How Many Ancestors Do You Add To Your Family Tree? How Wide Do You Go with Your Genealogy?

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How far and wide do you go with your family history research? How many ancestors should you research for your genealogy? Do you research all siblings, cousins, distant cousins? Learn how far and wide you should take your family history research, so you don’t get overwhelmed with your genealogy.

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TIMING
0:00 Intro
1:25 How far and wide do we go?
3:20 What is your research question?
3:49 Define a research question
4:38 Research question example
5:37 Reasonably exhaustive research on descendants
7:04 Take one or two steps back down the tree
8:00 Try these steps
8:54 Handout information
9:05 Go as far as you need to resolve your research question
10:07 Conclusion
10:32 Genealogy Academy info

Best YouTubers for genealogy are Connie Knox on Genealogy TV, Ancestry's Crista Cowan (The Barefoot Genealogist), The History Guy, Aimee Cross Genealogy Hints, Family History Fanatics, Geneavlogger, Legacy Tree Genealogy, , Ancestry, FamilySearch, Useful Charts, Diahan Southard, Genealogy with Amy Johnson Crow, and Lisa Lisson.

#Genealogy #GenealogyTV #FamilyHistory
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Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

[carlaromano]

Finding out siblings of great-grandparents and their descendants have helped me with going farther back to find names of parents as well as identify the relations of living DNA matches. Thanks for the video and channel!

[davidchilds]

If you don't look for siblings, you are probably missing out on valuable information. How do you know that the record you found relates to YOUR William Jones or Mary Smith without collateral evidence? Often it is family relationships that provide confirmation. Likewise (unless you are fixated on a particular name) spouses.

[redhen]

Back over 10 years ago, my daughter talked to a 3rd cousin (genealogist) at a family reunion. She wanted a MacBook like hers, but also a subscription to Ancestry. My daughter was a teenager at the time. Some years later I was looking at the tree, and realized she hadn’t entered much on my mother’s side of the tree. My mom’s grandparents were Swedish immigrants. I knew nothing about genealogy, but decided I would help. I found that Swedish records are excellent, and with a little help, I was able to get most branches of the tree back into the 1700s. BUT my I learned that my mom’s paternal grandfather was born to an unmarried teenager who was working as a maid for a widower in a small rural village. There was no record I could find of who the father of the child was. I started thinking that DNA could solve this. I did a DNA test on my mom through FTDNA, which at the time was the most popular company in Sweden. I soon learned that I was in way over my head, but eventually tested several other family members with different companies and then while looking at shared matches between my mom and one her cousins, found a strong match that appeared to be in California. There was a tree with many typical American names, but one branch looked as if it might be Swedish. I asked for help on a Swedish genealogy Facebook page. I was shocked when they gave me the name and birthplace of a young man from the family where my 2nd great-grandmother had been working when she became pregnant. Interestingly enough, I share DNA with a descendant of another young maid that worked in that same house. That young man ended up getting married twice and fathering 15 children between those two women… lots of descendants to test…😊My point is not only did I need to build a wide tree I had to build trees for total strangers to solve this mystery.

[AnRuixuan]

I always add every sibling I can find. A huge part of my motivation of doing family tree research is to find out how my cousin matches are related to me (did the DNA test first, the interest in genealogy came after that). I can't do that without the siblings of my ancesstors and the descendency research.

[crepo]

Personally, I have researched all the brothers and sisters of my grandparents, great-grandparents, and even my great-great-grandparents. Additionally, I have traced all their descendants up to the present day whenever possible. I strive to find as much information as possible about all these individuals and even go as far as locating their descendants on Facebook, where I ask them for photos and memories. Through this effort, I have managed to accumulate over 50 contacts on Facebook who were willing to share photos and memories with me. Never underestimate the value of distant cousins.

[PackerBacker]

Especially with my Lithuanian ancestors, I try to add every sibling on every level before adding cousins. Its crazy just how big family’s back then were! And equally crazy how many infant mortalities there were

[dianaboyd]

This all makes my head spin. I’ve spent years, yes - years, on tracking my family and I get so darn confused. My mother was adopted in the 30’s, very hush-hush back then. I know who her mother is. DNA testing has brought lots of family. The heart breaking thing is you find a cousin who is an unbelievable match and this person lies & says none of the names are familiar, really? All I would like is information about my Grandmother and pictures, guess that’s an invasion of privacy. Plus most think I’m lying because “ if my sister had a baby, I would have known.” Seriously! In the 30’s! So wish I could hire an expert, but I can’t so I’ll continue to plug away. These videos, etc. are a godsend and really, really help. Thank you to all who share helpful information😊

[Mistydazzle]

I am finding it very helpful to build the tree out and down in history to DNA matches. This also verifies the common ancestors as being true direct ancestors for my line. That has been a very helpful methodology, because the DNA doesn't lie. Sometimes, I will find a common ancestral couple, way back in the past, between/among 2 or more DNA matches. I now feel that I have to build down from that couple to see how they merge into my direct line, because that couple is not in my direct line, but it must be a link!

