Talk:Genealogy

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[edit] Etymology

Does the etymology belong here? It is pretty cryptic. Also, can we just copy text like that verbatim from Miriam Webster even though we give them credit? -Frecklefoot

  • Considering that it had been contributed then removed, I've gone to the cited source and adapted the information from there, inserting it into wiktionary:genealogy. Courtland 09:08, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Relationship names

I'm not sure if this is relevant to this article, but somewhere in the Wikipedia, there should be an explanation about what a "first cousin, twice removed" is and all that. I know someone explained it to me once, and it made sense at the time, but I can't even begin to remember what it was. Tokerboy

That would be nice. Any suggestions on where to put it (article title, section in Genealogy)? -Frecklefoot
I'm thinking in a section devoted to it in Family. I'll go add the basic familial relationships in English, and hopefully you/others can add more. Tokerboy
I just peeked at Family and didn't see any explanation of "first cousin twice removed." Tokerboy, are you still planning to work on this? I created a "chart" in Microsoft Excel that might fit this bill nicely. Let me know if you want my assistance on this. (Also, please sign your name by typing four tildes so that your signature also gets time-stamped. Thanks!) John Rigali 07:05, July 21, 2005 (UTC)


You can find degrees of family relationship at Consanguinity, though I've seen more user-friendly charts elsewhere. (Sixten8 20:33, 4 August 2005 (UTC))

To help with the definitions of first cousin twice removed and second cousin:

A has a child AA, and A's brother or sister B has a child BB. AA and BB are (first) cousins.

AA has a child AAA. AAA is the first cousin once removed of BB.

AAA has a child AAAA. AAAA is the first cousin twice removed of BB.

BB has a child BBB. AAA and BBB are second cousins. Hmcorbould 04:12, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki sites and software for genealogy

Hello all. i am new to the wikiworld. excuse me in advance if this question is not appropriate for this page. i do a great deal of my genealogy, and i realize that wiki would be the perfect environment to lay out my family tree. Do wiki-genealogy sites exist? Or is it possible to download wikisoftware to my server or harddrive so i can get cracking at laying it all out? - -kingturtle Kingturtle 21:53 Mar 9, 2003 (UTC)

Someone has tried that; I looked at the site the other day; not successful yet. There are other ways of building a family tree cooperatively - try MyFamily.com Robin Patterson 20:05, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Section 6.6 of the article is a list of web-based genealogy software. One program in the list is WikiTree, which is wiki-based. I just began using it myself. Like most of the web-based software, it aims to create a universal family tree, an aim that all genealogists should share. However, I could not find any sort of GEDCOM upload feature at WikiTree, which means that publishing one's data there is manual and VERY slow. John Rigali 06:11, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
Hi, just thought I'd let you know, there's a new wiki genealogy site at Rodovid.org, which supports GEDCOM upload and is currently trying to become a Wikimedia project. I would add it to external links, but that might be seen as spam linking. Do you think it is OK to put it there?--Bjwebb (talk) 09:27, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Based on its content, I don't think it's appropriate to add as a citation or external link; it's not useful for writing reports about genealogy. I've seen the proposal, and IF (that's a big if) it's approved to be a Wikimedia project, a link can be added with an infobox, like the current links to Wiktionary and Wikibooks material. GUllman 23:52, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Related pages

I see it's a while since anyone discussed this article. I noticed little linking between it and others such as Family and Kinship; maybe they have developed independently?

Now that we have categories, there's a chance to link better; but is kinship a subcategory of genealogy or vice versa? - Robin Patterson 20:05, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I would say that a Family is an element or unit of Kinship, and Genealogy is the study of Kinship, so they would each be subcategories of Kinship. GUllman 20:44, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I would agree with this relationship (Genealogy child of Kinship). I'd also suggest that the processes mentioned by Agendum below be placed as items under a Genealogy Category (for instance, Headstone Rubbing child of Genealogy). ~ Courtland (14 Jan 2005 by Ceyockey)
I'd like also to amplify the article to describe a little about the processes involved in genealogical research - and link it to family history (although that may merit a separate page) Agendum 00:03, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Darwin -- Wedgwood family

I have created what is in effect a genealogical entry for the members of this family. How do we categorise it? We could also do with a family tree and a little tidy if anyone's interested in this stuff, I'd like to get a second opinion on the article as a whole. Dunc_Harris|☺ 00:27, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Just my two cents:

NEHGS - "The oldest genealogical society in the country", (mentioned twice in the text) should be "in the US". After all, this is en.wikipedia.org not us.wikipedia.org

This Darwin-Whatshisface entry should be removed. This is an encyclopidia, man!

The "Maximum Relationship" is probably nonsense. Parts of the human population have most probably split 100.000 years ago. Just take a look at this: http://www.mitomap.org/mitomap/WorldMigrations.pdf

And... just btw: Great Britain is part of Europe, or at least used to. It might be the US' 51st state if you look at Blair and recent history.

