I am baffled by people who
have tens of thousands of people in their family trees. How far removed are the individuals at the
very outer branches and twigs? Why are
they there?
Is there any value in having
the 3rd great grandmother of the wife of my mother’s cousin 2X
removed?
Should I be including these
distant in-laws?
It depends on your individual interest. In my understanding a true genealogy stays pretty close to the paternal direct lines but a family history can include anyone the person doing the research is interested in. I have a line in my tree that is not related. My great grandmother died in childbirth and my great grandfather remarried. The step great grandmother's family included us in family gatherings and holidays my entire growing up years. I consider them family. I also include people of interest that are not closely related to my tree but only distantly just because they are interesting. So in my opinion the value depends on what the researcher wants to spend time doing.
ReplyDeleteMary, I agree about the numbers. I have direct lines back pretty far on my tree and my husband's. I include children in each family, along with spouses' dates of birth, death and marriage if I found them, but I only have about 7500 people in each tree. I'm not quite sure how someone gets 100,000 people in a tree unless he/she is one of those who have lines "documented" back to the beginning of time.
ReplyDeleteI see what you mean. Even with my liberal definition of family I only have 7275 people in my data base.
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