Genealogy Chat

I only keep hard copies of anything to do with my family tree. Yes, I know that I am a dinasaur, but I feel comfortable with my method. I have my 'scruffy' work sheet and my Sunday best one. My Sunday Best one only contains the branches info that is backed by hard knowledge, my scruffy one, well it is very scruffy, with lots of rubbing outs, notes etc. On my scruffy one I do keep info from the twiglets, this is very useful for putting flesh onto my bare bones info. It is not only my direct line that interests me, I like to know where branches went, and yes I have BMD info on the children of 2xgt aunts and uncles. I have met many brick walls with direct lines and working through these problems gives me a headache, so I will come away from that line of research and give my old brainbox a rest with 'insignificent info' from time to time. This is the way to find skeletons in the cupboard. I found out, just by chance that one of my twiglets gave me Mark Ramprecash, I think that is how it is spelt, him of Strictly Come Dancing, as a distant rellie. Kathlyn

I have on one of my lines, a boy, middle of ten children, registered as their child, brought up with them, went on to take over the family farm and finally inherited it. Only my nitpickyness demanded that I look at the original baptism registers, AFTER looking at the IGI transcriptions, I might add - to find that he was the illegitimate son of a sister of the man who 'adopted' him. (And his reputed father was named on the register).The IGI transcription had been tinkered with, I do not know why. Had I been a little less thorough in my research, I would never have known this and he would have been on my tree as a bona fide blood relative - which he still is, of course, but in not quite the same way. I do not know if this man ever knew of his origins. I have included some 'first generation' information about his biological father, who, incidentally, is related to my tree in a different generation anyway. I shall probably research them more thoroughly when I have time. I would include the foster father, if this was mine - he after all, helped to make your relative into the man he became, even if he was not 'blood'. As for his name - your name is what you are known by. There is not, and never has been, any legal requirement to call yourself by your father's name, it is just custom. If you look carefully at any birth cert, you will see that a surname is not included for the child - it is inferred from the name of the father - or the mother, if no father named. OC

hi i add everyone i can they all played their part and hopefully it helps me to understand thier lives love linda x

Personally I do add first, second, whatever wives/husbands even if there were no issue. How far I go back in tracing their line depends on if there were issue and/or how interesting I find them! At the very least I will try to find their parents and add them but don't usually add siblings unless there were issue. I do have a nurse child who then became adapted (sic!). After establishing (as far as possible) that she wasn't a relation taken in by the family, have included her life forward from that time. I haven't added her mother, there was no father registered ;) Chris

If your gran's mum had children with her husband, they would be your gran's half sisters or brothers so you'd have a link with the husband's family. Heather

As far as I'm concerned, the only reason to research any line is that it interests you. That is the beginning and the end of the justification for me.

Good point about the maternal line and it's foolproof quality. My gran was illegitimate. Her mother was a widow but at birth my gran was given the dead husband's surname even though he wasn't the father. I don't know the biological father's name. My gran's surname has nothing to do with her at all in terms of genealogy. It's just the name of her mother at the time of my gran's birth and my gran's maiden name. It has no real connection to my family at all. But I'm loathe to leave such a huge branch of the tree empty, yet it feels somehow 'wrong' to research this surname. I guess it's up to how I feel about it. Not sure at the moment.

that really defines the difference between genealogy and family history.........the germans concentrate on female maternal bloodlines for that reason as they are genetically more or less undisputable.

Do you ever put families/relations who aren't related to you by blood? For example, if there's an illegitimate child but you know the name of the foster father, do you add the foster father's family to the tree or do you leave just one of the branches missing?