Agreed. The claim that everyone living as of (and before) the year 500 AD is a direct ancestor of everyone living today is simply ridiculous (consider failed lines or geographically isolated populations that split much longer ago) and puts the entire concept in an unfavorable light. At the very least the writer has misunderstood the implications of the result. -- Schnolle 19:26, 2004 Oct 16 (UTC)
Mitochondria trace only female descent and thus predict a much older divergence than male+female descent trees. -- Xerxes 21:33, 2004 Oct 1 (UTC)
So, what are you saying? That the youngest common ancestor is a man? I might be naive, but men and women tend to migrate simultaneously. And it seems the australian population had no contact to the asian continent for tens of thousands of years - thus the relationship of an aboriginee to me (european) would require going back at least that period of time - as I do not have australian ancestors in modern time.
No, I mean for example, you have 4 grandparents, but you're only mitochondrially related to one of them: your mother's mother. For great-grandparents, it's 8-to-1. Generally, your total number of ancestors blows up exponentially with number of generations, but your number of mitochondrial ancestors is linear. Of course, there will be a lot of overlap in the total number of ancestors, so it's not precisely 2^n, but it's much much larger. That's why the most recent common ancestor is much more recent than the most recent mitochondrial ancestor. -- Xerxes 19:15, 2004 Oct 9 (UTC)
The Pedigree collapse you refer to, is of course misinterpreted. The only thing you can actually read out of that, is the degree of inbreeding within a geogrphicall limited area. (Lile austrlia, or a seven sea island or whatever. Theoretchically, the chances to be related to a pharao increases the more fare back you go, but its never a must, only a possibilty. Mathematics can not be used like that. But to give an average picture about inbreeding factor, it gives an indication. Dan Koehl 03:58, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
See Maximum relationship section below for my input on the maximum relationship issue. John Rigali 07:05, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Modern Research

What do you think about addition of a line to the tail end of the "modern research" section reading something like ... "Furthermore, with the advent of large online databases whose content is continuously increasing through the efforts of many volunteers, the pursuit of basic genealogy research can be taken farther on a smaller budget than had been possible in the past." Would anyone know of some evidence backing this impression up, such as a survey of new and seasoned genealogy researchers? ~ Courtland (14 Jan 2005 by user Ceyockey)

[edit] Conversion of External Links to Wikipedia Articles

It would be great if many of the External Links were converted to internal wikilinks, pointing to articles about the referenced resources. Then many of the links could be dropped in favor of a Category. Courtland 06:50, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)

In fact may of the external links seem to be advertising. They do not all have to be replaced - some can be deleted. --Henrygb 20:55, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Which particular ones are you referring to? Courtland 23:32, 2005 Mar 11 (UTC)
I did not see any external links that looked like advertising. To advertise would suggest a commercial pay site was promoted with promotional language. I added sites such as USGenWeb, GenealogyBuff.com and Obituary Central, which are well-known, pertinent, and relevent resources.

Cribbswh 21:15, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Try looking at Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Including "Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files" and "Wikipedia is not a general knowledge base". But this article is becoming a how to do genealogy with a computer or on the internet, with link after link to computer programs and external sites. --Henrygb 23:57, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I concede. Just wanted to expand the article by pointing to additional resources for each state. However, I'll not press the issue further. Cribbswh 00:44, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Anyone have an opinion on the value of the commercial website http://www.familyforest.com? Someone has been adding links to that site in various articles. The links mostly state that someone famous is the "Half 21st cousin 3 times removed" of someone else famous. [1] I've removed most of them, except for the one on this page and the one that I moved to Albert II, Prince of Monaco. Should those go too? -Willmcw 05:55, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
This article is favorite for spammers. One possible solution is to use the same "elimination" technique as in Game or Real estate (see source). It worked on these. Pavel Vozenilek 18:32, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
You are probably right. Plenty of articles have "external links" sections that get filled with commercial sites with little redeeming value to readers. In many cases, the small amount of useful information could be moved into an article on Wikipedia. -Willmcw 18:39, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
I went ahead and put a comment in the External Links section. I didn't put it into every country specific sub-section, which will limit the impact. GRBerry 12:48, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree the Webliography should be pruned before it gets too big. There are thousands of sites related to doing genealogy in every country, state and county, which is beyond the scope of this article. Remember, this is an encylopedia article about what genealogy is. Even if a separate article on how to do genealogy research is spun off from this article, which I think it should, it also should teach research methods, not just list services and databases to blindly plug your surnames into. GUllman 03:37, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Maximum relationship

