Family History Done? What's Your Number?

Family History Done? What's Your Number? | Ancestry

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How many ancestors do you have? How many of them have you discovered? How can knowing this information help you continue to climb your family tree? How can it help you have more success working with your Ancestry DNA results?
Join Crista Cowan for a look at how to analyze your family tree to discover patterns and trends in your family history that will help you continue on your genealogy journey.
To read Crista's blog post on this topic, click here: blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/20...
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www.ancestry.com/s90422/t38352...
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Family History Done? What's Your Number? | Ancestry
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Пікірлер: 72

@judyhanson4541 8 жыл бұрын

Another great video, Crista! This was very interesting as another way to look at your research and where to look next. Look forward every week to your videos -- keep up the good work.

@MarinaGarrison 4 жыл бұрын

Interesting analysis. I’ve been researching for almost 30 years only to find my number is 152 (15%). For those of you with RootsMagic 7, there is a really quick way to do these counts: Reports>Narrative Reports>Ancestors Only (set to 10 generations)>Generate Report. Simply count the names in each section (in Red).

@wilmakelley7086 8 жыл бұрын

Thanks Krista , this was very informative as all of your videos I've watched over the years . I've been working on my family history for many years before the online Ancestry. I'm a little behind on viewing your weekly programs . I find that I'm always in need of a little boost which you give me . I'm in my advanced years , so I find that your videos refresh my memory as well as give new insight on how to do the research . I love the DNA capability of helping with brick walls . I do wish that my parents and grandparents were still alive and what when we had this technology emerge . What a difference it would've made with my research . I have encouraged my friends that are doing genealogy to do their DNA . I'm a member of the daughters of the American Revolution, at times I try and help those do not know how to research their family. I recommend to them to check out your videos on KZfaq and then I try and work with them on finding their patriot ancestor. Thank you for all of your help over the years. I'll be visiting family history Library in Utah this summer, once again to try and break through some of my brick walls .Wilma

@AncestryUS 8 жыл бұрын

You are very welcome, Wilma. So glad you find these helpful. Good luck in your research and have fun climbing your family tree. (Crista)

@wilmakelley7086 7 жыл бұрын

Thanks again Krista, for sharing yet another great tool to work out are blanks in our trees. My trip to the FHL was great, although I was unable to open that brick wall. Maybe the spread sheet will help.😊

@StylishElements 8 жыл бұрын

Awesome and highly educational Crista. Many thanks! Jan

@sondaelockett3424 6 жыл бұрын

Excellent tip. It is so simple yet powerful source for finding holes or breaking through brick walls. Thank you so much!!!!

@TMB247 5 жыл бұрын

Again You have an awesome Help Vid ... You teach me so much... Thank You

@DanaLKapp 7 жыл бұрын

Wow, I so need to do this! Thanks for another great tips!

@joyzeitelhack7081 8 жыл бұрын

Great information. I always learn so much watching your videos. I have tried to remember these details in my head, not always successfully. Where is the link to look/copy your spreadsheet?

@elli003 4 жыл бұрын

I just wanted to say one of my favorite studies is geographical research. I always keep Google Earth open to refer to towns and counties to help resolved locations and confirm citations/sources. At some point you will have to determine if you are going to use old counties, new counties or both to name the same location - applies to states too ! Why do this? It helps in identifying good sources with greater accuracy. And gives you a better sense of micro migrations including a study of the interdependence of multiple family migrations. Interesting stuff !

@OldLady-um9kt 5 жыл бұрын

Very interesting. You are helping me a lot. I have a few lines going far back very easily but then there are other lines that have had us at that "brick wall" for years. Most important step to me is organizing all those things that my family has collected up over many years saying they are doing genealogy. But it was tons of scraps of papers to "some day" make into a family history keepsake. Now handed down to me to sort through. Well I have it finally down to two boxes. Whew! Then my pc quit. Thank goodness I backed everything up on an external harddrive (eBook) Okay, I'm rattling on. Just want to thank you for all your videos. I love your soothing voice too. Hugs from Utah !

