* Waifs and strays

[mezentia]

In trawling through parish registers looking for people pre-civil registration it is common to find references to people with the surname being researched, but where any connection with the family being researched has not yet been discovered or cannot confidently be assumed. The same issues occur in one-name studies.

I my principal project I have some 350+ separate family pools. Some of these pool members I know for certain are related to the main pool, but I have yet to discover how. Some are simply vague possibilities until further research sheds light onto them.

One name studies, where all the entries for a single surname in a parish are collected to try and re-constitute families is an even more difficult task, particularly so when the pool of first names is restricted.

I would be interested to hear of what strategies other people employ to record these strays - within FH in the main projct file or a separate one, how to keep track of them, and how to show the potential connection - or otherwise - to existing families. I suppose a query for a particular surname and a pool number not equal to 1 is a good start, but other ideas and suggestions would be helpful.

[natashahouseman]

I have been pondering on a slightly similar topic, so hope you don't mind me adding to this. I keep a running log of ancestors in a word doc (it pre-dates even my ancestry tree). It's kept alphabetically and I use hyperlinks with the doc to link to parents, spouse and key child. In that I have a "Surname ORIGINS" section for each surname, to which I link both the earliest and closest ancestors (can be more than one if the surname pops up twice). I also add other random detail, like if there is a one-name study, sources and mentions I have found to earlier people in the locality who might link etc. If I push back a generation then I move the link back a generation.
I've been thinking to mirror this by creating a father for the earliest called ORIGINS Surname on FH and then using this to link random sources to. It will also act as an indicator that I've potentially reached the end of the line.
This could potentially be used as a holding connector for the waifs and strays you mention. I already do this if i am pretty certain that two people are siblings but can't identify a parent.
I imagine it's possible to exclude both the ORIGINS "person" and their other "descendents" from reports about your own family.
I suspect this is a bit too simplistic for a one name study, which I am hoping to embark on soon, so would be interested in hearing responses to this. Thanks

[mezentia]

Hello Natasha.

My major one name study consists essentially of two parts. The first is a Word document (now extending to over 126,000 words and 400 pages, excluding table of contents, index and bibliography!). This is backed up by an FH project where all the people in the study have an entry. The FH project currently contains nearly 600 people in 185 families and 60 family pools. FH is used to hold much of the "bare bones" of the individuals and families to be able to create charts and outline descendent reports. By far the majority of the narrative arguments used to link individuals and families I have in Word, where it is somewhat easier to use maps, charts, images of old documents and photographs, alongside transcriptions and commentary upon them. Whilst I frequently use FH reports, they can get very repetitive and Word allows a greater freedom of expression.

One area that I do find particularly useful in FH is the ability to add disjointed families to a diagram, thus being able to show two or more contemporary families on a single diagram. The box contents are set to include all major life events, i.e. birth, baptism/christening, marriage, death, burial with full adress details, and I'm also looking how to try and include occupation too. It then becomes a litle easier to spot potential overlaps indicating possible connections between the families displayed.

I have considered your option of creating an earliest ancestor and linking through them. I have got back as far as the late 1500s on one branch of the family, but I know from parish records that the family lived in one particular parish as far back as the mid 1400s but linking them all together is well nigh impossible for several reasons, including a restricted set of first names and a paucity of records, the latter to be expected, of course, when researching humble farmers and agricultural labourers. As a result, I'm keeping the family pools separate for the time being.

[natashahouseman]

I've been in a seperate topic where I have been understanding how to use shared notes better. Research analysis and conclusions (22302) (not sure if there is a better way to link topics, apologies).
It struck me that this may also be a good way to link families and potentially include the analysis you talk about as to which family is which. Although i like you have a monster word doc just for my own family as sometimes it's just easier to see it all together (and agree on formatting in word). I guess if i do get started on a one name study I'll be starting from scratch in one way (as don't have a system) but on the other hand starting with a lot of the families already constructed (my own tree has about 15% of all Wellocks born in England since civil registration). Lots for me to ponder on. Thanks