I deleted content from this section. The deleted content made preposterous conclusions based on faulty logic. We can include such faulty logic if attributed, but not as original research. I also wonder if anybody here can tell me the purpose of this section of the article. I noticed a discussion on this matter months ago, but I failed to pay attention to what was being said. Sorry. If it's about Most Recent Common Ancestor, that is a horse of a different color than Maximum Possible Relationship Distance. Do we need two sections? Tom Haws 22:52, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

The mitomap.org link that someone (Duncharris?) mentioned back in section 2 of this talk is no longer valid. However, I found http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/050200sci-genetics-evolution.html when I visited mitomap.org, which in turn has links to two excellent charts that address the maximum relationship issue. John Rigali 07:05, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Has anyone found a good definition of "maximum relationship"? If not, I suggest that use of this term be discontinued, at least as a heading. AnonUser 22:44, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pedigree Only?

Is there a reason why "genealogy," in the first paragraph, is limited to finding pedigrees? Certainly most LDS research is of this nature, but there are a lot of people who start with a known person and work forward, finding all his/her descendants. And some of us have probably had to work both directions at the same time occasionally.

It is much, much easier to trace families backward in time than forward. Records have the property of hindsight in that they only tell you where a person has lived and who their parents are, not where they and their descendants will be living in the future. Two exceptions are when genealogists might interview living relatives as to who and where their children and grandchildren are, or try to locate long-lost cousins who have traced their family backward to one of their ancestors (which is forward in time to them). GUllman 03:37, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Commonwealth War Graves Commission Website

New to the wiki. Saw the link for the above website was wrong. This is the correct one: http://www.cwgc.org/cwgcinternet/search.aspx

[edit] External links

I note that about half this article is a bald directory of external links, and many of the Modern Research sections are riddled with them. Anyone more conversant with the subject than me want to try pruning them down? Shimgray | talk | 21:45, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems inappropriate to include external links to genealogy sites for specific surnames, families, or individuals. (Hereafter, individuals will represent all three concepts.) If those individuals are of encyclopedic significance, it may be appropriate to have a link on the Wikipedia page for the specific individual. This page could easily get cluttered with way too many such links absent such a practice. I'm mentioning this now because the page was just edited to do add a pair of such links, but I don't see any discussion or evidence in the last 500 edits that it has been issue. I also considered simply reverting those changes, but decided on posting this instead. GRBerry 17:07, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I would agree that "individual" links could become very cumbersome. I would agree with eliminating them, unless they are used as an example in a discussion. WBardwin 22:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
I am again going to reinsert the FamilySearch link. No edit war -- as I noted above, "individual links" should be eliminated. But the LDS FamilySearch site provides access -- free and with no religious barriers or expectations -- to anyone doing genealogical research. This site is the fruit of many years of research, both historic and modern and is a good resource. Please see the related block of text in the article -- and give the site a try. Within the next year or so, the LDS church will upgrade their site to include even more information and provide more flexibility. Best wishes. WBardwin 04:37, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. WBardwin 04:39, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I have substantially rewritten the Volunteerism subsection of Modern Research. I also removed the Organizations subsection since it is now covered in Volunteerism. Volunteerism is 40% shorter without any loss of content due to the removal of all externals links and discussion about those linked sites. Giving websites as examples is unnecessary. Genealogy has an enormous presence on the Internet, and even a newbie does not need Wikipedia to help find specific types of online resources. Also, adding one link as an example tempts people to add a second example and soon the article is again mostly external links and discussions of those links. NextExit 06:48, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I have pruned external links from the rest of the article body, converting external links to internal links where possible. NextExit 16:38, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Give that man a prize! Now the external links section... there is a standard accepted web directory for this sort of stuff, surely? Can't we just link out to that? Shimgray | talk | 22:45, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, there is a standard directory (Cyndi's List) that I previously added to the "General" links section. Cyndi’s List has worldwide scope and probably covers all of the nations linked here. Therefore, it is my opinion that all geographic-specific links are redundant and should be removed from the external links list. Additionally, I would remove the following sentence from the comment at the beginning of the external links list “Links most likely to survive are those to major free data sources, government records, or not for profit genealogical societies.” There are thousands of websites that fall into those three categories. NextExit 23:30, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Descendents of Edward IV and Henry VII

What sort of social rank would one have to bear in their family, in order to be a descendent of either?

How far up the totem pole, would you say?

This is intended to have broad answers and based on gradients of time and population, not going into specifics about exact descendents. About how common is their descent in the English or British genepool today?

I've noticed that American Presidents don't descend from either king, but the most common recent royal ancestor shared by many of us is Edward III. How common is it for anybody in the English or British genepool, to have a Protestant royal ancestor?

There is a general cutoff, isn't there?

Is it because of fratricide in the Wars of the Roses, the Tudors' "new men", or the Union of the Crowns, or the parliamentary union under Queen Anne (I can't think of any non-royal family descent from the Hanoverians within the UK)?

