Genealogy Chat

I just contacted someone who shares a name in my tree. I asked what relation they are to the person and he said he was doing a one village study. Anyway I opened my tree to him and he verified we have the same person and opened his tree to me. Blimey, he has over 34,000 ppl on it! A lot of my relations, as they came from this particular village. My question is, how do you add ppl to your tree who are not related? All mine link up in some way, but this persons are all disconnected if you know what I mean. Carole xx

Big village! Jill

Hi Carole, sounds like a name collector to me. Gill

That's a good question - I can't see how he's done it either! Everything seems to add to everything else. Must have used the PAF file or some other package and imported it? Jill

'sounds like a name collector' - that seems a bit unfair as he has explained he is studying a village rather than his own family. I too have researched many families from one particular village, For many years my own ancestors lived there and the intermarriages between various families became very complex so I ended up tracing all the residents through two censuses, and all descendants of a couple of the families through parish records and all the censuses. I don't have this on gr but on Family Historian on my home computer. If I decided to upload that Gedcom to GR though, all individuals would upload, whether or not related so I guess that is how this chap has put the people onto GR PS not necessarily a big village as I assume the people on his tree didn't all live there at the same time but represent many generations of residents.

Well his name is on the tree obviously, but then it just ends after his GGrandparents. To find my lot I had to put individual names in and some of them link up, but others seem to be out on a limb so to speak! C

Judith That's what he must have done then, I did wonder. It's actually very interesting as I too have a few interrelated marriages and it will be very helpful to me. C

I find this sort of thing very interesting, and have been considering doing some studies myself for various places - just out of interest as I enjoy this research immensely! I think the fact that he pointed out it was a study makes it a bit unfair to call him a name collecter. There are many reasons people do family history, and for some it's not just their own branches. I have information on uncles (by marriage) etc - I love doing the research and feel they are connected to me, even if only by marriage./a series of marriages. It's also interesting when your relatives come from similar areas and you find links further back that you might not have found otherwise. I too, wondered how you would go about putting this on GR as have come across it before with one of my contacts! Laura

Laura Tribal Pages is an excellent site for doing a village tree - I have two village trees on the go. you can put floating people or families on TP wiyhout any problems. I am not a name collector. I research every name for myself - easy, as the parish records for this village are excellent and varied. Contacts do occasionally offer me names - usually ones who have gone 'out of area' but I check those out too, myself. I am related, to some degree or another, to almost every name on that tree. OC

Creating a detached branch of a tree...I've done this purely by accident on my tree but couldn't tell you how for the life of me. I think it's a great idea, and I guess works off a premise that if the village is small enough then at some point all the families will be connected. Perhaps he hopes to further his own tree in that way or perhaps he's doing it for the ease of other genealogist. I think it would be a fantastic resource to have available. Also a good way to get further into the hobby if your own tree has ground to a halt.

I think it sounds like he`s adding anyone with the same name as him, or, names of members of his family. Zoe

Zoe, Why do you think that? If it is one village, then yes, I WOULD expect him to add people of the same name - I do, and they almost always turn out to be part of the village tree. OC

Thanks OC - I have some of my other tree on TP but never thought to do that with it! Silly really, I don't use it half as much as I should! Laura x