General Chat

Hi Janet

Researching someone out of interest who is related by marriage is ok but for some researchers to say there related to a king because 1 of there distant uncles married a woman who was related distantly via marriage to someone else who is then distantly related to marriage to someone else and so on and so on until eventually they come upon a king they are not remotely related to and then pass them on as there own relation is just taking the biscuit.

I don't often get sidetracked but I was intrigued by my Dad's aunt by marriage. She died a horrible death during the war and I started investigating her family. She was the third child of her parents and her mother died shortly after her birth. I have not been able to find her as a young child but I did find her father in the workhouse and her two brothers in a reform school. On the next census her father appears in prison but there is no trace of her or her brothers. Finally she appears as a servant on the 1901 shortly before her marriage to my great uncle.

I so hope she had a happy life with her husband and daughter as her start and end of her life were so tragic.

Thanks Budgie.

Thats the point i have been trying to explain. I am not interested in my sister in laws ancestors,there not my ancestors,they are my nieces ancestors, and when my nieces ever get interested in there mothers family tree i will happily help them in there research. The point is i am related to my in laws children(descendants), i am not interested in my in laws ancestors but would help in there research.

Regards

Mark

St Patricks is upon us. and using the Irish theme is a good way to prove my point. My Aunty via marriage is Irish,her children(my cousins) are half Irish, I have no ancestors who are Irish only via marriage. Just because my Aunty via marriage who i am proud to call Aunty and some of my cousins are half Irish does not make me Irish. I am not going to go to the pub on wednesday with a guinness hat on my head and say i am Irish because it would be a lie. I love the Irish and would be proud to say i was part Irish but i won't say i am Irish when i'm not.

If i researched my uncle by marriage,i am related to his kids but i am not related to his ancestors unless i was retired and had time to find out his ancestors were cousins of my distant ancestors,its a possibility if i went back enough but its a lot of work especially if i did it for every relative via marriage.

And if i found out my Uncle via marriage was related to King Alfred the great does not make me related to King Alfred the great unless i can prove my uncle via marriage is a cousin of one of my ancestors that links me,my ancestors and my uncle via marriage to King Alfred the great, and i would only be satisfied i was related to King Alfred the great if it was by blood,i would not be interested if i was related via marriage.

Its a harsh opinion but its a opinion i believe in.

Regards

Mark

I look for as many links as I can...within reason.

It is a personal choice as to the direction you want your tree to grow.
But you maybe missing out on some very ,very ,VERY interesting links and stories regarding links via those you choose not to pursue.

But as I say ..your choice.

If had done the same as you..I would not know now I am related to at least 5 US Presidents. Including George Washington and George Bush.

Plus I am related to General Robert E . Lee of the Confederate Army.
Or that I am relate to the Present Queen and even Princess Di.

And just today I have found I have a supposed Witch in the family..about who a book has been written.

But.....the way you have decided to trace your family...may mean you are missing out on alot of great stories and family links....

Just a thought..
Regards

KING BOOGIE....decendent of more Royals than I can count....lol.

I only buy certificates of direct ancestor and sometimes uncle and aunts when i can afford them. I prefer a certificate as its the best way to confirm info and sometimes find out things you wouldn't know if you didn't purchase. I would not of been able to confirm my great granma was born out of wedlock if i didn't purchase her birth certificate, and i would not of found out my great great great granddad died in a asylum if i didn't purchase his death certificate in which i was able to purchase his medical records.

I do use freebmd and census for non relatives when i find time,but i still don't put this info on my tree unless i can prove they are cousins when they married.

Do you know that on Ancestry.com you can now search births by mothers maiden name for 1915-1984,which sometimes makes it easier than trawling through the old way, they is a flaw though and i know this as a fact that they can't of transcribed it all because relatives i have found the old way i haven't been able to find this new way.

regards

Mark

I tend to find that I can work out a lot of info of the non-blood relatives with the aid of FreeBMD and censuses. I wouldn't buy certificates for any of them. And I wouldn't attempt to do this with a common name ...

However, I'm doing a One Name Study and although I don't need to put those people into families I do try and do that. I've not bought one certificate for that lot (apart from the ones in my direct line). But if you have most/all of the names in a given period it's relatively easy to match them up. None of the ONS people are on my tree on here but I keep my eyes peeled for the ONS names and contact members on here who have them in their trees.

Jill

I must admit that once by chance i found a ggg uncle who married his cousin and when i have found time i have found that this has happened on a few occasions. And i do sometimes understand why some people will research non blood relatives ancestors but thats there choice. Like i said its time and money. I am not going to buy a birth certificate of a non blood relative to find out who his/her father is and mothers maiden name is,if i did that for every non blood relative it would cost me a fortune.