I'm thinking that there is a big difference between Plantagenet and Tudor descents, that the commons in all likelihood have the former and the latter is held by the lords. (just generally speaking) Then again, Tudor descent in the Welsh must be higher in general. I am further curious about pre-Royal Tudor blood in Anglo-British people today, since the status and/or concept of Welsh royalty/nobility is rather hazy in my mind. I found the Blevins aka Ap Bleddyn family of Powys in my ancestry, but have no real idea on what to make of it--or any other Welsh "native aristocracy". I might be able to find Stewart descent somewhere, from way back when. What percentage of Hanoverian background do you think that German colonists had in America?

On the British side, I have to go as far back as Welf himself...but any recent genetic relationship with the Hanoverians or the counts of Nassau are completely obscure. How does one research those other colonial people, such as the Hessians?

UK genealogy is relatively easy when focusing on English (and French) ancestries. What would a "national person" of Jerusalem (or Antioch, for example) in Crusader times be known as?

We say "American" for those Founders, but was there such a nationality-term for the Crusaders in their own domains?

I guess the term is supposed to be Levantine/Outremer, or "Crusader" as our national heritage says "Colonist"...

Descendents of the House of Stewart What kind of a title would I have if I'm a direct descendent of this royalty?

IP Address 12:15, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] genealogy for beginners

I am very new here (signed in today). I'm hoping someone can assist me. I have a web site that is very much focused on the newbie to genealogy and was wondering if it was appropriate to link to it from Wikipedia?Do I need to submit an article to do so? I would like to submit articles but what's the process?

Thanks Ingynook 22:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Welcome! However, this is an encyclopedia article about genealogy, not a tutorial on how to do genealogy. If you want to help contribute to an online "how to" book, your help would be welcomed at the Wikibooks Genealogy project. To learn how to contribute to Wikibooks, just work through their simple tutorial. GUllman 00:35, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] reverts of WP:OR, private (conspiracy) theories, and other nonsense

In case someone is interested in the reasoning behind my reverts, please see User_talk:Espoo#Pronounciation (sic). --Espoo 19:54, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Geneology [sic]

The reference to "geneology" as a common misspelling of genealogy is not appropriate to the lead section of the article. See the guideline on the lead section in the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Additionally, that genealogy is often misspelled is a trivial piece of information and, therefore, should not be given a prominent position in an encyclopedia article. I have moved the footnote from the first word of the article to a less prominent place in the lead section. - NextExit 04:20, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

That's greatly appreciated. I don't think it's particularly notable at all that people who can't read say a word wrong, it's like saying, "illiterate people often can't pronounce words (see Pres. Bush) for more." Big fat 'duh's don't need wikispace. however, the editor who insists on it's presence does have a source, for better or worse.ThuranX 05:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
ThuranX, what you're saying is once again and still completely illogical. Perhaps you never read the latest reply at User_talk:Espoo#Pronounciation. You still haven't understood that 1) people spell it the new way due to the new pronunciation, not the other way around, that 2) the new pronunciation is used by highly educated people and 3) by almost the entire population of North America.
The word "pronounce" confuses most people who know nothing about languages and linguistics into believing that the living (spoken!) language is based on people trying to decipher and pronounce unknown words they discover in writing and have never heard before. Most of those words are however immediately forgotten and never again used by most people. The words whose pronunciations do change are specifically those words that are part of the active vocabulary of most people. People try to spell them according to what they sound like unless they are words that they regularly see in print. Only words that are regularly seen in print with a spelling that is not phonemic ("phonetic", logical, not analphabetic) can hope to be spelled in the traditional analphabetic way that is based on an ancient pronunciation that has been fossilised due to the lack of spelling reforms in English. --Espoo 15:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
The footnote in the lead paragraph purportedly backing up the 'Geneology' mis-spelling appears to be simply vandalism. Contrary to what is stated, every one of the five dictionary links points to 'genealogy', and not a single dictionary accepts 'geneology' at all, let alone lists it "first or exclusively".
The word is very commonly misspelled "geneology", which useful to know for Internet searches, due to the corresponding pronunciation, which is very widespread especially in US English. In fact, this pronunciation has become so common even among educated speakers in the USA that it is listed first or exclusively by US dictionaries and encyclopedias (e.g. [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]), but it is not recorded by UK dictionaries (e.g. Longman, normally an expert on UK/US pronunciation differences, Compact Oxford, Cambridge International Dictionary of English).
I am deleting this.--MichaelMaggs 15:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
You didn't see that it was saying very clearly In fact, this pronunciation has become so common even among educated speakers in the USA that it is listed first or exclusively by US dictionaries and encyclopedias... --Espoo 15:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the comment. The amendment to the wording that you've just made will I think help prevent that misunderstanding for the future. regards. --MichaelMaggs 15:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
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