Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - What's Your Ancestor Score?

27 %

Randy Seaver over at the Genea-Musings blog has given us a new Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge which I have chosen to participate in. It seems not only fun but a good exercise to do every so often in order to see how my research and genealogy is progressing along.

Here’s what Randy wants us to do:

1)  Determine how complete your genealogy research is.  For background, read Crista Cowan's post Family History All Done? What’s Your Number? and Kris Stewart's What Is Your Genealogy "Score?"  For comparison purposes, keep the list to 10 or 11 generations with you as the first person. 

2)  Create a table similar to Crista's second table, and fill it in however you can (you could create an Ahnentafel (Ancestor Name) list and count the number in each generation, or use some other method).  Tell us how you calculated the numbers.

3)  Show us your table, and calculate your "Ancestral Score" - what is your percentage of known names to possible names (1,023 for 10 generations).

4)  For extra credit (or more SNGF), do more generations and add them to your chart.

5)  Post your table, and your "Ancestor Score," on your own blog, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status post or Google+ Stream post.

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Here is my Ancestor Table:

I calculated the number of identified people by running an Ahnentafel in my RM program and then going through and counting the names in each generation. My score is 27%!

It probably would be higher if I included the research of other people, including my grandfather. But I keep his research in a separate tree file until I can find the sources to back the information up.

What's My Number?
Generation	Relationship	Possible People	Identified People
1	Me	1	1
2	Parents	2	2
3	Grandparents	4	4
4	1x Great-Grandparents	8	8
5	2x Great-Grandparents	16	16
6	3x Great-Grandparents	32	30
7	4x Great-Grandparents	64	49
8	5x Great-Grandparents	128	59
9	6x Great-Grandparents	256	59
10	7x Great-Grandparents	512	55
Total	283/1023 = 27%	1,023	283

What is YOUR score? Let us know in the comments below. 

SNGF - My Genealogy Database Statistics

It's that time again...for some Saturday Night Genealogy Fun! Randy Seaver has posted this new fun task on his Genea-Musings Blog to list the statistics from your genealogy program: 


1)  If you have your family tree research in a Genealogy Management Program (GMP), whether a computer software program or an online family tree, figure out how to find how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database (hint:  the Help button is your friend!).

2)  Tell us which GMP you use, and how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database(s) today in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook status or Google+ stream comment.


Here's mine:


I use RootsMagic 4 as well (so does Randy) for my main genealogy program. In order to see my statistics, I go to File > Properties and the following window pops up: 

According to this, I have the following:

People: 8561

Families: 2795

Events: 17603

Alternate Names:  61

Places:  1711

Sources:  1397

Citations:  22644

Repositories:  67

To do Tasks: 50

Multimedia Items: 2

Multimedia links: 1

Addresses: 11

Correspondence: 17

Obviously from these stats you can tell that I don't mess with multimedia items and from the few number of places I have, either I have done a good job consolidating them, or my people just didn't move around much; I have quite a few sources, but this number could probably be higher if it were easier to create them. However, I am using the citations I created because I have over 20k citations! I'm using the repository function of my software, although I haven't quite figured out its usefulness yet. I do like to have them linked to my to-do list which I have just recently started using. 

Tell us what your stats look like and leave a link to your blog as a comment on Randy's blog. 

SNGF - Matrilinial Madness

Randy Seaver has given us another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun mission and it goes like so:

1) List your matrilineal line - your mother, her mother, etc. back to the first identifiable mother. Note: this line is how your mitochondrial DNA was passed to you!
2) Tell us if you have had your mitochondrial DNA tested, and if so, which Haplogroup you are in.
3) Does this list spur you to find distant cousins that might share one of your matrilineal lines?

Here is mine:

1) My Matrilinial Line - I can only go back 6 generations including myself. The oldest direct female ancestor is Lucendy "Cindy" Gentry who was born April 12, 1868 in Tennessee and died February 19, 1905 in Lamar County, Texas.

1. Ginger R. Smith
2. Marilyn Godwin Smith
3. Sue C. Lasiter
4. Thelma Louise Benson
5. Eva Mae Dennis
6. Lucendy Gentry

2) I have had my mitochondrial DNA tested and I am in haplogroup H

3) Although I seem to have a good handle on what to do with my Family Finder autosomal DNA results, I have no clue what to do with my mtDNA results. Most of my autosomal matches have been for my Father's side of the family. I haven't been able to find any connections to my Mother's side of the family as of yet. I don't think this is very uncommon however because researching the females lines can oftentimes be very difficult.

SNGF - If I Knew Then What I Know Now...

Randy Seaver over a Genea-Musings has given genealogists across the World another evening of Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – to describe what I would do differently If I Knew Then What I Know Now…

If I Knew Then What I Know Now…I would have asked my older relatives many more questions.

I had 6 of my 8 great-grandparents alive until I was in my early 20s. I was certainly old enough by then to sit down with them, hook up a video camera or digital recorder, pull out a notebook and pen and start asking questions and writing answers down! Can you imagine how much time I could have saved?

Can you imagine how many brick walls I could probably have avoided had I done this

And the photos…I would have had gobs of photos in my collection by now. Photos that are now probably in some step-2^nd-grand-cousin-5x-removed’s ex-wife’s attic molding away!

This should be a lesson to all of you out there with kids. Teach them how to interview at least one elderly relative. Make it a special project for them. Have them do a video interview, write about it in a journal or in a scrapbook. And then save it. (Preferably in an archive safe box.) Oh and make sure they ask for pictures! And don’t forget to label them. (With an archive safe pen.)  

What are your regrets?