Cousins - a tree or a forest?
Cousins. The easiest way to turn your family tree into a family Jungle is to start adding cousins. My husband's family has ten kids in about every generation!
How do you handle this? I Have made contact with some of my cousins from his side, and it's great. But where do you draw the line in terms of adding names??? Thoughts? Experiences? Please discuss.
I add them all. If I didn't I would not have found the sisters that married brothers or that my great great aunt married my husband's great great uncle. I also included the palbearers for a brick wall ancestor on my husband's side. I like finding information about the cousins because then I can see how it relates to others in the tree. I have found nieces and nephews listed on death certificates and in wills. I like seeing how everyone fits in. I do not add the parents of their spouses or spouses siblings. If I find that information I make a note of it in the research notes so that I have it if I need it.
ReplyDeleteGreat question/discussion without cousins my genealogy would be almost completed but I am not sure I would have a family tree. I started looking to make my tree close blood lines but I don't think I could go back to small. I have found so many relatives of my Great Great Grandmother from a 1st cousin of mine once removed that is going to add about 200 to 300 folks I am currently aware of. I look forward to seeing more discussion on this topic. Thank You :)
ReplyDeleteI add them all if I think I can add any kind of detail for them. I don't want to just collect names. Sometimes these individuals contributed to a vanity book and their recollections include my direct line. I stopped on my Quaker line of Johnsons when they kept repeating the given names for four generations and I got so confused I didn't know how to credit the sources I found. They became too much of a good thing. :-)
ReplyDeleteI have found so many cousins at some point end up having great information - whether that is a family member also doing genealogy or some great obituaries I would not have found if I did not have them in my tree (which helped me with my direct line and tracing the family back to a specific place in Ireland). I don't do scads of research but I do list them in my tree (they can be slight branches). Interesting question.
ReplyDeleteAdd them all. Never know who kept and/or identified those family photos until they find you sometimes through the connections you've added to your tree online--worked that way for me & the results can be amazing.
ReplyDeleteSo I have spent a lot of time thinking about this. It is true that cousin bait yields some happy results, and that other connections can yield needed, missing info. However, if I stick to my commitment to keep documenting sources and only include what I can confirm (as much as possible), the mushroom effect will sink me. So I have come up my own method: On Ancestry, I will give my direct line an avatar of a family tree. (finished half!) That way, when hints for cousins come up, I will know right away where they fit. And I will keep birth, marriage and death records, but all others will go into "ignore." No spouses. On Legacy, I will add direct line and well documented stuff as I am able. This balances my desire to keep a trim tree and my desire to broaden data mining and meeting cousins. Thanks for all of your thoughts and the general acceptance that we all need to find out what makes sense to us.
ReplyDelete