Genealogy Chat

I've just discovered that one of my maternal grandfather's direct line ancestors married one of my maternal grandmother's direct line ancestors about 5 generations back. But how do I show this on my family tree? (Visions of papering a room with bits of string across to show links). Second question - is ther a family tree program that can show links like this? Thanks Barbara

Hi Barbara, I know that this doesn't answer your question, but it's interesting: Found this which is interesting....... Imagine there was a man living 1,200 years ago whose daughter was your mother's 36th great-grandmother, and whose son was your father's 36th great-grandfather. That would put him on two branches on your family tree, one on your mother's side and one on your father's. In fact, most of the people who lived 1,200 years ago appear not twice, but thousands of times on our family trees, because there were only 200 million people on Earth back then. Many of the people who were alive in the year 800 never had children; they don't appear on anybody's family tree. Meanwhile, more prolific members of society would show up many more than 5,000 times on a lot of people's trees. Keep going back in time, and there are fewer and fewer people available to put on more and more branches of the 6.5 billion family trees of people living today. It is mathematically inevitable that at some point, there will be a person who appears at least once on everybody's tree. Staggering !!!!! I posted this in the other 'loops' thread, but for some reason my posts seem to be the 'kiss of death' and the thread then doesn't get any more posts and disappears without a trace, hope it doesn't happen this time.

Hi Susan I agree that is staggering! - and interesting. Barbara

If you're talking about your GR tree then unfortunately you have to input their details twice on both sides of the tree, a pain I know, but thats how their system works. I have Family Historian 3.0 software, links such as this are shown on diagrams with colourful ribbons, so you only have to input their details once. Not only have I researched the direct lines of my ancestry, I have also looked into the various branches too. I'm now finding new links between my families. These can be shown clearly on Family Historian, otherwise it can all get rather confusing!

Thank you for the information Rachel. I only have the GR tree at the moment and realise it would be impossible to show on here. I'm still trying to work out which Family Tree program to buy, so your suggestion is very helpful. Barbara

If thats the case Penny - we must all have intermarriages somewhere to stop the doubling up. Barbara

Barbara I have to bring out my posh word now - this phenomenon is called Implection! At the point on my tree where I should have 1024 ancestors, although some are still unknown to me, I have very few couples. They are the progenitors of all the subsequent generations, due to intermarriage. This must be the same for everyone, the further back you go. People tended to marry the nearest available person, not a random stranger from China! I have a paper tree in which all these intermarriages are shown with coloured lines - what a mess it is! And it certainly puts paid to the theory that inbreeding is bad for you - this particular branch had dozens of healthy children who grew up to have dozens of healthy children, and mostly died in their beds of old age. OC

Well thanks to OC I've learnt my new word for the day. Seriously, I did think that others must have had this problem. I couldn't even think how to put the connection in on a paper tree! Looks like the OC method involves reams of paper and lots of coloured pens - should keep me occupied for hours. Barbara