I like to add spouses parents if only to aid or eliminate others enquiries

Hi Everyone

Thanks for your replies.

Mine is a personal choice,i just don't have the time or money to research non blood relatives. Plus i don't want to include there ancestors because it confuses contacts,what i mean is i can have a uncle via marriage but don't know who his parents or siblings are but some contacts can be persistent for info you can't give them, if i have time i do help them out. But the problem is i help these contacts out and i let them look at my tree and they copy ancestors of mine they are not related to, I used to let contacts look at living relatives but not anymore.

Regards

mark.

My ancestors are from a cluster of small villages in Somerset and I get the same names cropping up again and again - and often connect them up with names already in my tree. As a result, most of the relationships in my tree have a + after them, ie 1st Cousin 3 Times Removed +. Which means they are cousins to me in more ways than one - highest so far is 7 different ways.

So yes, I do check on the ancestors of whoever married my aunt, cousin or whatever - because you never know...... lol

sometimes if theres a real mystery you have to branch out as it were

Good point there, Sue. On several occasions within various sides of my tree, I have found "loops", if you like.

For instance my grandad Joseph was the grandson of John, John had a sister Ellen who married James Yates, James had a sister named Margaret who married John Sherman, John had a brother named Edward. Edward married Ada Worsley (nee Willday). Ada had had a daughter named Alice with her first husband. Alice's daughter Ada married my grandad! (So my grandparents were "linked" before they even married.)

This does happen quite a lot in small villages, I have found - I've even got inter-generational marriages! My ancestor Joseph Hurst had two sons, John and George, a couple of years apart. John only had three children (during his twenties) including a Joseph, whose eldest son was a John Hurst (I'll call him John no. 2 here). George had about 14 children over 22 years - his youngest, Susannah (my 3xgreat grandma) married John Hurst no 2 . . .

So sometimes the apparent "side branches" turn out to be your ancestors after all! I'm just glad Reunion can cope with it all.

And, as you mention, work colleagues and associates can be interesting. My ancestors on another line were living together in 1861 before marriage - not so odd when it turns out that she was the butcher's daughter and he seems to have been the butcher's accountant. (Then there are the two ag labs working together in 1851 who subsequently became the first and second husbands of another local girl . . .)

Many people are doing what are called cluster genealogy studies. It can be interesting to look into a few generations back for anyone marrying into your tree because they are often connected in other ways. When people marry they have to have met somehow and that is often through work or family connections.

So you may discover that Mr A marrying your Miss B turns out to be a distant cousin or perhaps a work colleague of Miss B's father or brother.

Looking at any documents relating to them may perhaps lead to a breakthrough in your own tree.

I was stuck on one branch of my family. They lived in West Somerset but appeared suddenly in an area and not from any parish nearby.
I found a will for an ancestral uncle. He mentioned leaving money to a sister living in America. I eventually found her arrival to America with her husband and two small children. I went sideways again and found her children's baptisms and her husband's family.

Tracing her husband gave me a clue where they might have met and I eventually found her many miles away from where I'd expected. Finding her enabled me to find her other brother.........my ancestor.

We can do this hobby any way we like so long as it doesn't upset anyone else. Some people like to study entire villages or even do area studies. These can be very valuable resources for other researchers and may reveal quite an intricate web of relationships.

Sue

I will generally add the siblings and parents of the person who has married into the family. I do this more out of interest than because I feel I should - I love the whole research thing:)))

Sue

Its personal choice.

At the moment I am doing a swap of information with someone but this is because the one woman connecting us married twice, had children from both marriages and I have one husbands family covered and they have the other. I think we both understand why the other hasn't investigated the other husbands ancestors but both have her decendants (all the children from both marriages) in our tree. Although if time and money were in limitless supply we probably would have.

At the moment I am trying to stick to 'blood' ancestors or descendants and only adding spouses. My tree though is very young so maybe when I have exhusted my core tree I might branch out.

Anyone who doesn't understand why you haven't researched a relatives spouses ancestors though is probably just a bit miffed you couldn't hand them a pre done tree.

Dermot

We are all related on here,,,,either through blood or marriage

We live on an island so it dont take long to mingle lol

CR

Dermot I hope you're not putting all those living cousins in your GR forest

I love to research anyone connected directly or indirectly, close or distant relatives, up, down, sideways or otherwise. I am not satisfied having added my sister's new husband to my tree - I include the new husband's family too, parents, cousins & so on.

I am the sort of person who carries pen & paper particulary to family gatherings where I seldom come away without some new morsel of family detail. Nor am I slow to ask such questions.

Some refer to my family tree on Genesreunited as a 'forest'. I admit - it's my adiction for which I do not wish to be cured, thank you.

(Just a thought - anyone on here related to me? Or, would anyone like to be related to me? LOL).