Genealogy Chat

If I say have a sister of my grand father who marries, do I reserch his family. and if they have children who marry do I reserch there spouses.At the moment I have tryed to find mother and father only it that enough or how far do I go I want to do a good job but not sure where to stop. spouses are part of family when they marry into. but not before so are parents enough does this make sence to any one What do you all do?

I started with only ancestors and their parents until I got to the pre 1837 when it starts to get a little arder so I then started going outwards to the siblings etc. Basically you take it in any direction you want and stop when you want to stop. If you get addicted then youll never stop! Suzanne

All down to personal preference. I myself only research blood lines. The extent of my information on spouses would be their parents names, in case I come into contact with someone researching the same name - just gives a little more information to help determine a possible link. I do know a few people that research everyone they come across though. I am personally finding my blood relatives time consuming enough without adding related by marriage to it too! The only line I am trying to look at by marriage though is one of my distant cousins apparently (according to family stories) married into the Whittakers - the show jumpers - would be nice to prove, just to say that I am related to someone famous somehow!

It's entirely up to the individual - some, like me, research every connecting name to their tree - but this is very time consuming and costs a lot of money in certs. So it all depends on how much time and money you want to put into it really. There are some who concentrate only on their immediate family blood lines. There are no rules to say one way is better than another - you can have a small tree that has been thoroughly researched with all the social history to go along with it. There are otheres that consist of thousands of names and dates only (a bit boring I think). I try to build up a family profile for each of the families on my tree - so they become real people and not just names and dates. Only you will know what you want to achieve through all of this, so I'd just say go with your own flow LOL Best wishes, Leah

Parallel research of siblings to great & greater parents especially for marriage certification can be both cluttering and useful. Too much of tangent research can take you away from your direct line, but, if marriage certificates are obtained, the information can be helpful to go further back and even consolodate other details for instance, witnessess, parents names, dates and places all are a help to flesh out a family history. Its all a personal choice, if you are static in research it can be useful just to keep interest alive! Best regards, Bob

Thank you for that, at the moment have just done parents. and thought just in case some one else is looking. And have taken all view points I do try and get the family history bit as well or as you say it is a bit boring, So guess I am on right track You have helped clear my head thanks

Sometimes one of your ancetor's siblings might be more interesting than your own! If there's someone I can do some different type of research I follow that line for a while. For example I find childless uncles very rewarding - they are good at keeping in touch with/remembering in their wills all sorts of people you had no idea about. Also one of my distant great uncles had an interesting Naval career and it was fun researching this. It made me wish we had more military people in our tree. The main thing is to ENJOY it!! No hard and fast rules, its your tree to do with as you wish. Anne

I've got almost 1000 names on my tree. Fot those in my direct blood-line on either side, I think the word is 'pedigree' (those people who were directly responsible for me being on this earth) I am trying to research them as much as possible and collect all the certificates, census images, military records and what have you. For those who are not that closely linked, my information is not as complete. Maybe one day when I get stuck on my main line I might return to a few of my more distant lines and try and fill in a few more blanks. I'm only 30, so I've got many more years of researching this hobby in me yet before I run out of names. Maybe by then I'll have found a different, less expensive hobby, but for now, I'm quite enjoying myself. I don't think I'll ever stop!!

I must say that the siblings have produced some interesting contacts who have provided boundless information (and some I have been able to provide information to). I spent yesterday evening holding an e-mail conversation with someone in Toronto who is the descendent of a direct line sibling, but who hadrelatives who ended up in the same Canadian town (Owen Sound) as descendents from the next generation down of the same family. So it will be interesting to try to find out whether the two families realised they had common ancestors! Mum-in-law was in contact with a cousin from the second line, but knew nothing of the other one.

I find the more sideways you go, the more chance of picking up connections. I have recently started finding out what happened to as many of my ancestors siblings from the censuses as far as I can go. I have loads of new info. They are all still distant cousins. Margaret

I try to only go back to 1800ish with my twigs, just to fill out the general picture of my family. Though I must admit that one particular family got me really excited with all the paperwork that was available on them,they led a fascinating life. Sylvia

I try to stick to the direct line but sometimes find that a sibling really grabs my interest so I go with them for a while. I have some reasonably detailed research on one rather distant branch because they also ended up in New Zealand and caught my interest because of the naming pattern of the children which included many of the same names as my family. I researched them until I could prove the link. I am now finding a number of descendants of that family on this site so am able to hand over the information I have put together and also fill in some of the gaps. I don't think that I would have been able to breakdown my biggest brick wall without the information that I had put together on the other family, so none of it was wasted. Christine in NZ