Be frank, be brutal; Is my strategy flawed?

[Montauk6]

(Don't blame me, blame Family Tree Maker 2006, I thought I was obsessed with The Sims, that's NOTHING! lol)

I not only try to compile info on blood relatives but also on those married into the family.

An easy example: my sister-in-law. I can't just stop there, I feel compelled to look up her family as part of my tree database. And so on.

This tactic has meant that I've amassed over 3,500 people!!!!

But it's SO FUN, I TELL YA! On my father-in-law's paternal side (again incl. the married-in's), I've gone from Oneida County, NY to Grand Forks, ND to Alaska to California to Michigan to Canada to Ireland.

Yet somehow I sense that I'm missing a point somewhere...

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. Seems a bit excessive, maybe...

Personally, I just trace my ancestors and their descendants. But then, I have multiple lines that I can trace back to the 1600's (and a few further than that) and there are multiple traceable lines of descent from most of those ancestors, so even concentrating just on blood relations I'll probably eventually end up with a database of some tens or even hundreds of thousands of people.


But there's also always the chance that you might find some unexpected connection from one of these "in-law" lines to your own, especially if they go back to the same area of the country. So I'd say it certainly can't hurt...given the difficulty of tracing African-American ancestry back before 1865-1870, it could be another avenue of research that might lead to you finding something you wouldn't have otherwise.

[Montauk6]

2. That's certainly what I'm aiming for

Also, I'll be able to find out what family reunion picnics I can crash! :D

[sybylla]

5. What you predict is true just doing my own family

I found that my line intersects my husbands in New England around 1700. Made the research on the second discovery easier.

But after 17 years of researching my family tree, my database is too full of my own family to even think of including inlaws as well.

[bobbieinok]

3. my ex and son are descended from 3 siblings, and from

2 sisters and from 2 brothers

--from Mary White married Loomis, Elizabeth White married Goodwin, and John White......they were all children of Robert White, and all 3 lines come together later in a Loomis marriage

--from Benjamin and Joshua Abel (sons of Robert Abel)....the 2 lines come together in the Metcalfe family

--from Elizabeth Warren married Church and Ann Warren married Little ...... the 2 lines come together in the Peabody family

[Gormy Cuss]

4. If you enjoy it, and you avoid the living generations, go for it.

Some people collect only the paternal lineage and I think THAT's weird. I trace both paternal and maternal and collect the names of siblings and the names of parents of those who marry into my line, but that's what works for me. In some small towns I couldn't throw a stick without hitting someone within two degrees of separation. It's sort of fun to think of it that way.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

6. Makes perfect sense to me

because if you want to do charts for the kids, you have to have them all, right?

RIGHT? That's what I tell myself, but really I'm addicted to filling in the blanks.

[Montauk6]

7. TELL ME ABOUT IT, GRANNIE!

I'm back in France now in the 1600's on a lineage that connects to the relatives of my father-in-law's great aunt's husband. I've just passed the 5000 mark!!!

[Cooley Hurd]

8. I wouldn't go nutso with the "by-marriages," but you might be doing...

...future genealogists a favor by doing this little bit of legwork now.:hi:

[Rhiannon12866]

9. I've pretty much given up on my great uncle's grandsons

I tried to put together a family tree for my grandmother's extended family, to get everything together for her. I did this for her immediate family, since she began getting confused, when there were too many of us, LOL! But her brother, a man who I knew and loved, had two daughters and five grandsons. And every one of the grandsons were divorced. I've asked numerous relatives to fill in the blanks, which they haven't, and finally don't really see the point... My two second cousins that I know the best have been divorced more than once...x(

[Thirtieschild]

10. Looking for all the immigrants for both my husband and myself

but have reached a dead end - I either have the information or it's not available. Most of the deadends are from South Carolina - a big arrgh. I would also like to include information on the ancestry of our grandchildren, but so far no luck. One daughter married into (and divorced out of) a family whose patriarch insists they are Belgian but refuses to answer any, all questions. (Italian is much more like it, and from hints dropped here and there by ex-son-in-law, Italian Mafia is on the table. Unfortunately, the name was almost certainly shortened, so I don't even know what name I'm looking for.) The other daughter married a Brit with West-country English and Russian Jewish ancestry. The Russian (Rosa Michaelson from Odessa) is pretty much a deadend and I'm not up on current English research - I'd have to start in the 1950s or 1960s. Appreciate any, all suggestions.