Family Historian User Group

I always find it interesting to add the parents, brothers and sisters of my ancestors' spouses to my family tree. This  helps me to find out what their lives were like, and how they lived can also play a big part in what happens to my ancestors.
The problem is I end up with people in my tree who are not related directly. This obviously leaves gaps in my data (when looking at relationship to the root person for instance).
Am I going to far? I'd like opinions please before my tree gets too out of hand![confused]

ID:2255

I have a few 'unrelated' people in my tree too. Some of our ancestors came from a tiny village in Bedfordshire and there are about 5 families in the village who seem to have intermarried over the generations, I included them all in my tree simply because it was easier and less confusing in the long run. I think as long as you know the difference between your ancestors and 'others' it is all right. (I have included a column in my records window showing who my direct ancestors are.

I do pretty much the same and put in anyone who has a connection.My tree has nearly 3000 individuals and quite a lot are not directly related.To help me identify people on diagrams I have a coloured box for my direct ancestors and another colour for my blood relatives.Remember to have the ancestor box as the main one if there is a conflict.I find it interesting to see how various families have developed and quite often one of the unrelated individuals turns out to actually be related!![smile]

Where do you want to stop?
That's the real question.
I have been bitten badly by the research bug and am really fascinated as to what happened to my families. Yes, that tends to bring in people who are not directly related but that's up to you to decide.

Personally I work on the relations first then go back to the indirect relations. I'm also interested in the (possibly) completely unrelated people like marriage witnesses, servants etc. What bought them to be involved with my family?

My advice? do as much as you feel comfortable with.

I have put lots of information on my tree about people who married into my family, etc, and have sometimes found that in fact that second cousins lived next door to each other or other distant relatives via marriage ended up marrying each other. It all helps me build up an idea of the communities that they lived in and I find it fascinating. However I am also contacted quite regularly by people looking at my tree on various websites and they ask me about these people and I always try to help them as much as possible. Through doing a little searching on their particular relative I sometimes find out even more about that community and sometimes even get told anecdotes that their great grandmother (or grandfather!) told them, or even get a photo taken 100 years ago of the village school, etc. Photos like that give me information too about the kind of clothes my relatives wore and what the roads looked like then! All little things, but a history different from just collecting names and dates. It is all part of the joy of family research for me. Paula

P.S. Sometimes when you get a bit stuck with your own direct tree it is also refreshing to investigate a different branch and find some results! [smile]

This question has been bugging me for sometime now...

I've just added, via marriages not bloodline, Alfred Lord Tennyson to my tree

And he is supposedly decended from King Edward III, do I add that? Probably not!

I'm really not sure WHERE to stop though!?!

Sometimes we find you have to find out who everyone is in an unrelated family to satisfy ourselves that we have the right ones as in-laws or whatever. Also the same names often turn up again married to other relations generation after generation, and you just have to figure out how they're related. But we too have a flag for ancestors and another for relations so they look different in the working diagram.

Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that we're off-topic if we're getting further than in-laws and their immediate families. We always remove all the in-laws for Genes reunited and the like though

I currently have a flag for direct ancestors, and am thinking of adding a relations one as well

But what would be defined as a relation?

i.e. if my grandads sister gets married and has kids, are these relations please?

I'm a little confused!

Thanks
Tony

Yes, because they are descendents of your great-grandfather. The query needs to select all your ancestors and then all the descendents of everyone already selected (excluding spouses in both cases).

ChrisBowyer said:
Yes, because they are descendents of your great-grandfather. The query needs to select all your ancestors and then all the descendents of everyone already selected (excluding spouses in both cases).

Thanks, will give it ago

I'm doing a ONS study of Axtell so I include more than just my direct ancestors. My policy is to include all the descendants of an Axtell. I also include the spouses of any such descendant. However I only include the spouses' parents and siblings so that there is some context for the spouse. I sometimes include more than of the relations by marriage but this is in specific cases usually related to subjects such as a specific village or multiple marriages between families.