* Who should be included on a family Tree?

[billbirchall]

I know that this is pretty much, down to the individual, but I would welcome comments.I have just contacted a person who is related through marriage to two of my GGG Aunts. She has an enormous amount of relatives from those lines.Am I realistically entitled to add them to mine (subject of course to authorisation of the family tree holder) or are they too tentative, not being a direct blood line? I would welcome some expert advice before proceeding.

Bill

ID:3799

[RalfofAmber]

I think it all depends on what you want, you could maintain a big tree of all known direct and indirect relatives and split out more specific lines. I certainly have wandered fairly wide into 6th/7th cousins and then for spouses I might do their immediate family.

I also keep all instances of a key surname in a location in case they ever join together

[JonAxtell]

You are entitled to do anything you want. People don't have to be on your direct blood line to be included in your research. The only thing to take into account is living people. It depends on the scope of your project. For instance a One Name Study will include everyone with the same surname whilst a One Place Study will include everyone born or living in a single location.

[Bilko]

I totally agree that the limit is what you as a historian want to record. There have been numerous examples of people being omitted due to their being 'related by marriage' and later being found to be a blood-cousin. There was discussion recently about recording the Registrar or Vicar, which one lady said she'd found several members of her family were in the priesthood and officiated (when allowed).

However, from my own experience, I would always recommend that if you do decide to include the details from someone else's research - always give them credit for having done the research. If you set the 'auto Source Citation' then that could later be used to identify the details provided, where they fit in, and so on. It also means that if someone points out an error, you have an opportunity to confirm whether it was your own research {thus knowing the source} or that of the donor - to whom you could then provide an update. Unfortunately, in my case, the donor of a great deal of information was unable to enjoy the benefit of our 2 sets of data being merged - she died before the merge arrived.

Hope this helps

Bilko

[AdrianBruce]

Wholly agree with previous comments. Do whatever you want and whatever interests you - but equally (a) credit the person as a source (b) don't load it if it's not up to your own standards.

For instance, as a general rule I am happy to load data from my contacts in GenesReunited where it relates to their grandparents or later, on the basis that isn't too big a leap for people to make so is likely to be fairly safe. (Caveats re living people). For contacts earlier than that, it depends on whether I feel I can trust what they have done. After a while, when I've reproduced some of their work myself, I may say that yes, this person does good research and therefore they're as likely as me to be right. Maybe more so!

I have included people outside my relatives or relatives of relatives, where they have some importance to the story:- business partners, for instance. Doesn't mean I'm going to start finding census etc for them, but keeping the Occupation details of business partners in the standard place just makes life easier to find it all again.

Equally, just because someone has a connection - don't feel obliged to load them if you don't feel they are likely to impinge on your 'core' interests. Just store the data somewhere.

As always - do what you want but think it through.

[billbirchall]

Thanks to all who have commented. They have all been extremely helpful.I always make reference to the source and would only include it if it is reliable, which in my particular case, it is.

Bill