@AncestryUS 5 жыл бұрын

Oh, Connie. I'm so glad you had everything backed up. I'm glad you find the videos useful. Hugs to you, too. (~Crista)

@dianehoffman3508 8 жыл бұрын

Wonderful!! More videos on how to do research. Thanks so much!

@helenhunter4540 Жыл бұрын

Crista, thank you! This analysis will help me a lot. I've done some of it piecemeal but it makes sense to have a whole-tree analysis.

@CristaCowan Жыл бұрын

You are so welcome!

@seajay20 8 жыл бұрын

Excellent ideas. Thanks!

@Lisa-mr7pj 7 жыл бұрын

Hi Crista, thanks for your comment on "bright shiny object" syndrome! My tree is Exibit A. I have only 500 people so far & before watching some of your videos I was running off on tangents. I'm attempting to work in one generation at a time now & it does make a huge difference. Are there any other videos on this that I might have missed? (Other than that, I should just lay off the caffeine! ;)

@LAGleason 8 жыл бұрын

Very helpful!

@bissells Жыл бұрын

Thank you. This will help me get organized!

@AncestryUS Жыл бұрын

Hi Cynthia, that's great to hear! We are glad you found this video useful.

@cybergal17 8 жыл бұрын

I loved this idea and created my own. However, I added a column from the ISOGG site on the approx number of cM for each estimated relationship. (Please do something about the audio/video sync. This is happening frequently on your videos and is annoying.)

@geraldinedalton9181 8 жыл бұрын

Very useful video thanks Crista. Would be great if all Ancestry DNA matches put their trees online. An online tree sure helps others to analyse data.

@AncestryUS 8 жыл бұрын

+Geraldine Dalton I agree. I find that those who don't put a tree online often don't know the value of having a tree attached to their DNA results. Send them a brief message, inviting them to start a family tree so you can work together to discover the paper trail validated by your genetic connection. (Crista)

@TheQuetzalcoatl 8 жыл бұрын

i'm doing this, it's such a good way of "re-grouping with your tree" ;D I decided to do more generations and stop at 10xGGP, now i'm doing the birth year range, so fun seeing some huge gaps :) I also included those with name only, but added a column counting how many of those in each generation. I have to say though my tree has many repetitions, they didn't move much, I descend sometimes from 3 different brothers/sisters and this happened multiple times already. .... so. many. cousins.

@stingrayofcincinnati 7 жыл бұрын

My genealogic background is Jewish. So I hit the brick wall at 3x grandparents. Only have about half of them and only have 3 of the 4x grandparents. Happy for you TheQuetzalcoatl. I dare you to go to a synagogue and help someone with their tree and see how far back you can go. LOL

@TheQuetzalcoatl 7 жыл бұрын

you're right, I'm extremely lucky, my people really were unmovable ! Also thankfully the (Roman Catholic) church books of most (there are gaps) of the parishes I'm looking at have survived... if not I'd be in big troubles... I just googled synagogue near me, 1h1/2 away, the one in Venice (and I lived nearby for a while) is the closest... and considering I'm thinking of taking archival studies in Venice one day I may try to do what you're suggesting!! Although, many aspects of the life of Jewish people in Venice have been extensively studied already by smart people so I'm not sure I'd be of help :D

@stingrayofcincinnati 7 жыл бұрын

One of the nice things about the Catholic Church(Roman or otherwise) is that they do keep records. 100+ years ago, Jews really did not keep records. Usually it was marriage and death were the only ones. It was the state that took tax records and other ones. The reason mostly is that they used these records to see who was old enough to go into the military. For Jews, that usually was a 25 year enlistment and a death sentence. Like today, back then people did not like the Jews. Hatred towards us was almost State run institution. Lets get back to the original subject. Crista has another excel sheet that she does. I think it does a better job of breaking down what document you are missing to break a brick wall. I do not remember the name if the video though. I made one for my family tree. Got it somewhere.

