Genealogy Chat

I am curious to know how many rellies folk have in their trees. How long did it take you to build your tree? How many messages do you get each month? What are you interested in: tracing your name back in time? tracing any/all lines back in time? Finding long lost cousins? etc., etc.?

Some information about myself. I have been interested in family history for about 20 years, but only joined GR last December. I have 458 rellies in my tree, but deliberately do not put anyone who may still be living on my tree so most are before around 1915. I am getting about 15 messages a month with this size of tree and have made half a dozen really useful contacts. My tree has grown a lot since I joined GR, but seems to be growing sideways rather than backwards in time. I am interested most in tracing my roots further back in time. In doing this I am interested in all possible lines.

Hi Ian, Ive got about 386. Following each generations parents and sprouting off to siblings sometimes. Im back to the the pre 1837 days now on all lines and finding it hard going compared to the post registration and census years. I have every cert available (BMD) for my direct ancestors and have starting on getting church register copies now. I started because I was Ill at home and had been given a few details from living family relatives and then once I started I got hooked. Suzanne

I have 361 rellies in my tree. I started in February this year, so am pretty pleased with what I have found so far. I tend to stick to direct ancestors and their siblings, but may branch out at a later date.|'ve only had a few contacts on here regarding my family, but one was excellent she had sooo much information on one of my lines and was able to keep me on the right track. One of my rellies was a mormon pioneer with 3 wives and 27 children, because of that the LDS site has around 17 pedigree charts for that branch of my family, it was a nightmare! through this contact that branch of my family goes back to 1630.I'm happy with quality rather than quantity. and so far I've not found any close rellies that I didn't know about Linda

hi Ian if you click on a members name it will tell you how many in their tree and when they joined. jenny

Thanks Jenny, a useful tip! I am still interested, though, in how people go about building their tree. For instance, is there some critical size you reach when the number of contacts suddenly takes off?

Hi You can't get that many in your tree if like me my mother was an only child her mother was an only child and my father only had 2 sisters and one brother and they in turn 1 had no children the other only had 1 so does not make for a large tree Margaret

mines not a tree any more its a forrest with in excess off 100,000 been researched for the past 35yrs Paul

Margaret, My mum's only brother is unmarried with no children, she has no sisters. My dad has one sister who has 2 children, one of which has 2 children himself. So I just have 2 'real'/first cousins (I'm 41) But I started this in November and when you get back a few generations you'll find they were all popping babies out right, left & centre. My family's average is 8-12. If you only add the siblings (without following THEIR offspring) you soon get a big tree. I now have over 500 on my tree & have discovered lots of new lines. I'm settling down to checking all the info I've been given now & backing it up with refs & certs. Don't be put off that the family you know is small - the ones you don't know yet are out there waiting for you to find them.... Good luck Sarah :-)

On Genes about 3000, in Family Tree Maker probably another 1000 or so, but that's because I include siblings, in laws etc. I don't have many direct relatives, in fact I doubt if there's 300 in total of my own ancestors. My husband has a lot of ancestors and this is the main reason so many are in my tree. I wanted to trace 2 of his Gran's brothers who were killed at the Somme. There were so many with the same name (Sim) from the same area (Fraserburgh) that I had to put them in the tree to know who they were - if that makes sense - as so many also had the same first names. I then had to include their spouses etc etc etc! Result is I have a lot of folk related to each other if not to myself, and as a lot have been verified I'm happy to pass on what I know. My main interest is knowing about their lives, their work, and so on, and because there are so many I can see how they met, who they lived with, who lived next door, how they got their jobs etc. Earliest? A few in 1600's, alhough if I include 1 illegitimate line it's supposed to go back to 980 - according to IGI! Aye, right!

Hubby and I have been researching for about 10 years. We have 5,500 on our home tree together. Generally we like to reseach both forwards and backwards, with a policy of forward research that we always stop at the 1901 census. The only branches that come forward from 1901 are those where we have made contact with a living distant cousin and then their branch is the only one brought forward. This makes it easier to keep tabs on who we have been in touch with! The going backwards on our direct lines has mostly come to brickwalls now. Some of these are impervious ones, where John Smith was born in an unknown place, or similar. Some are just where getting to the appropriate RO to do the research is too tricky! Merry