[kathyastrom]

I’m not consistent about it, but I do like to fill in as much of the tree as I can. You just never know what interesting people are on there! Just last week, I went back to my great great grandfather Benjamin Dunston’s branch to fill in his siblings. I keep hoping to find earlier photos of Ben than the few I have of him in the last years of his life. No photos found, but I did discover Ben’s brother Charles had a son who was a Navy Commander in the years immediately after WWII.

Going back several more generations, I was filling out my 6th great grandfather’s siblings branches, to see what his brothers were doing during the Revolutionary War. I found his brother William did serve, but his family life after the war was even more fascinating. He and his wife had 15 children, with four (!) sets of twins. Just 11 survived to adulthood, but only two married, and only one had any children of her own. So William and his wife ended up with just three grandchildren after having 15 kids. Four of his children joined the Shakers, which was even more interesting to me because I did a presentation on that sect in college, long before I knew of the family connection.

[wwaynemcg]

I researched back vertically on each of my parents...as much as I could easily obtain. My next step was recording only every descendant of my Great-Grandparents.
I think it matters also if your researched if focused primarily on YOUR family, or if you're taking on a project for someone outside the family.
It is easier, but more time-consuming, to keep a current record of descendants updated.

[carokat]

I add the siblings, but I do want a workable tree. I currently have 2200 people in my tree and I imagine that 3000 would be the absolute limit I could identify. But, I am a recent convert to detailed research about siblings' lives. I was recently asked to write a chapter for an edited publication regarding an historic school and was asked to research the lives of my great-great-grandmother and her 6 siblings who attended it. While I had a good working knowledge about them, what I discovered was that one brother and a brother-in-law were in business together, and that my great-great-grandmother's husband was also involved in the business for 8 years. This information threw a completely different light on what I had understood to be my great-great-grandfather's life, and showed a family closeness as adults which was previously unknown. It was a really valuable exercise so I intend to try the same research for other lines of siblings.

[CharleneCTX]

I was trying to answer some questions for my mother about her great grandmother. In researching I found that the great grandmother had been in the state mental hospital; we suspected as much, but I found confirmation. I looked down a generation to her children and discovered one was a triple amputee who earlier in life was guilty of of attempted murder and another one was also in the state mental hospital. Going laterally turns up family history, not just genetics.

[joannekearney]

While you can't add everyone... I do try to add siblings (I have a special place in my heart for those who died in childbirth or young). By adding siblings.. I often find more about the parents by following a sibling... eg sometimes parents moved in with one of the other children. I could not find my Greatgrandmother in census... living where I thought she was...but by knowing her siblings I was able to find her living with her sister..

[sandramoore]

Yes! You should add all the siblings and grandparents and in-laws and their children! Especially if you are trying to match your cousins, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8!

[janicehackbarth]

Great advice. This is a question I've asked myself many times as I have a third cousin who I share a family line with. I have over 6, 000 people on my Ancestry tree, but he has over 40, 000. I'm baffled as to how he has managed to accumulate so many people. I like to be as complete as I possibly can with my research which has gotten me to look differently about the town my dad's family lived in for several generations. So many of the people that he spoke about, and which I thought were friends, turn out to be cousins. You just don't know where a relative may be!

[kathlynterry]

I feel like I’ve become a little OCD with my tree. It was so voluminous that I split it into four different trees representing each of my grandparents. But still, I’m drilling down on each person who has a genetic connection and that’s a LOT of people. I’m just not sure how important that is but don’t want to stop overturning any possible relative stones. And there is a point in time when many of the people had multiple marriages including individual husbands and wives. Whew!

[evelyna.]

I often spend too much time on siblings and their families simply because I can't resist using documentation that is staring me in the face. On the positive side, some of my brick walls have been broken down by doing research on siblings. I've found widows living in the same household with a sibling's family or next door to them and I've found the parents of my ancestor living with a sibling's family. In these cases it was the connection to the sibling that confirmed that I had the right person.

[stephenmcleod]

I've tried to document all the siblings at each generation for context. This both confirms I have the right person as an ancestor and provides a link for other people's ancestry. I get messages from people as a result and more info.

[nikkidehart]

Sometimes just fascination or curiosity makes me go beyond. A branch of my tree has very strong ties to the westward migration to Utah and the Mormon faith. So, a question I had was "how many wives did he have and who were they?". This led to "who were the children (my distant cousins)?". Phew. In hindsight, should have made it its' own tree 😃😃

[BeverleyBleackley]

My siblings are an important part of my life, as were my parents siblings to them and to me as my aunts and uncles. It goes to say then that siblings of grandparents, great grandparents and beyond are vital in understanding the complete family history and your/my place in that history.