We welcome any query on Who When Where. If you have previously posted it on another forum (including the old WDYTYA forum), please state this in your opening post - this will save people redoing the research which has been done before: they can look at it and possibly go further with it.
I decided this year to save me from some of the boredom resulting from lockdown to make two New Year resolutions. The first was to do something about all the people I have in my tree for whom I have not got important records listed (well direct ancestors and blood relations anyway). I use Family Historian and Family Tree Analyzer, so I extracted all those missing from the 1881 census for starters. I have written an excel spreadsheet which takes the output from FTA and dumps it into a format I can use without having to keep going to and fro. Here I must admit that I was spurred on by the recent competition on the "Lost Cousins" website, but nit needed to be done.I found (out of over 6000 people) I had 80 direct ancestors and almost 500 blood relations missing the census. So far I have dealt with the direct ancestors and am about a quarter of the way through the rest. Of course, it is easy to get sidetracked as you fill in the data, find more people etc., - I have found that some of my Gladden ancestors (from Norfolk on my father's side) emigrated to Canada (early - before 1851) and the US, so it has been useful. I've also added about a hundred more people to the tree
The other resolution was do do something about the peripheral people who I have entered, and finding which branch of the family they are linked to - it is often not easy to see that just by looking at their records in FH. I created another spreadsheet which has a page for each of the main branches and have entered them in this along with the link, such as mother of second husband of fourth cousin etc. As I complete each one, I'm adding a flag so that I know next time!
I suspect many of us have used this time to make resolutions. I use Paper, Ancestry and Family Historian. I am not very adept when using my computer and I found taking a gedcom from Ancestry and adding it to Family Historian muddled me as I tried to reconcile the two systems.
So, anyway, in my case I wanted to tidy up the mess I created between pencil and paper and online Trees. Have I succeeded? Well, I am in a far better place, but the work is ongoing and tedious!! Serves me right for going off the rails.
Faced with trees with far too many "outlying, but blood, relatives" I have actually culled my online Trees. As a result I am more able to see the wood from the Trees (sorry!). I still have paper notes for the people I have culled, but concentrating on the direct line and adding their siblings but not extending them, has made the process easier.
Meekcs,
I too have culled my tree, but I restrict mine to direct ancestors and their descendants, but restrict descendants to 4 generations, i.e Ancestor, Children, grandchildren, GGrandchildren and GGGrandchildren, but the numbers are creeping up again (20,000) so may need to cull the GGGrandchildren.
When I reach this descendant limit, I add a ‘Stop’ image to the individuals, as an reminder to stop me going further. With this image, I can easily identify the individuals should I need to cull them too. Likewise, when I hit a brickwall, I add the image of a ‘Wall’, so when I want a session cracking these brickwalls, they are easily identified.
1. Stop trying to understand DNA connections! My matches are all minuscule so nothing useful will be revealed. I only wanted to know if I had Viking roots.
2. Write up the stories I’ve uncovered from a social history perspective. No one really wants to know about great uncle Fred and 3xggrandma Higgs as individuals but they are interesting as part of the history of their time.
3. Complete the local history projects to add context and colour to my family histories.
Meekcs,
I too have culled my tree, but I restrict mine to direct ancestors and their descendants, but restrict descendants to 4 generations, i.e Ancestor, Children, grandchildren, GGrandchildren and GGGrandchildren, but the numbers are creeping up again (20,000) so may need to cull the GGGrandchildren.
When I reach this descendant limit, I add a ‘Stop’ image to the individuals, as an reminder to stop me going further. With this image, I can easily identify the individuals should I need to cull them too. Likewise, when I hit a brickwall, I add the image of a ‘Wall’, so when I want a session cracking these brickwalls, they are easily identified.
Mick Loney
I just couldn't cope with the numbers when trying to sort everything out, hence the vicious cull. I suspect my tree will start to grow too once I have sorted the basics to my satisfaction.
I like the idea of the stop and wall signs. I think they, or something similar, would be useful to me.
Meekhcs,
I too use Family Historian, and it is really simple to add these images as media to the relevant individuals. Hardest part is finding suitable images.
For the first individual, simply click media, add new image from file, and locate the image you want to add. Once added, you can add the image to anyone else by linking to the this image.
I don’t have much media, so these image are always number one for each individual, if not, you just need to move them up the list of media for the individual, until it is in Number one spot. Once there, they will always be shown in the focus window!
Thanks for the tip
Having used Ancestry for 6 years I am struggling to find my way round Family Historian!! I haven't added any media yet. I did however upgrade to v7 before starting to work on my Tree.
I probably ought to do a bit of culling, but I am lothe to as all my records are in FH (with a small amount of paper records and somke diagrams/lists in excel spreadsheets. They peripheralk people can be quite interesting - I found a couple who were prosecuted for the manslaughter of their child (his - she was his second wife) - and the husband was acquitted. I've also found a link to the Heal family (of furniture shop fame) and, just recently, a man who was a farmer in Norfolk in 1881, but appears in Co Durham in 1891 as a steelworker!
I think when I have completed the excercise, I will add flags to the records for direct ancestors and blood relatives. I don';t really want to split it into different vtrees though. I too like the brick wall picture idea and will have to investigate that.