@TravelingBibliophile 4 жыл бұрын

I did this this up this afternoon I added a note to the cells up to my 5th Gr. Grandparents noting who I was missing (e.g Amelia’s mother) until I reached the brick super wall for my father’s side of the family where nobody is known. I tabulated up to my 8th Gr. Grandparents (for mum’s Side), where the number known is fewer than 20 for that generation) though for a few branches I have gone back substantially farther.

@sharonbrogdon3615 8 жыл бұрын

I knew I had a long way to go even though I have thousands in my database. I took the easy way to figure it out by doing a custom report in FTM that listed all direct ancestors by generation so no math except a little counting.

@joefromravenna 2 жыл бұрын

I am not done. I have 1061 so far in my tree. That’s the pedigree tree plus siblings of my ancestors. There are a few cousins, 2nd cousins and third cousins. I generally don’t go beyond three unless they too have an interest in genealogy. Most of my family don’t really care. I do have second cousins that I’ve not met and some they don’t want to meet me. Their kids are curious so at some point i will get my opportunity.

@dimwit818 2 жыл бұрын

it will never be done, there will always be something to find.

@natalieahlstrom4045 8 жыл бұрын

Crista, thanks for this video. after i did the chart of "What's your number?" I wasn't that surprised - have a lot of work to do. I only know less than 8% of my number (80) of how many I've found so far......

@terridean4784 8 жыл бұрын

This is helpful - only I have two 4x Great Grandparents that are siblings. They have the same parents so I need to do some math and recalculate my numbers starting with their parents since that is where the duplication starts. It really looks confusing in a tree too. My Great Grandfather is where the two lines merged into my tree-so the 2x Great Grandkids of my 5x Great Grandparents got married. I have a lot of DNA matches on this line and I suspect this is why. I also added in all the new surnames at each generation to help me try to find common ancestors between two trees.

@KenDay 3 жыл бұрын

Bright shiny object syndrome - got me in one 😂

@darthsawlex8257 6 жыл бұрын

All my generation have an average of 25 years or so gap so for me I have more generations in the same time span as you Crista. Plus I'm a teenager so I'm much younger so I am of a different generation.

@stingrayofcincinnati 7 жыл бұрын

Crista, I think that the number thing is fine but you did a video on using a spreadsheet(Excel for most people) to help break brick walls. But this is more of a vague pointing to who or where to look. I'm only guessing, but, I think most people know that. It's finding missing piece of the puzzle on people to get further back.

@arnjln 8 жыл бұрын

GREAT information! Thank you!!

@beverleyhirst9380 3 жыл бұрын

I don't get the point of 10 generations - most people don't have access to records to find people that far back, for me that's 1750's. my oldest relative is 1480 - I think it more important to get the correct information and person on your tree, rather than how far you can go back in time.

@TheDanEdwards 8 жыл бұрын

So, why doesn't ancestry.com add useful little utilities to do items like this automatically for their customers?

@DanaLKapp 7 жыл бұрын

I so agree that this would be a great tool.

@carlallen8624 5 жыл бұрын

How come my DNA report does not show my fathers side but it show my mothers side

@Ratchet4647 5 жыл бұрын

You mentioned at one point how German ancestors may have been living somwhere in 'France' ,for example, that today is in modern Germany. It hits on a point that names of places change, borders change, such that, by having inconsistency in how one refers to places(either modern or at the time) could lead to alot of confusion and could even build brick walls where there normally wouldn't be as result! For example, you may be looking at the wrong country's records due to such a confusion. Does Ancestry have features that allow for the labeling of a birthplace for example both for the location name at the time and the modern day location name? So that it can easily be visualized which is which?

@AncestryUS 5 жыл бұрын

My practice has been to put the current location in the PLACE field and the historic location in the DESCRIPTION field. That way I have both locations identified. (~Crista)

@rooneysbar 3 жыл бұрын

Interesting video. I’m of Irish decent and it’s a tough one, but learnt a lot since starting . Good luck with yours. 🤞

@Jay123hollis Жыл бұрын

I was wondering are you supposed to include yourself when you're counting up the generations?

@CristaCowan Жыл бұрын

I always count myself as generation one.