Hallo Ian My view is that size isn't everything. Quality & accuracy are more important than quantity. But everyone has their own ideas about trees - some want to go as far back as they can etc. I was really just interested in going back to my gt x 3 grandparents (which is roughly around 1800) and fleshing out the details, so I've got info about siblings and their descendants too. I've been doing this online for about 3 years and in the last 2 years have been going out to records offices etc. One advantage of going back looking at all branches of family as opposed to just following the paternal line, etc is that when you get to a brick wall, you can go off to another branch of the family. What you find out depends - I have lots of info on some branches as I had Family Bible, letters, photos, etc. Some relatives were in prison, or gave evidence in settlement disputes etc so I have a lot of info on those. Others just have bmd info. I have many I still can't find on a census. There are 545 people in my non-GR tree, some of whom I am about 95% sure are related though I haven't quite made full connections yet. nell

I have just hit the 700 mark on my tree programme. It's taken me over 5 years and some of them are still in the process of being checked - ie waiting for certs. I have yet to be contacted about a direct family rellie through the Hotmatches thingee, though I've had plenty of enquiries on the twigs...that's a bit frustrating as I'm trying to only go back to about 1800 with the twigs.....which keep getting thicker and thicker.... more of a rambling hedge than a tree really :-( Does that make sense? Sylvia

I have another 311 people in my husband's family tree, which I started doing when I got stuck on my own one. If he didn't have so many blinky Welsh relatives called William Williams and Thomas Williams and William Thomas and John Jones and Evan Evans etc I would probably have been able to find more. His Jewish gt gt grandfather was a nightmare too birth cert said Zuzman marriage cert said Zusman daughter's birth cert said Zuseman street directory had Zuesman and he's been mistranscribed on censuses and other records as Guzman, Luzman, Luisman, Juseman, Tusman. Surname Hart is almost as common in Jewish community as Evans is in Wales! nell

I have about 400 on here, but I could probably double that figure if I added people born after 1930 and all the grandchildren of distant relatives. I add my direct ancestors and their siblings and spouses but only children if I am particularly interested in them I usually do if they emigrated or I have a contact with that branch of the family. I have been doing my tree on line for about a year but know where to look as I did a degree in medieval history when I was young. I find the most useful contacts are from abroad or people who did their research in the old days in record offices and can confirm the on-line information. Recent hot matches have only provided extra links to the same people in some cases the names I supplie comming back. The most useful recent contact was from leaving my name on a village web site. A lady sent me a book about the village including a staff photo of the village school which included my grandmother and a photo of my grandfather's shop. I also contacted a relative in Australia who was able to send me a photo of about 30 of my grandfather's relatives including most of his brothers and siters nad their spouses all named taken about 1906. I had never seen a picture of him as a young man with an Edwardian moustache before. I did find some relatives of mine on a site modestly entitled descendents of William the conqueror which had links to everyone but i decided not to copy the names when I found my great grandmother married to her brother-in-law. I have been trying to enter details on to the lost cousins web site and have found 11 direct ancestors on the 1881 census so far.

I've got nearly 800 on this site but I don't include many sideways lines which I keep on file at home. I've been researching my tree for about ten years and I had reached the stage of brickwalls and dead ends on most lines then early this year I had a major breakthrough. I discovered a 2x great grandmother was descended from a noble family. This was a complete surprise but is well documented. I now have literally hundreds of thousands of direct ancestors and no way of recording them. I don't really want to devote the rest of my life to the project!!! I am sticking to the main lines at the moment and exploring the links gradually. There are websites with genealogical lists of royalty and nobility on the web (some a lot more accurate than others) so I can dip into them and find all sorts of ways back to interesting historical people. At times it can be a bit like name gathering then suddenly I find some interesting person and because they are well known I can find out a lot more about some of them than much more recent relatives. All this came from the least promising looking part of my original family tree so it gives us all hope! Best wishes Sue

I just checked my hot mail and found a family tree sent via the Australian link of a distant family branch that emigrated to America. I think they are too distant to qualify for my tree but it is fascinating to compare what details are available in America with what we have. They have all the census information up to 1930, height and weight for males from the draft, the value of estate, employers from the SSI records and photos and maps. name of the ship they emigrated on, naturilization records. I feel I know them already.

I have around 700 in my tree, which includes both my husband and my ancestors. My contacts on Genes seem to have dried up for the moment, but have found many relatives. Some are 4 generation family, but have also been in touch with first cousins which were unknown to me, and also shared info and old pictures and newspaper cuttings. (one picture of my grandparents from the 1930's which was wonderful).I also have reached a brick wall, as I live in Wales and cannot get to Midlands to research there.Still loving it though Lynda

nudge for Sarah in the S/West

I have just over 1300 rellies BUT this is taking into account my husbands tree also, as Im doing several million lines on both sides (or so it feels like). Have met one lady, my husbands 2nd cousin once removed, and she came to our childrens christening last yr. She's coming to our new baby's christening this yr.