Collateral Relatives

[Lora D]

Because I have limited time to research and enter data and proper sources into my Reunion software, I have to make some hard decisions about collateral relatives: (1) Do I leave them out entirely? (2) Do I enter only their names and move on? (3) Do I enter their names and vital data (birth/marriage/death dates and places) and move on? (4) Do I enter vital data with media and sources? (5) Do I enter and source everything I find as I do with direct relatives? Of course, I’d prefer to enter and source everything, but when I’ve done this in the past, I find that I stray very far out from my tree. I’m having difficulty deciding where and how to draw the line, and it’s hard to just ignore information when I come across it. Can any of you share with me what decisions you’ve made on this subject and how you make the most efficient use of your time? Any thoughts and advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Kim]

Re: Collateral Relatives

Because I have limited time to research and enter data and proper sources into my Reunion software, I have to make some hard decisions about collateral relatives: (1) Do I leave them out entirely? (2) Do I enter only their names and move on? (3) Do I enter their names and vital data (birth/marriage/death dates and places) and move on? (4) Do I enter vital data with media and sources? (5) Do I enter and source everything I find as I do with direct relatives? Of course, I’d prefer to enter and source everything, but when I’ve done this in the past, I find that I stray very far out from my tree. I’m having difficulty deciding where and how to draw the line, and it’s hard to just ignore information when I come across it. Can any of you share with me what decisions you’ve made on this subject and how you make the most efficient use of your time? Any thoughts and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Good question! I like to enter everything, but of course, as you said, that is not always reasonable. I especially try to enter all for people in the county where I grew up, and the adjacent counties, because after ten years plus of researching, I am convinced everyone in this county is related to everyone else!

Truthfully, I go pretty far afield...at least entering names. If it is too distantly linked, I may add all children that are not directly linked in a note linked to the parents, with a source, so that I can easily go back and add them in if I find out the family is more closely related than I realized . I especially do that when the only source is an obituary for a distantly linked person, with a note 'also survived by sisters (names here) and brothers (names here). An example of a person I might treat this way would be my great-great-uncle's wife's brother's wife's family.

[Lora D]

Re: Collateral Relatives

Thanks so much for your ideas, Kim. It really helps to hear how others do what they do with their family trees. I especially liked how you use Notes for this situation. Thanks for taking time to reply.

[Blaise A. Darveaux]

Re: Collateral Relatives

My goals for my genealogy have changed over the years. I first started to get all descendants of my great-grandparents of my surname. That comes to about 950 people. Then a cousin showed me his research of our name back to our 6G grandparents so I set my goal to find all of their descendants. I'm not done with that yet but I'm up to about 10,000 people. Then I dreamed of finding all people related to me out to 6G. Since at 6G you have 128 names of 6G grandparents (not to mention 1-5G grandparents) that would make a wild estimate of (128 X 10,000) 1,280,000 potentially blood related people. That seemed hopeless, at least in my lifetime. Then I turned to my pedigree (ascendants) and continue to do that. Then I started my wife's ascendants (for my children's genealogy).

I guess my point is you must think about what is important to you (ascendants or descendants), whether to stick with just blood relatives or not, and who the genealogy is for (you? your kids? grandkids? etc.).

For my descendent research, I collect blood (or adopted) relatives and their spouses, but I do not add the parents of spouses (I put their names in a field named "Parents"). You have got to put your limits somewhere or you will end up collecting people you don't really know and you won't have the time to collect those that are important to you.

I started when I was 19. Now at 56 I must still keep re-evaluating what my targets and limits are.

Blaise A. Darveaux

[Lora D]

Re: Collateral Relatives

My goals for my genealogy have changed over the years. I first started to get all descendants of my great-grandparents of my surname. That comes to about 950 people. Then a cousin showed me his research of our name back to our 6G grandparents so I set my goal to find all of their descendants. I'm not done with that yet but I'm up to about 10,000 people. Then I dreamed of finding all people related to me out to 6G. Since at 6G you have 128 names of 6G grandparents (not to mention 1-5G grandparents) that would make a wild estimate of (128 X 10,000) 1,280,000 potentially blood related people. That seemed hopeless, at least in my lifetime. Then I turned to my pedigree (ascendants) and continue to do that. Then I started my wife's ascendants (for my children's genealogy).

I guess my point is you must think about what is important to you (ascendants or descendants), whether to stick with just blood relatives or not, and who the genealogy is for (you? your kids? grandkids? etc.).

For my descendent research, I collect blood (or adopted) relatives and their spouses, but I do not add the parents of spouses (I put their names in a field named "Parents"). You have got to put your limits somewhere or you will end up collecting people you don't really know and you won't have the time to collect those that are important to you.

I started when I was 19. Now at 56 I must still keep re-evaluating what my targets and limits are.

Blaise A. Darveaux

You really hit the nail on the head, Blaise! This is exactly my dilemma. I guess I've been thinking that I can make one decision and move forward, but I can see you're right – that I must re-visit all my decisions from time to time and re-evaluate and possibly change my tactics. Thanks so much for your very valuable advice.