@lauriefugate228 8 жыл бұрын

Unfortunately 2 of my grandparents are 1st generation Americans. Even with the international membership I am not having much luck finding any further :(

@AncestryUS 8 жыл бұрын

+Laurie Fugate It depends on where your grandparents are from, Laurie. If you use the Card Catalog, you can see what we have available for each country. You can learn more about that here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/itRzdKWZ1qu2e3U.html

@YoutubeBuam 2 жыл бұрын

I have 436 known ancestors so far. With the oldest being born at around 1360. No aristocrates so far.

@AncestryUS 2 жыл бұрын

It certainly sounds like you have been hard at work on your research! We're so happy to hear that you have been able to trace your family history so far back. Good luck in all of your research to come, you never know what exciting discoveries may be coming your way! 🙂📚

@YoutubeBuam 2 жыл бұрын

@@AncestryUS well, my family never migrated. So everybody stayed at the same spot for the last 1500years. Its pretty easy then, especially when you can read Latin and old versions of your native language.

@whyaskwhybuddry 2 жыл бұрын

Why doesn't the Ancestry site have this as a function?

@CristaCowan 2 жыл бұрын

That's an interesting idea. I'll pass that along to the product managers.

@whyaskwhybuddry 2 жыл бұрын

@@CristaCowan Also ask them to enable printing in Registry Style. I'm writing a Family History book, but don't want to retype all this vital stats into another program.

@roberthopgood1894 4 жыл бұрын

On ancestry how do you enter a date range???

@AncestryUS 4 жыл бұрын

Hello Robert, Are you trying to enter a date range in a set of search parameters or in a particular fact for a person in your tree?

@roberthopgood1894 4 жыл бұрын

@@AncestryUS as a range for a person's date

@AncestryUS 4 жыл бұрын

@@roberthopgood1894 In your tree? You can enter, for example, in a birth date field "bet 1843/1851."

@roberthopgood1894 4 жыл бұрын

@@AncestryUS I still get This date may be wrong. It uses an invalid month. Click “Save Anyway” to use the date you entered or fix the date.

@naithom 8 жыл бұрын

What about those of us whose trees do not fork as they should? My mother is from SE Kentucky and I have 3rd great grandparents who were first cousins and a 5th great grandfather who had 4 wives and 21 children and I am directly descended from 3 of those children. (Giggle all you want, tracking which kids go to which mother has been a real headache.)

@AncestryUS 8 жыл бұрын

+naithom I have LOTS of this endogamy in my mother's southern family as well. She calls it her "family wreath." But, for the purposes of this exercise, I count each filled spot on my family tree, regardless of whether or not it is filled by the same people. (Crista)

@naithom 8 жыл бұрын

+Ancestry OK, Crista, thanks.

@SereniaSaissa 6 жыл бұрын

For the record, this is called pedigree collapse. Thanks for the explanation.

@nomi4560 3 жыл бұрын

Don't how anyone can ever be "done" other just being tired of the research.

@BonnieDragonKat 5 жыл бұрын

I know on my adopted family tree I am not going to come up with numbers anywhere close to this. On my adopted parents side the tree stops with my great great grand parents on the material side because past that the records were lost due to WWII or they died in a concentration camp.

@AncestryUS 5 жыл бұрын

Ancestry has a large collection of records pertaining to victims of Nazi persecution. There are many more records available throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Was your family Jewish or another victim group?

@BonnieDragonKat 5 жыл бұрын

@@AncestryUS They were Polish. They were sent to Auschwitz, as the story goes, because they either lost their papers or did not have them when they were asked for them. My maternal great - grandmother was said to be on the last boat out of Poland. Her sisters, brothers, and their mates made it out. I grew up knowing nothing of this, until I met this cousin that I never knew about, told me.

@AncestryUS 5 жыл бұрын

If you go into the Ancestry Card Catalog and do a search for USHMM, you will find the records that Ancestry has indexed, in collaboration with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, that pertain to all victims of Nazi persecution. We are continually adding to that record collection as we digitize and index additional records. So, if you don't find something pertinent right away, be sure to check back.