennes ancestors and she belongs to my online research group for those researching that family. Her database has been brilliant. Every now and then I come across someone on GR who is descended from one of that family and it always helps them to see Jacky's site.

Sue
x

Hi Sue

Thanks for not making me feel guilty by your last reply. I do understand a lot of people have a lot of time especially the retired and those who can't get out much and that its there choice to choose how they research there tree. Even though in the past i foolishly let people look at my living relatives i was under the impression they would have common sense not to copy living relatives.

My opinion has got muddled up, if you look at my opinion about my Irish Aunty via marriage,that is the argument i have tried to make. If someone wants to say there related to a king via marriages thats there choice, i just choose not to research my tree that way, I am generally only interested in blood relatives.

I have to admit i like looking at wickapedia for famous people as it gives there ancestry as i find it interesting, and i love the program 'who do you think you are' but tahts as far as i will go in looking at someone else's ancestry,guess i am nosey.

Mark

At some point most of us have come across people who happily add anyone to their tree even if the link is tenuous.
There have been numerous threads on this site about living relations being taken from a tree and added on to that of a contact and a lot of us saw that happen when we started on here.

I don't think anyone was offended as such Mark but I think you yourself have already stopped it happening on your own tree by more careful sharing, so really you've already sorted your own problem.

When this site started as Genesconnected years ago there was a brief time when we were actively encouraged to try to link up our trees to create a huge online one. That didn't last for long because of the privacy problems and the fact the site grew so quickly.

Some family historians are still happy to try to create huge trees in all directions just because they enjoy doing so. There is really nothing at all wrong with that if the data they have collected has been freely given. It may be of real help to more researchers.

Many people doing genealogy are perfectly happy to research people who have no relationship to them at all. Some like doing celebrities, US presidents or they may collect the many different ways that royal family members are descended from ancestors like William the Conqueror (millions of ways by the way!). At that point it becomes a mental exercise like doing a sudoku or a jigsaw puzzle.

If it keeps the old brain cells going then that must be a good thing.

LOL
Sue
x

The term i used 'some researchers have too much time on there hands' was the wrong thing to say and i am sorry for that term. But i can't say sorry for my original opinion which i am entitled to.

I never meant to offend anyone, i did say it is my personal choice, i am not against other researches preferences to which they research. I no longer let contacts look at living relatives but used to but most contacts are not related to me in any form and did choose to copy my living relatives. a researcher would not like it if i contacted them to say i was related to there great uncle for them to find out later on that i was related to there great uncle via marriage and that i copied every name that i was not related to. I admit i foolishly let contacts see my living relatives and so have many others let me see there living relatives, but i have always had the common sense to not copy living relatives and have also chosen not to copy relatives i am not related to just to make my tree look larger and more interesting.

and again apologies for offending but i am apologizing for having a opinion i am entitled to no matter how wrong or right i am.

Regards

Mark

You say "why does a contact have the cheek to copy my gg grandfathers descendants when this contact is only related to my gg grandfathers brother via marriage."

I'm wondering why on earth you are showing so remotely connected people your tree in the first place?

If someone contacts me who is not closely related I simply reply that I have few details about the linking person on our trees. I certainly don't open my tree to people who only share one or two people.

As for how much time anyone chooses to spend doing family history in whatever form it takes well that really doesn't concern anyone else does it? I do spurts of genealogy when I may spend many hours on a line. I run several online family history groups and give talks on it from time to time.

I think it is a true thing that if you want something done you ask a busy person........I have numerous other interests. I bet a lot of other family historians are the same.

Have fun however you choose to do it. It is a hobby remember.

Sue

'Some researches have too much time on there hands' ?

It is my hobby ... you know nothing about me or other researchers ... many housebound people, as well as those of us that spend many hours alone each day, get real satisfaction from their research & from helping others in theirs!

Without those who have spent time researching & transcribing, you would not have been able to find many of your blood relatives!

Some researches have too much time on there hands, i have 1300 relatives on my tree which includes spouses but if i was to research relatives spouses ancestors that i am not related to i could get many thousands more names on my tree. I am not against others researching relatives spouses ancestors,its just that i find it annoying when a contact is only connected to my relatives via marriage Example been someone's ggg aunt married my ggg uncle,this contact is related to my ggg uncles descendants but not his and my ancestors or my gg grandfathers descendants, why does a contact have the cheek to copy my gg grandfathers descendants when this contact is only related to my gg grandfathers brother via marriage.

My original argument is contacts copying details from someone's tree to make there tree look larger and in no way they are related to me. And because i have a relatives spouse on my tree and a contact contacts me and is persistent to know who this spouse's ancestors are including siblings, how come a contact in my case is persistent to know when i am not interested in spouses parents and siblings, i am not related to the spouses ancestors,i am related to there descendants. Some contacts find that odd.

Regards

mark.

When I asked my 3 BIL's if they minded me putting their names on my tree they all started to give me information about their Parents/G.Parents ... so if I get bogged down with mine I have a little look at theirs. (but only have them & their parents on GR tree at the moment)

I am starting to do a 'Village History Tree' so do have some names on this tree that as yet do not link with my families ... small village so as I go back I am finding more links. ( On PC not GR)

I have only rarely spent money on searching sideways branches and that was when doing research as a gift for family members. I found a lot of my stepmother's ancestors for her and I also spent a while researching my husband's nephew's paternal ancestors (no connection to even my husband).

I have several unusual or even rare names in my tree so I've spent time tracking down as many of those as I can and saving details of them even if I can't attach them to my own line yet. I recently found a new connection with a branch of distant cousins in the USA and I was able to share the relevant ancestry with them. I'd had their branch on file for a few years without knowing how they linked.

One of my contacts is doing a large study of Fenland families from Lincolnshire. It started as her own relations but has spread outwards in all directions.
This is now a very complicated thing and I know she and I are related twice by totally different branches. Her hard work in setting this up, and adding in data as people share it, has made this a really excellent resource. Not all the people on the database are related to her and many may link only by several marriages but there is a point in what she has done.

Buying certificates only gets you back to 1837 anyway and for many of us that is recent genealogy on our trees. After that it is down to a lot of hard work finding documents and information where we can.

But this is a hobby and there is no right or wrong way to research your tree. So long as you are enjoying it and it isn't costing more than you can afford then no one should worry.

I don't tend to open my tree to contacts with only a slight link. I will happily send them information if I have any but my whole tree is only shared with those who share a lot of my ancestors. Even then I tell them before I do open my tree that they are welcome to have details of any shared and relevant ancestors. I have no living people or facts likely to upset anyone on my GR Tree.

Sue