Questions...

Why doesn't everybody do one-name studies in genealogy? You have 16
GGGrands, why have one unweildy data base when you can have 16 more or
less "weildy" ones?

Dave Hinz...

Because in my case, the fellow who came here from somewhere in Germany,
with my last name, is proving to be completely elusive. I work on a
line until I get stuck, and then move to another in the same
language/country/etc, and work my way through. In England now which is
a refreshing change - they have a nearly readable language over there in
the timeframe I'm working in.

Lars Erik Bryld...

Do I detect some uneasiness with the reading of old German documents?
Then, you might benefit from the font I made available from my site in
producing nearly as illegibly writing on your own home system.

I wonder how many of the 16 are the results of our research and how
many the research of others, albeit some of them reproven by us. To
say they were inconsistent with your methods would be an
understatement. And descendant printouts are little more than one-name
studies.

Herman Viaene...

Any genealogist worth this name will share their findings with you, that's
at least what's happening here in Belgium by the confederations.

sull1927...

I'm not inclined to share all the results of my research with anyone.
I prefer to give just their line and some hints - they need to sweat
and bleed a little just like I did. If everything was in a book why
would I be doing genealogy? That's just my personal opinion.

Why not start (or rework) our genealogy with gedcoms of each line in a
separate data base as we find them? Doesn't that make it easier to
merge, organize, research and assure consistency, at least within each
data base?

Steve Hayes...

Why stop at 16?

Why not 32? 64? 128? 266? 512? 1024?

sull1927...

I answered in a previous post - but just for simplicity in asking my
questions.

Why not a separate database for every single person in your family?

frisk...

Because that would mean massive duplication when you got far back.

1. What is gained by having all people in the same data base?

Dave Hinz...

What is gained by breaking it up? I don't want to have to close down &
go elsewhere just to switch train of thought. I'm nowhere near
Reunion's limit for database size, so I just don't see that there's
anything to be gained by limiting what's in the file.

Denis Beauregard...

You won't do the same search twice.

Herman Viaene...

Female ascendance and descendance is as worthwile as male. It is true that
all(?) researchers stop at some time taking the female lines in their
trees, but completely leaving these out is not very "polite" in respect to
these people. Often descendants of female line do attend to family
gatherings and feel very much related to their family.

sull1927...

For clarification, I would keep the female lines but I find it
difficult to get interested in my grandfather's second wife's sister's
line for example. And once people move 2,000+ miles away they seldom
return for a family gathering. My paternal grandfather had 58
grandchildren and 21 are still living. I never saw 42 of them and only
8 of the other 16 are still living. The closest one to me is about 400
miles away.

Beside, your whole idea of single line - one name family tree falls short in
different cases:
- name changes
- what with the past (ad still present as in Iceland) where fixed family
names don't even exist. Only nobility had fixed family names and the habit
was slowly taken up in other ranks of the society, sometimes up to
Napoleonontic time when civil registration became compulsory.

Herman Viaene

sull1927...

Obviously the situation in the US is different. I have not found any
provable ancestors who were not born in this country. I have found
more than 100 ways to spell Sullivan but I only spell it one way in my
genealogy - I use AKAs for other spellings when they arise.

Herman Viaene...

Well again, you might cause more trouble than you "resolve" by adopting one
spelling. I give an example from my own family.
My own name is Viaene, the tree goes back till about 1590. In the 17th and
18th century many people could hardly read or write and some clerk wrote
the name as thought fit. So the name could be Viaene, Viane, Vyane, Vyaene
or Deviaene....
When the civil registration started, the majority of the descendants of our
common ancestor had their name written as Viaene, but someone got Viane or
Vyaene. You will not favour these people's descendants (people tend to get
touchy as to the spelling if their name) or facilitate further research
when you note these in your database as Viaene.

To complicate matters further, around 1914 one Vyaene moved to another
town,and there the town clerks wrote his name Viane. The man took all
steps possible to have this error corrected, but with no result. Some
"higher authority" even claimed that all previous records is the man's
original home town were mistakes.

Wishing you lots of success.

Herman Viaene

sull1927...

I provably start in 1789 - by preponderance of evidence I go back 6
more generations.

O'Sullivan, Sullivant and Sullivan were our 3 basic names - anything
else is due to the problems of illiteracy. I suspect some of our early
ancestors couldn't even pronounce their own names. Many people in the
south still pronounce Sullivan with a "t" at the end.

