My grandfather, Crawford Brown, with his parents and siblings, 1916
So far in my family history research, I’ve focused on direct lines. Except for my own brothers, every person entered into my genealogy software (I use Reunion) is someone I’m directly descended from. I think one of the reasons for that is to try to make genealogy research less overwhelming. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how useful it would be to record brothers and sisters of direct ancestors (i.e. collateral lines). They can give valuable clues and help verify that a person being reached is the right person.
I worry a little about where I should draw the line–if I record the children of the siblings of my direct ancestors, will my family tree feel bloated? Will I feel more overwhelmed?
This came to a head this week when I learned that my grandfather’s only surviving sibling, his sister Mary, passed away at the age of 99. I was fortunate to meet Mary for the first time earlier this year. (That’s Mary, on her father’s lap at the age of four in the photo. My grandfather, Crawford, is standing at his father’s left shoulder.) She was delightful, with sparkling eyes and an easy laugh. I’m saddened by her passing.
Somehow it feels wrong that Mary’s not included in my family tree entries. I’ve decided to record siblings of my direct line as I come across them. My mother’s cousins Jerry and Judy Brown (Aunt Mary’s nephew and niece) have done a lot of genealogy research–including oral history with Mary–so adding that part of the family will be easy. I don’t know that I’ll go out of my way to research collateral lines (though who knows?), but I intend to verify and record information as I encounter it.
It seems clear to me that I shouldn’t be afraid of having too much information, as long as I apply the same standards of accuracy to my collateral lines as I do my direct lines. I don’t mind recording information–in fact, I rather enjoy it. So I’m comfortable with my decision to start including collateral lines. I’ll try not to let it overwhelm me!
For more in-depth information on how I organize my own genealogy, including my collateral lines, check out How I Do It: A Professional Organizer’s Genealogy Workflow, a 37-page downloadable pdf published in 2021 and available for $19.99.
Hi Janine. I follow my direct ancestors and descendants of those people. Why. Well, I included my cousins and nieces and nephews as a start. I also had trees from my parents and my wife’s parents. These all included descendants of direct ancestors, particularly when I started 1 generation down (our children). It’s now even worse, with grandchildren.
I’ve also come across a situation where two “ancestors” were known as Joseph and Robert – brothers. It was by collecting info on both of them, that my conclusion is that they weren’t brothers, but the same person – Joseph Robert Henry.
BTW, I use Family Tree Builder because it allows the import and export of Spreadsheets.
Thanks for your comment, John! I love our story of how collecting data on siblings helped you realize that the brothers were the same person. You’re validating my decision.
By the way, I love the Sunshine Coast. I paid a visit there with my brother, who lives in Brisbane.
Wait, what? And here I was feeling guilty for not including MORE data on my direct ancestors’ siblings/children! I do include their names, spouses names, and birth/death/marriage dates (when I run across them), and it really helps because so often neighbor families intermarried. You do have to decide how much to record, but the more you know about them, the better feeling you get for the community and a sense that you’re on the right track if you see these collateral in-law family surnames. Honestly, without those complete lists of siblings/children (and, of course, dates, locations and life events) I wouldn’t know one Thomas Thornton from another!
Hazel, you make a good point about getting to know the community! I’ve always recorded siblings names on census transcriptions and so forth, but will now be entering them in my software. Thanks for commenting!
I couldn’t even think not including all the siblings in my family tree. I have received so many hints to my ancestors by looking left and right. Sometimes I could only find the parents via the siblings. I even started my cousin bait blog to find living relatives from collateral lines.
Yes, my tree is huge but I always concentrate only on parts of it.
Barbara, concentrating on parts of your huge tree at a time is a great strategy for handling the overwhelm that can come with having so collateral lines on the tree. I can understand how useful it is to have all those siblings there!
I feel like it’s a little bit of both good and bad. It does overwhelm a tree to include siblings and non-direct lineage. However, I LOVE the stories I come across. I stumbled upon a picture of my great-great grandmother’s brother. I reached out to the owner of the picture and turns out he’s married to the brother’s granddaughter (great-granddaughter?). It was very cool to connect with them, learn more about the family and I plan on sharing with them some 1918 photos I have of the (our) family. So I guess that’s why I include EVERYONE. 🙂
Emily, it seems clear that the pay off of connecting with distant relatives is worth the added effort and potential overwhelm. I have a family reunion coming up next month with the descendants of one set of great grandparents, so I know that having them in my tree will be handy! Thanks for your comment.
I put my direct lines first names in all caps, so when I’m going through I immediately recognize which sibling I descend from.
Thank you for sharing that strategy, Kelly. That’s brilliant in its simplicity!
A few years ago I started entering the info from my accumulation of prior research in my software Roots Magic. It was s-l-o-w…There was a lot of information that did not fit the mold so I left it out or put it in one of the Note categories I finally gave up This year I decided to try again, but first I decided to spend the year setting up a workflow system before conducting further research
Hence I found you and your inspirational blog
Before, I listed collateral relatives in the Family Group Sheets, and put info about an individual in “Notes”. After my research this year,I agree that these people are important I will be including siblings with the family until they marry, when I will set up a separate tree for that new family This gives me a place to put that extraneous info if I need it but it doesn’t confuse my direct line
Also I like the idea of capitalizing first names for direct ancestors Since I long ago decided to make a separate tree for each grandparent, that shouldn’t be too confusing
Thanks and keep up all your good work
Thanks so much for describing your process, Helen! Best of luck getting through it all–it’s going to feel so good to have all that information readily available to you.