General Chat

I rarely add these people to my tree, usually making notes in the comments (on Ancestry)

But have spent the whole weekend researching just a family that a g.g.aunt married into. Now her family branch relationships were convoluted and so it seems is the family she married into. I have been completely drawn in

My notes are copious and am now tempted to add them (this is her husbands Father and his parents/siblings).

Just thought I would see if anyone else does the same as me, especially as not going into tree. I suppose it is rather like doing research for someone else.

Just so fascinating.

I don't do the whole in-law thing but when an ancestor has married I add the parents of the bride or groom. That way any 'family report' will say John Smith married Jane Jones daughter of.....

You're not alone ;-)

While you were researching, you took 'ownership' - they felt as if they were your ancestors as much as your 'real' ones were.

Add them to your tree - it may help someone more directly related. You can always take a pruning saw to it later :-D

Guilty.

Was only going to stick with nearest family members but
find myself going deeper into various branches that are
not related to me.

Every now and then am drawn in hook line and sinker and
not only with my tree but others I'm researching.

Emma

That's true. I have to say I love the researching side of things. Once I looked at the vicar who had married various members of my family. I couldn't help it - I researched him too :-0

I've often contacted someone regarding an ancestor who is their ancestors second husband or wife. It's been invaluable to learn stories about their later years.

I have 1 tree that expands all over the place as I am linking the local families on OH's side, this solves my compulsive searching , but my main tree is just that main branches only

That's how you end up with a forest rather than a tree.

My tree has a 1000 in it now and really that's 800 too many and don't know who is who

Not sure I could cope with a 20, 30 or 40k tree

If I research a branch of inlaws, I add details to the tree. Done the work once, don't have to do it again

Andy

I got really excited once, found lots of records, some quite interesting family info and spent a good week or more delving.

I then came back down to Earth with a bump when it dawned on me that they were in laws of inlaws of an Aunt who had married into my gt grand fathers sisters family.

If the family interest me then I will put children and sometimes grand children of siblings of great grandparents, or gt gt or gt gt gt, you get the idea.....

If I can I will also make a note of parents of the wives or husbands who have married into the family.

If they were actually a grand parent of some kind I will try to go back as far as I can with them.

I feel that those random names from two hundred years ago or more are just as important as my own parents. Without just one of them I wouldn't be here.

M

I always look at siblings of anyone who marries into my lot...... especially if they come from a small(ish) Scottish town. There's a good chance one of the siblings also married one of my mob!

I don't have a tree......... I have a jungle

:-D

What I have done is started a 3rd tree with the daughter who married and her husband and his family
I have also added her parents, her stepmother and all the step-children.
This way I can add to this tree without clogging my own one up with lots of 'non-relatives'.
Looks like I may consider doing a few more like this as I find more interesting 'ancestors'

Must say that is one facility on Ancestry which I find really useful, no need to have more than one account and can have as many trees as I wish. ;-)

I have 1 tree that is just blood relations + spouses & their parents... now hit not just brick walls but armour plated ones :-(

also I tree that goes off in all directions ... Whilst roaming off on one of my brother in laws branches I found a name that seemed familiar, looked it up & found that we have GGGGrandparents in common.

I am often contacted by people who want to know more about one of my 'spouses' families & have occupied lots of hours researching for them, all I find is then added to that tree :-D so it is now huge, a one world tree stretching all over the world.

I do not think of my trees as personally mine & am happy to share all I find.

Not like this person :-D :-D

My Genes are unique

My Genes are unique; because all my ancestors are, just mine.
Only children have married only children, since the beginning of the line.
In my Family Tree there is not a Cousin, Uncle or an Aunt, a Sister or a Brother
All my ancestors are just mine; in no shape or form do they belong to another.
With anyone doing a ‘One Name Study’, I do not agree,
Because, My Names, just belong to ME!
Anon

....................
At the moment I am researching my small 'home' village. I find it fascinating to find out that Great Great Grand Parents grew up in the same village & wonder if they were friends.

It was through researching my hubbies tree that I found out that we were vaguely related,something like third cousins. You never know what life will throw at you.

I found that my wife great grandmothers were sisters. Makes all sorts of odd relations. Her mother has a half sister who is her own second cousin.

Andy

I now only add marry-ins about one generation away in either direction - I do try to complete those, especially occupations, from the censuses as it does help to confirm identities.

I have to admit when I first started I was so thrilled to get the marry-in connections that I filled them all in - I'm reluctant to delete them but still get queries - and A-y does manage to provide more and more lateral information which I have to resist! lovely for my direct bloodlines of course!

And I should confess I have filled in a lot of very remote cousins when I was able to confirm family rumours of a connection to Shelley!

Like SueMaid, I try to add parents of a marry-in, with occupation, date and place of birth if I can find it.

I rarely go further..................... but over the years I have been intrigued with a group of my ancestors' siblings who emigrated to Australia in the 1840s and 1850s, some of them then moving onto California.

Last year, I became fascinated with the daughter of a direct ancestor's niece (!) who married, had children, then died, all in the UK. Her husband married again, but I discovered that one of the girls from the first marriage ended up in NZ, having married a man with a Germanic name

That was it .................... especially when I found her name on Google, and a history of them as "founders" of Wellington!

It really was very interesting, and enthralling. The couple seem to have married very soon after they met. The husband's brother also married on the same day.

Within 3 days they were on a ship going to NZ, taking about 3 months to get there.

It seems the trip was almost on the spur of the moment according to what their granddaughter wrote .................. "Fred" went down to the docks, and walked along the line of ships asking if any were going to NZ, and if there was any room for passengers. One captain said there was, as long as they got on board by nightfall!


The story just went on and on and on



Now ................. I have no idea what I am going to do with it!

So glad to see that we all have our own ways of dealing with this 'tricky' subject.

New tree started yesterday and looking good. About 30 people so far and have yet to add some children, but it is such fun....

it's the research that drives us :-D

I get carried away when the same surname 'marries in'. It took quite a bit of work to see that Mary's husband was her mother Jane's 2nd cousin once removed. Also discovered that Jane's 2nd cousin married a male on another line of mine. So I now have a mini mum's tree too.

B