The spelling no longer bothers me very much - in fact I started a list
of different spellings just for fun. It's up to 120 ways and counting.
But they are all Sullivan in my data base.

First time I remember you posting... Welcome to the group. We're sorta
like a city limits sign about 30 miles from here - Home of 3,000 happy
people and a few soreheads.

Interesting thoughts - thank you.

Steve Hayes...

Because that's the idea of a database, so that you can see the relations
between them. So you can print a pedigree chart for your child showing all its
ancestors as far as you can find them, instead of having 64 pedigree charts
showing one line only

Doug McDonald...

Very very simple:

1) convenience

2) a dramatic reduction in total size, because you don't include
the same people who are ancestors through more than one line more than
once.

Charlie Hoffpauir...

Interesting interrelationships. If your ancestors lived a long time in
one area 9for example), cousins intermarry, making for interesting
relationships. As a lark, I let RM calcuclate the relationships of
myself to myself 9as an example). There are 128 calculated
relationships, ranging from third cousin once removed to ninth cousin
twice removed. I'd not see that if I used multiple databases for the
different lines.

sull1927...

Aside from curiosity would there be a major demand for that? 8-)
I think I'll try it!

frisk...

I am a big fan of the "all people in the same data base" approach. My
own database has somewhere around 700.000 individuals, half of which
where born in the 20th or 21st century. The rest go back for
centuries. Virtually all of those currently living are related to each
other and once you get back to 1700 or so, they share pretty much the
same set of ancestors.

Having multiple databases would mean tremendous duplication of data -
it is absolutely out of the question.

2. What are the pitfalls in doing one-name genealogy as long as
you have a data base for each of the 16 aforementioned lines?

Denis Beauregard...

Why stoppping at 16 ? My first 511 ancestors are known. In the
following generation, I have 480 out of 512 possible more ancestors.
Except for duplicated ancestors, I descend equally from all of them,
depending on the generation. There are in my opinion 2 special lines,
by the men (giving my name and since I am a man, this is a continuous
Y-DNA line), and by the women (giving the mtDNA line of my mother).
Otherwise, why focussing on only 16 lines and not all those that can
be found ?

Steve Hayes...

If you're doing a one-name study, then thats a different kettle of fish,
because you collect everyone of that name, whether related to you or not.

sull1927...

I do that for VA and NC if there are several generations. If there are
just 2 or 3 I track them on a word processor.

Doug McDonald...

Well, there are females, who have different surnames, so
for every generation the number of surnames increases .... until
the cousin marriages joining the 16 lines start!

Charlie Hoffpauir...

None that I know of.

frisk...

1) Why 16, why not go one more generation back and have 32, or two
generations and have 64?

2) Going sufficiently far back you would find the same people in
multiple places, because of things like second (or third) cousins
marrying and such. With multiple databases, you would get a mess, or
duplicated data. both are bad.

3. If restructuring a large data base is too impractical, why not
clone your data base and do a one-name on your earliest ancestor in a
separate data base? (and the spouse's of course)!

Denis Beauregard...

How many names do you have in your own database ? Suppose your name
is Smith...

Steve Hayes...

Why shouild it be too impractical?

Why do you need to "restructure" it, unless you entered everythin g wrongly to
begin with?

sull1927...

I don't unless I decide to go with a separate db for each line.

The first genealogy program I used, Roots/M, forced us to split our family
into four different trees, because it kept all its data in memory and the
computer only had 64K. It was a pain, because we had to type lots of things in
twice, or sometimes four times.

I do have a couple of one name databases - those are the ones where I've
exported everyone of that name (or related) from my main file, and import
GEDCO(MS from anywhere, merge all likely prospects to see if there are matches
and connections, and then try to verify them, and THEN transfer to my main
database.

sull1927...

Sounds like no one goes the one-name route.

Paul Blair...

No, Hugh, some do. But not all with computers!

Sir Creep...

Hugh:
Hope you don't mind if I borrow that one. Which kinda brings this
discussion around full-circle! :-)

sull1927...

Adopt it and repeat it as your own.

To show my age there is an old story about the WPA (an org with a
reputation for extreme laziness) and the worker's complaint that the
shovel handles were not tall enough to lean on.

