Familial relationships… or not

2026-10-25

I’m picking my genealogy project again. I spit into the tube; I’m hoping that in a couple of months I’ll be able to solidify some connections.

However, dealing with Ancestry’s trees is a struggle. If you don’t put in people and relationships in just the right way, it isn’t particularly easy to fix short of deleting the relationship and starting again. Plus, their “relationship” form just doesn’t work the way that I think it should. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong, just that it is… wrong.

For example: my dad’s parents got divorced, then she married a man who already had a son (FR) from his first marriage. To me, this means that they were step-brothers. Ancestry kept trying to make FR and Dad brothers, and eventually I got “step” in there and even then it was trying to make them half-brothers.

Computer databases are so annoying!

Also annoying is knowing that everyone’s tree for a certain person is incorrect, and not being able to find the definitive document. Here’s the deal – a man had babies baking with two women (MC, SM) at the same time (born 4 months apart). One died at 6 hours old. The other one was raised by the man and mother (SM) of the dead child. Everyone who reports on this guy says SM was his mom, because that’s what was on his death cert. As you may know, death certificates are reported by family members, who may or may not know the truth.

It’ll be interesting to see if any of the DNA stuff links us. He is technically my half-uncle if I have the relationships correct. If I don’t, then we are not related at all except maybe further back in the tree.