Is this odd, or is it just me being cynical and suspicious?

[killearnan]

It's certainly made me wary of contacting people with more than a couple of hundred in their tree though. I mean, I come from a family of large families - but I think if I were to hit a couple of thousand, I'd start to suspect I'd gone wrong somewhere!

That really depends.... My mother is descended from various old New England families. Lots and lots of solid research on many of them (and a fair bit of less than stellar stuff, too, but I try not to enter that...... ). Much of which I've entered in my database over the last 10 years..... one couple who had ten children in the 1620/30s supposedly has 2+ million descendants now. I have by no means entered all of them.... but I'm descended from two of their children, who each had double digit numbers of children who lived to adulthood; just the lines I'm tracing and through their great-grandchildren's births (for the lines I'm not directly descended from, that's as far as I go..... but many in colonial New England married second or third cousins, so I've found a couple wives by having that data) means I have something like 1400 of that couple's descendants in my file.

Even my father's side, which I'm having great fun looking for [Free Kirk shepherd in the Borders plus Catholic costermongers in Edinburgh before those lines head back to Ireland], now has more than 850 people in my database, if I include collateral lines.

Some people I enter I'm almost certain about; others I'm fairly to less sure about and I enter them so:
1) I have them listed in case I come across them again (more common on Mum's New England side, where I'm descended from two or more children of 53 different couples who married after 1600.....)
2) I have them listed so others who might be looking for the same people and [potentially] have more/better information about them know I'd be interested, even if I haven't found much. {I've gotten some really good leads from this type of entry - although in some cases the entry may look very minimal because I'm not finding much.}
3) I will enter (in some cases) people I've ruled out - so I know not to look at them again, or to make the case for why I accept someone else with the same name as the person I'm looking for, and so on...

I agree that poorly source data sets with thousands of really minimal entries aren't the most helpful thing but I wouldn't want to set an arbitrary number of entries above which I'd ignore the data as of no use......

[Anne H]

Hi Ann,

I think you'll find a whole lot of people with a few thousand in their database - I'm redoing my database and don't have everyone entered in mine yet, but I do have well over a thousand at present - all verified and accounted for.

When you research your entire family (sideways, up and down, etc.) it's quite easy to have a large database. Some people might also include spouses families (I don't but keep a note of their info with whomever has married into my direct families.

Regards,
Anne H

[Lorna Allison]

Hi All

When I started researching FH I received a printout of part of my paternal grandmother's family tree which only had b & d dates and some locations. It was a great help in getting started but I noted that this chap had my grandmother as vanishing to US with no husband or family shown. (She lived & died in the Borders) RED LIGHT.

Since then I received a wonderful tree on my mother's side which had every source listed and went back to late 1600s. However, in both cases I have spent years laboriously going through these and getting original certs etc. as well as researching my other lines. As a result I have almost 3,000 on my tree, (mainly because I get so confoundedly interested in spouses & 4th cousins' etc families and the like and go off digging at huge tangents)

I touched base with a GR contact recently to correct some info she had given me a year ago and was stunned when, looking up her GR tree, found she had - 18,000 on it When I asked about that, the answer was that people had been so helpful to her that she thought a good way of thanking them was to research their tree for them. I now wonder if the "block copying" thing is partly how that was done. How could anyone personally put together 18,000 entries (while holding down a job and running a home)?

I like this girl and know that she has some good stuff, but wonder if the recipients of trees are going to treasure something that might be - well "iffy"?

I have now left GR and never have wanted to have my tree on the net via Ancestry, but I can see from your posts that someone somewhere might do that for me.

Regards

Lorna

[sheilajim]

Hi All,

I can't for the life of my understand why anyone would put people in their tree who they are not related to.

I feel embarrassed that I have only about 140 people in my tree. That is all that I am certain are related to me.

I am thinking of starting other trees, in Ancestry, for people from the 1700's that I think are related to my family, but that I don't have any documentation for. This way I can keep them separated until I find out if they are really my relatives, or that I am barking up the wrong tree.

Regards

[Ann In the UK]

Hi Sheila, Lorna, Killearn Lesley and Anne-H (and anyone I've missed ),

I have 4 separate trees on Ancestry, all related to me, but down different lines - both my parent's sides, and both my husband's parent's sides, all of whom seem to have had large families. (8-14 kids in most cases - I keep them separate for sanity's sake - how the hell anyone could manage a tree with 1800 people in it is beyond me!). In total there's probably in the region of about 900 - 1200 people in them, although admittedly I've not gone back that far or that wide on some. I've only been doing this for about 18 months and have concentrated more on quality rather than quantity - putting meat on the bones so to speak, for as many direct line individuals as I can.

