Any ideas on how to include someone on your tree if you are not exactly sure how they are related?

Question

I'm building my family trees on Ancestry.com and sometimes I find a person that I want to include (so I can link records to them etc) but I'm not exactly sure how they relate to everybody else.

For example in the 1881 census I have a couple in their late fortys and a 6yo child with them listed as grand daughter. I can't work out how exactly she is related but I would like to include her. How can I tidily add her to my tree?

Answer 1

I don't konw how you would attach her to a computer-generated tree, but Jenna and Joyce's suggetions sound good.  For a a hand-drawn/written one, you could do something like this:

John Doe

=

Jane Roe

|

?

|

Janie

Now, to find more about "Janie," you could look in the 1891 census, in case she was living with her grandparents only temporarily and was back with her parents by the next census.  Whether she was or not, you can also look in 1871 and 1861 for the same couple and see what children they had.  If "Janie" had a different last name from her grandparents, then she must have been their daughter's child, and you can probably search marriage records for the early 1870s to see which of their daughters married a man with that last name.  If she had their name, you can look for marriage records for their sons, but it may be a little harder to determine which of them was her father.  (Or she may have been an out-of-wedlock child of one of their daughters, which might explain why she was living with her grandparents.)   You can also look for death records in that decade to see whether she was orphaned, another and likelier reason for her to be living with her grandparents.

Good luck!

Answer 2

if thiy aint limbed to th tree thin it wuld be persumtus of u 2 includ thim

Answer 3

Easy.

Create "phantom" parents for her..

If grandchild's surname is the same as the grandparents.. she is a child of a SON.  If her last name is something else, she is the child of a DAUGHTER.

Call the phantom parents... Father Smith and mother Jones. Connect the phantom parents to both the grandchild as parents, and (depending on the s*x) either connect father to the grandparents, or mother to the grandparents.

Later, when you identify the actual names of the parents, you go back and edit the phantom parents to show the correct name(s).

Grandchild will be linked, even if you don't find the actual names.

Answer 4

could you create a sprig on the branch for her? I think iys important to include her. Youll probably find more info later telling who she was to you. Could you consult birth & death- cemetary records to help find her idenity?

Answer 5

Can you put the source in your shoebox?  I wouldn't add them to the tree until you are sure they belong.

Answer 6

I would list them with unknown parents and a note until I find more information. I had this problem with a grandson and found out the parents a year later, so then I linked him to the correct father and changed the unknown mother to who she was.