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I have my family tree on the MyHeritage family tree program. I really like it. I make sure to back it up on an external disk regularly.
Anyway, mine currently has 13,684 people on it. I have mentioned that to people who do not do genealogy and they are flabbergasted. Now, not all of these people are ancestors. I have lots and lots of cousins on the tree as well. I have no problem with having a big tree, but I was just wondering if this is weird.
I think it's amazing you tracked that many people. I can see it, with some of my family way back having 14-25 children...... and counting all their kids.... and their kids....
But since my goal was more to find the first person from each line that hit American soil -- That includes you, Canada! -- I won't have that number of people....
I'm up to 3300+. With ancestry it's easy to collect bodies. Attaching the census to a name usually pulls in all the offspring.
I try to do as much followup on these people as possible so I won't be seen as just a name collector. I see countless numbers of trees on that site that only have a birth date. I'll keep at it until I can get as much information as I can on them from places like Findagrave, Footnote or state and county genealogy sites. I figure even if they aren't a direct link, someone might find the information useful.
735. I try not to put in individuals who aren't relevant to understanding my ancestors. So I put in siblings of my ancestors and sometimes the sibling's spouses/children but usually no more than that. If I continue to put in people beyond that, it's usually because I'm hoping to get a connection with someone else's tree so I can find people related to that branch. It's really easy to add people willy-nilly on Ancestry.com but I'm careful not to get carried away.
I have many different databases, tracking different aspects of my family. One for my ancestry, ones for people who married into the family, and several that are tracking descendants from one of my immigrant ancestors. Most of them have about 23,000 people in them. Some, though, only a few hundred. But then, I've been doing this for a long, long, long time. And I do track many off-shoot lines.
I agree, Silverwing, about all the databases with only birth information. It's aggravating. But even more so are the databases who show each family with only one child -- they can't even be bothered to note their ancestor's siblings. Which is just dumb. I've solved so many of my "brick walls" by going through sibling, or even cousin, lines.
Interesting. It sounds like some people are more interested in getting as much info as possible on the people they have and others try to get more people on their trees. I do a little of both. I collect info about cousins (a few living ones I have connected with online) and collect info on my ancestors. I try to collect as much info as I can on my ancestors and close cousins, but the more distant cousins I'm usually just content to get the dates and places. Some of my cousins also connect to my other cousins, as some of my grandparents lines intersect and connect.
I don't like to focus on the same person for too long because I usually hit a wall at some point. I've also found some of my distant cousins (who I already knew but didn't know I was related to) through my searches.
Last edited by STLCardsBlues1989; 05-26-2011 at 11:57 AM..
Are the sites mentioned reliable? I mean how do you really know that the people are your ancestors?
I am just starting out so this is all new to me. Would love to find out how to connect the dots. I can go back to my grandparents and that is where it ends.
I try to find as much good info as I can, but I don't pour over documents normally. Sometimes there is no documentation so you have to go by word of mouth. My info is only for me, anyway, I don't publish it. I do everything I can to make sure that it is accurate. Sometimes you can't be 100% sure, but I still follow the line to see if I can find some way to verify it more accurately. We all make mistakes sometimes, though.
Some of my family lines are not proven, but they're very much likely. With some I also shore up my info with info from my grandparents.
My grandparents had around 21 siblings between them and their parents had 33 siblings between them, so the family is pretty big from the start.
Last edited by STLCardsBlues1989; 05-26-2011 at 12:58 PM..
Interesting. It sounds like some people are more interested in getting as much info as possible on the people they have and others try to get more people on their trees. I do a little of both. I collect info about cousins (a few living ones I have connected with online) and collect info on my ancestors. I try to collect as much info as I can on my ancestors and close cousins, but the more distant cousins I'm usually just content to get the dates and places. Some of my cousins also connect to my other cousins, as some of my grandparents lines intersect and connect.
I don't like to focus on the same person for too long because I usually hit a wall at some point. I've also found some of my distant cousins (who I already knew but didn't know I was related to) through my searches.
Because I'm the only one who gave you high numbers, I want to make clear to you that my goal is not to "get more people on [my] tree." With my descendency projects, my goal is to track as many of the descendants as I can find. And in order to track them, I have to know that they are, indeed, the right people. And to do that, you have to know as much about them as you possibly can. And I'm not content to simply "go by word of mouth."
Keep in mind also, that I've been doing genealogy for about 40 years. I began doing genealogy, back in the days when you had to really DO genealogy. Nowadays, it's so ridiculously easy to track people with all the on-line digitized documents, if you know what's there and where to look, growing trees can be fast. And accurate. And complete.
Are the sites mentioned reliable? I mean how do you really know that the people are your ancestors?
I am just starting out so this is all new to me. Would love to find out how to connect the dots. I can go back to my grandparents and that is where it ends.
If you're talking about sites with linked family trees, you cannot know that the information is reliable. You should only use that as a possible clue as to where to go to look for more information.
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