I think what Lorna said about 'block copying' is probably spot on, certainly where that guy I mentioned was concerned - quite a lot of lazy researching from the PC rather than the archives I'd say. And as such, 'iffy' content seems a huge probability.

Lesley, you are clearly a secret millionaire - or would be if it wasn't for this damned addiction!

[Lorna Allison]

Hi Ann

That number I quoted was - 18,000 - that's right 18 THOUSAND

I had to look several times at the figure on GR to make sure I wasn't dreaming.

Lorna

[Ann In the UK]

Sorry, that's just me being completely number blind!

That's insane. There must be countries with smaller populations than that!

[Brian Turnbull]

I have just caught this thread and just days ago I was miffed to find that someone (a 3rd cousin) I had helped had posted the whole descendants list on Ancestry. I was contacted by a relative in the Us to ask if I knew that my whole family including me was listed. This person had not even acknowleged that they had received my information in the post, let alone aski my consent to posting it on a public forum. I am not amused.
Brian

[Ann In the UK]

I also found myself listed - by cousin so distant from my husband he's never even met him! I always thought Ancestry was supposed to protect the identity of people still likely to be living.

[Andy]

How could anyone personally put together 18,000 entries (while holding down a job and running a home)?

Hi there, I have over 17,000 people all verified in my personal database and over 15,000 in my Rathlin Island database. However, I only post online details of about 7000, for each, on my own and other websites.

My personal database includes collateral branches discovered while researching other peoples' trees if I find a tenuous link. Or from trusted individuals, for example, a very well researched branch of the Byrne family, one member of which married a 3rd cousin of mine. Ina and Sporran too have tenuous links via marriages plus a few others on this site.

I also include lines I've researched for people who marry into the family, 5 uncles and 7 (one uncle married twice) aunts. No blood relationship whatsoever but it's helped dozens of 2nd cousins in the obligatory Family History module that seems to be part of the various incarnations of the National Curriculum throughout Britain.

There is also five generations back (and from there forward) on my wife's family, with absolutely no physical evidence just oral traditional and a wealth of stories that, because of the circumstances, I tend to believe are AS accurate, in some cases more so, as our written records. Some weddings are attended by literally THOUSANDS of family members of various degrees of removal but still family.

Just from my 4 Grandparents, who had 13 children between them, 11 married and 10 produced 28 children. 26 of those married and 25 produced 50 children (so far). 9 of these have married producing 14 children so far. Just including names of spouses and the direct descendants we're up to 155 individuals from about 1900. When families were starting to get smaller.

A few of the 25 are still producing children (three on the way as I write this) and there are still 41 children with the potential to marry and produce further offspring before 5 generations are complete. Potentially an extra 120-ish (at two children each + spouses) total descendants from 4 people in 100 years approaching 300 people.

Then there is the arithmetic:

2 parents, 4 Grandparents, 8 G-Grandparents, 16 G-G-Grandparents (I have all of these and a considerable number of full lines of descent from them) who had an average of six surviving children who married and, in turn, had an average of five surviving children and so on. Potentially, just from about 1830-ish, to my generation, there could be 17,000-odd folk walking around related to me EVEN allowing for less propagation in recent generations, excluding any links from MUCH earlier generations OR evenspouses' names. To get the actual number of relations you've got to add the previous generations. Add to that the spouses and you have the Tree.

Generation 1 (G-G-Grandparents) 48 people born to 8 sets of parents 170 years ago
6 births - Generation 2 (from the aboves offspring) 288 people 140 years ago
5 births - Generation 3 (from the aboves offspring) 1440 people 110 years ago
4 births - Generation 4 (from the aboves offspring) 5764 people 80 years ago
3 births - Generation 5 (from the aboves offspring approx my generation) 17,292 people 50 years ago

Potental tree size 24,832 + names of spouses

Even being far less generous:

Generation 1 (G-G-Grandparents) 48 people born to 8 sets of parents 170 years ago
4 births - Generation 2 (from the aboves offspring) 192 people 140 years ago
3 births - Generation 3 (from the aboves offspring) 576 people 110 years ago
2 births - Generation 4 (from the aboves offspring) 1152 people 80 years ago
2 births - Generation 5 (from the aboves offspring approx my generation) 2304 people 50 years ago

Potental tree size 4,272 + names of spouses

In addition I have all but 6 names of my 64 G-G-G Grandparents and 54 of their children, so, not including my G-G grandparents, this is another 22 folk who married 5 generations ago, many of whose lines I have to date. I also have 27 names of G-G-G-G Grandparents lots of their children, the children's spouses and children etc.

So it is possible to build up a fairly large tree (without harvesting), hold down a job, research other peoples trees and have a couple of pints along the way.