{"id":10379,"date":"2021-11-09T01:25:59","date_gmt":"2021-11-09T01:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=10379"},"modified":"2021-11-09T01:26:01","modified_gmt":"2021-11-09T01:26:01","slug":"my-incomplete-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=10379","title":{"rendered":"My “Incomplete” Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My ahnentafel chart<\/a> (an ancestor table that lists direct-line ancestors) had blanks in it. I don’t have any gaps until I get to my third-great-grandparents. That’s where the blanks in my pedigree start. I don’t have the names of three of my Irish ancestors in that generation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it grows from there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my 4th great-grandparent generation, there are eight ancestors of probable Irish origin whose names are not currently known. They may never be. Another 4th great-grandmother, probably from Pennsylvania or Maryland, is also a mystery. The number of blanks only increases as my tree goes into the generation of my 5th great-grandparents and beyond. Unknown ancestors from New York State and various areas of the American South are unknown to me at this time. They may remain that way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t know what percent of my tree in the generation of my 5th or 6th great-grandparents is incomplete. It’s not because I cannot calculate percentages. I don’t care because it frankly does not matter. I’m not in a competition. Some locations and time periods are more difficult to establish parent-child connections in. Some ancestors, for one reason or another, are more difficult to trace to their parentage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal for me is to document as many ancestors as I can as completely as possible. Sometimes that is easier to do than others. There’s no need to set an arbitrary benchmark to meet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have the ancestors we have with the research challenges that come with them. It’s the path of discovery that matters…not the largest accumulation of names and relationships. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My ahnentafel chart (an ancestor table that lists direct-line ancestors) had blanks in it. I don’t have any gaps until I get to my third-great-grandparents. That’s where the blanks in my pedigree start. I don’t have the names of three of my Irish ancestors in that generation. And it grows from there. In my 4th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10379\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}