Top Down and Bottom Up

 

Many descendants from one ancestral couple can lead to duplicate entries in the family tree if you keep at it long enough. In the case of Nicholas and Anna Elizabeth Snider, whose many sons' grandchildren ended up marrying their distant cousins, some pedigree collapse may have blindsided me.

Working a family tree from the founding ancestor forward for DNA purposes, rather than the usual tree-building approach of starting with oneself and moving backwards through the generations, can result in duplicate entries. Ask me; I know.

I've always known that my mother-in-law's family tree had many intermarriages. As far as I've been able to trace her roots—back to immigrants arriving in the American colonies, in some instances—I've been able to spot such instances. In one particular case, for which I rib my husband that he's his own seventh cousin, a Gordon ancestor ended up marrying three times, two of which marriages produced multiple children. Fast forward a few more generations and move to a different state, and subsequent romances blossom unwittingly into marriages between third cousins. Who knew?

A genealogist knows, of course. And now that my focus has turned to the descendants of Nicholas Snider, I'm seeing this pattern repeated. While I work my mother-in-law's tree traditionally—back from her generation to her parents, then grandparents—I add siblings, then follow those collateral lines back down to the present time. Along the way, the children of those collateral lines marry—but I don't know who the spouse is, except to note the name and perhaps a date of birth, or maybe even the parents' names.

Along comes a Snider DNA match, and ThruLines paints the way from founding immigrant Nicholas Snider to the current generation. I trace the pathway, recording each step of the way and linking the documents to the family tree. And bingo! There pops up a notice on my Ancestry.com tree that I've already entered that document for another someone who, strangely, has the same name. Checking it out, sure enough, it turns out to be a duplicate entry. On this tree, I've come both ways—down from the past and upwards from the present—and meet in the middle with two names which represent one person. Instant downsizing of the family tree.

It's always nice to learn the rest of the story on a family's line, of course—not to mention, see this bushy tree get modestly pruned. Best of all is to link those DNA matches to their proper place in the family tree. But somehow, I just wish I had spotted a clear path, from beginning to end, sooner. I guess it takes all kinds of input to shape up an accurate picture of the extended family—top down and bottom up.