When doing tree do you include spouses parents background too?

Question

In doing my tree, I started with my great grandmother and her husband but then it spread to her husbands parents then grandparents and on and on. I am trying to keep it so the bloodline is connected to mine.

Comments

I look up spouse's parents, grandparents, neighbors etc. They usually connect back to my family. But that could be just because I LOVE GENEALOGY!!!!

Answer 1

If you come across enough info to start a profile, why not add it, it all enhances the world tree. I often find myself going sideways and adding in-laws/outlaws.

Comments

I coined a phrase to describe my ex-mother-in-law - she was my mother-un-law after her son and I were divorced (we split everything - he got his father and I got his mother).

---

Ah, but I got a better deal - I got my mum and step, he got his parents. That’s 50/50 !

Answer 2

It's entirely up to you how far back you go. Personally, I only go back as far as parents (after all, they were the in-laws and grandparents of any children!), but if I'm 'on a roll' and the records are easy to find, I go back and back and back... 

Answer 3

I include all what is possible, no matter if it's direct ancestors or siblings or spouses and their ancestors (or descendants) and their in-laws.

Answer 4

More than once, I have created the profile for the spouse of a relative of mine then found by doing just a bit of research that a profile already existed for the parent of said person.   So then I happily connected that person to their parent.

I've been trying to connect up non related spouses recently to their trees, as it not only enhances the overall tree, but working on an unfamiliar family presents it's own unique challenges.

Answer 5

I add parents of any person married to someone related to me but that's usually as far as I go. If one or both of those parents had additional spouses, I may add the spouses but I do not add the spouses' parents. There are always exceptions but that is my general approach. I add the extra profiles just to make it easier for others to identify the profile and connect to it. I mostly orphan such profiles after I've added sources so that someone directly related can adopt them if they choose.

Comments

I go further than that.  I also add all the children of those people, and their grandchildren, etc., going forwards before I continue going backwards to the spouses grandparents … then I add their other children, etc. too.

Answer 6

I often include parents of in-laws, and if I’m too busy I put their names in the bio section. Some families though, I put the parents in because I know I’m going to run into them again. In the county in which I live, there are so many intermarriages that it is well more than likely that I’ll be able to connect people who are assumed only to be in-laws but will turn out to be blood related.

Answer 7

in my own tree I am still buzzy with the essentials: I make profiles for everyone I can find in my pedigree(?) and all the brothers and sisters of my direct ancestors. I do mention the spouses and the children of  brothers an sisters in their biography so it will be easy for other genealogists to make the other profiles, if someone wanted to.

Maybe when I'm finished wiht my direct ancestors I'll work on them but not in the near future.

Answer 8

When I'm trying to connect a branch, I follow any leads I can find, in any direction, because I never know what's going to be the profile that finally connects that branch to the main tree. So I go back as far as I can, but when I hit a brick wall (which usually doesn't take me very long), I go sideways: add siblings, and siblings' spouses, and then siblings' spouses' parents, and however far I have to got to make the connection. At least once I've made the connection and orphan that branch, I've given WikiTree that much more "surface area" for other people to connect their branches to.

On my own family, even though I got my branch connected, I still work out in all directions, looking for still more connections. (And, sometimes, finding unconnected branches which then end up being connected through mine.)

Answer 9

Yes, I often do some research on the spouses' families. More than once I have found that it connected back to my tree. Cousins marrying cousins, or the descendants of step-siblings marrying. Other times it has coincidentally circled back to a completely different branch of my tree.

And no matter what, it helps with the whole "FAN club" research; families who knew one another often stayed near one another. Sometimes following one family helps you find the other.

And sometimes I just do it because my own family (on both sides) are fairly recent arrivals to the area where I live, and I want to get in some practice at the State Archives, but need someone to research.

Answer 10

I think it all depends how big your tree already is: If I go back as far as I can with my direct ancestors and then turn around and enter all of their known descendants and their spouses I'm coming up with about 75,000 people (present standing without having exhausted readily available sources). I doubt I'll be able to get all those profiles created on WikiTree before some health issue catches up with me. I, therefore, don't include parents-in-law even though they are available from the birth records of the spouses of my cousins. But that is just me, by all means, do what interests you!

Answer 11

I have made it a habit to include the spouse's (or multiples thereof) family lines as far back into time as I can go and have made a number of connections to already entered profiles at WikiTree. If the general mission statement of WikiTree is to connect your 12th gt gdfather to Boris Knudsen's mother's stepfather's sister and your 8th gt gd mother to Alma Kinlock's 3rd husband's stepmother , then yes, include everyone ... you do NOT have to shelter them on your watchlist and once entered and documented you can orphan them -- they will not "disappear" but they will not be on your own watchlist

Answer 12

I’ve completed as much of my own family tree as I’m likely to find. I’m now working through my great grandmother’s cousins, their spouses and families. Even though I’m only using census records, the story they tell is interesting in itself. My great grandmother was the first child born in New Zealand after emigration. Her cousins stayed in Lincolnshire. They slowly move away from the country to bigger towns and different work rather than ag labs.

Answer 13

If I have time and the sources, I like to at least add the spouse's parents. Sometimes I'll go back further, especially if they're from the area my maternal grandparents come from (which means there's a decent chance they're related to me too).

And of course if I'm trying to connect a profile to the global tree, I'll go up, down, and sideways until I can find a connection.