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The Life From The Roots blog topics have changed several times since I began this blog in 2009. I initially wrote only about the family history I had been working on for 20 years. Years later, I was into visiting gardens, historical homes, churches, libraries that had genealogical collections, historical societies, war memorials, and travel/tourism places. I also enjoy posting autographs and photos of famous people I've met or have seen.

Along with my New England roots, other areas include New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada.

Please check out the labels on the right side for topics (please note, they need work). Below the labels and pageviews is a listing of my top nine posts, according to Google. Four of them pertain to Lowell, MA. These posts change often because they are based on what people are reading.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Numbers on the Tree -- Surname Saturday

When Judy Russell's blog appeared this morning (Saturday, August 18th), I read it and realized her topic was something I was interested in. Her blog is The Legal Genealogist, and the topic was "More Lost than Found" about statistics, that being how many ancestors she had for each generation and comparing the numbers to the possible numbers for each generation. Genealogy blogs and my facebook friends often get ideas for their topics from others, and in this case, Judy got it from Lisa B. Lee, who did an analysis of her own family (on facebook), by figuring out how many ancestors she has for each generation and compared the figures to what she could have.

Generation
Number Possible
What I Have
My parents
2
2
Grandparents
4
4
Great-grandparents
8
8
2nd great-grandparents
16
16
3rd great-grandparents
32
32
4th great-grandparents
64
60
5th great-grandparents
128
120
6th great-grandparents
256
241
7th great-grandparents
512
490
TOTAL
1022
963 (94.2%)

Since I have a RootsWeb tree, you may see my first 6 generations here: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=AHN&db=trees4u&id=I28370

And, if the pedigree chart interests you (does All generations), you can follow my tree here: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=trees4u&id=I28370

 My figures surprised me, but doesn't impress me. Why? I am focused on my "Brick Walls" and that's what matters. For almost 23 years, genealogy has been my life, and I've been lucky (lots of time, a husband, no children). My lines are mostly in Massachusetts and Connecticut, where I've found excellent records. Great records were found in New York and the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. I've been to all those places and continue to hunt for information and cemetery stones. I also love cousin connections, cousins can help a great deal. One great-grandfather did a large manuscript, now at NEHGS, and one grandfather, another side, worked on genealogy for many years (both were professional men whose work helped me get a good start), as well as my working at the DAR for quite a few years, where I looked at books on a daily basis and received help from their genealogy staff. All those factors have contributed to my being lucky and having high statistics, but I really want to solve the brick walls.
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