Confused

Tod Maddux

A few months back my aunt, my mom's sister, used Family Search to track our ancestors. It said that William Brewster was a distant relative that came over on the Mayflower. I just recently joined Family Search and it said that William Brewster is my relative but on my dad's side. Can someone help me and explain how this is possible? Thanks, Tod.

Amy Archibald

The relationship calculation finds the closest relationship connection between you and the person in question. You are possibly closer related to William Brewster on your father's side than on your mother's side. Have your aunt check the relationship again and tell you how she is related. Then you can check your relationship through your father.

Tod Maddux

Thank you. That helps a little.

Gordon Collett

Every time you look at a family tree, you generally get shown a nice picture of a child with two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, etc. This does not continue. At some point the tree starts collapsing and you have fewer ancestors than the math says you should. This article has a bit of an explanation of this: https://www.familytreemagazine.com/research/what-is-pedigree-collapse/

This means that we are all related to each other in multiple ways. For example, my desktop genealogy database, which has about 4000 family members for my wife, shows that her father and mother are related to each other 196 different ways. The first, and I assume closest relationship, shows they are 6th cousins once removed. The last and most distant is that they are 17th cousins.

The view my relationship function of Family Tree does not go back as many generations as my desktop program does, but even if it did, Family Tree would only show that first relationship, not all 196.

The other component you have to keep in mind, that Amy implied when she stated you probably have a closer relationship on your father's side, is that the number of steps between you and an ancestor through your mother's line and that same ancestor through your father's line can be quite different.

To take an extreme example, say I was born in 1900 and have the same direct ancestor in 1700 on both my mother's and father's side. On my mother's side, each couple got married at age 23 and had a first child at age 25 and my mother was descended from that first child. On my mother's side, each couple also go married age age 23, had a first child at age 25 but my father was descended from each last child, born when each couple were 50.

That means there would be 200 years divided by a new generation every 25 years equals eight steps between that ancestor and me on my mother's side but 200 years divided by a new generation every 50 years equals only 4 steps between that ancestor and me on my father's side. In other words, my maternal 6th great grandfather would also be my paternal 2nd great grandfather.

Now, it's never that extreme, but you can easily have generations shift like this and give a very different number of generations between you and an ancestor depending on which line you follow back. That is why you get a different relationship to William Brewster if looking at your mother's connection (which would be the same as your aunt's) and your father's connection.

Gordon Collett

This topic got me curious so I checked.

• Through my mother, William Brewster is my 1st cousin 13 times removed.
• Through my father, I am not related.

So I checked another Mayflower passenger, Richard Moore

• Through my mother he is my 7th cousin seven times removed
• Through my father he is my 6th cousin ten times removed.

It all depends on how the lines trace back. My aunt would see the first relationship as 7th cousin six times removed in Family Tree since that is her closest relationship and I would see the second since that is my closest relationship.

Dennis J Yancey

"double descent":

you (apparently) descend from William Brewster (or have a connection to him) on BOTH your father and mother's line.

so far back that is not uncommon at all to have double descent.

my parents were 2nd cousins - their common ancestor was much more recent than yours. and thus I have a large duplicated portion of my family tree.

now why for your sister it chose one line to follow and for you it chose another line - that depends on the exact rules of how it goes about tracing the path - but it only picks one.

Gordon Collett

(It was her aunt, her mother's sister, that had the different line than her father's line.)

Dennis J Yancey

thanks for correcting me on my misperception.

dontiknowyou

RelativeFinder.org, a FamilySearch partner site, has a great tool for this. Enter any two PIDs from Family Tree and get a table of the first N closest common ancestors between those two PIDs.

Family Tree is under construction, which means many relationship paths between two people are not yet in the tree. So your results can change, sometimes dramatically.

Tod Maddux

Thank you to everyone who commented. Even though it still is a little bit fuzzy I do have a better understanding now than what I did a few weeks ago.