Patrick

PS: Events-based....well, my GG-Grandfather DeVore fought for the 49th
PA Inf form 1861-65 and survived. Was discharged in VA and on his way
walking back to PA in 1867 he stopped in Sharpsburg, MD, and hooked up
with some dame (Annie Savilla Benner) who's parents were once
slave-owners in the town. I don't know much about her brothers yet,
but I am still waiting to discover that her Union husband was once
shooting at her MD brothers (I know, MD was more Union than not, but
seeing as they owned slaves, well...)

PSS: My GGGG-Grandparents (Reel) farm in Sharpsburg is the site of the
National Cemetery for the battle of Antietam. How cool is that?!
R.E.Lee took over their farm as his HQ! I've never been there (yet)
but can't wait to visit.

sull1927...

SOunds like a treat - when the weather warms up.

While trying to figure my grandmother (my dad grew up in an orphanage) I
met a gent doing a one-name study. His interests enabled me to "find" her.

His system is based on 8x6 cards, and his remarkable memory. It is
international, and includes cops from New York and churchmen from
Cornwall. The ladies don't get much of a look-in, except as accessories
before, during and after the act!

Doug McDonald...

Well, he did't have a surname for one reason, he was
just called Niall.

Dave Hinz...

Ah, as in the burnt one?

Doug McDonald...

he was AFTER Milesius! :-)

Doug McDonald

************************************************************************

The who idea of separating your ancestors into multiple files
just seems totally bizarre to me.

Doug McDonald

Charlie Hoffpauir...

But why do that? My database is only 20-something thousand
individuals, and it includes "all" the descendants of the earliest
Hoffpauir that I can find, plus all of my ancestors as far back as I
have found, and all of my wife's ancestors as far back as I can find.
The size is easliy handled by any genealogy program I've tested.

Charlie Hoffpauir...

sull1927...

The size is not the problem - it's my desire for consistency. I want
every fact/event treated the same way for every person in the data
base. I find some facts in notes and some notes in facts, where I'm
using the data of another, plus a lot of comments from others that I
don't want in my data base. Many people use too much white space and
others can't spell. And the way people source (or don't source) runs
the gamut from Alpha to Omega.

Thanks, Charlie.

Charlie Hoffpauir...

Ahha! I see what you're at now. I had exactly the same problem about
15 years ago when I started.... I quickly found that I caused more
problems with importing GEDCOMS than the time it saved (and I type
slow and with errors). After many many hours of correcting, I now only
enter data that I type in, never import someone elses data directly. I
will import it into a "new" database and drag and drop into mine....
if it's close to the techniques that I use. But even with that, I
enter sources and places myself (using my existing source list and
place list). With both, I have my own formats, and am consistant
throughout.

Steve Hayes...

And that's what I do, too. I don't allow "foreign" GEDCOMS into my main
database.

I usually import them into PAF, and then enter the information by hand into
Legacy. I find it's easier to switch from PAF to Legacy and back than to
switch windows within Legacy.

That way I can ensure that place names are recorded the way I do it, and that
odd notes that turn up in place names or date fields can be put where they
belong.

sull1927...

Responding to both Steve and Charlie...

I do essentially what you two do as far as importing. I never find
anything else on my Sullivan line but I find earlier data on
peripheral lines. I load a new gedcom into an alternate program on a
second computer and compare with what I have using the two screens. I
cull it to the point where I can link without having to merge. I enter
"merge" data separately.

But that leaves the flaw you spotted, Charlie. Location and sources
are inconsistent and there may be multiple pages of notes that should
be facts/events. Then I have the additional problem of porting to my
main program - my alternate program doesn't source names and my basic
program does. I review Master Lists for consistency pretty often.

I made several mistakes in my early sourcing. I didn't source, then I
got almost clever - I used "census" for every census between 1790 and
1930. When I reveiwed a 10 volume set I just listed the name of the
set, not the volume and page number. If I got the data from someone
else that person was my source and I didn't inculde their source so I
could check if I wished. Finally I learned that the purpose of
sourcing was to prevent me from unwittingly researching the same book
again. Does every newbie go through this same comedic routine?

As for PAF the last time I tried it the data didn't gedcom very well -
too many proprietary entry types. When going from FTW to Legacy,
Legacy at least tells you what didn't cross properly and you can put
it into notes to be edited later. I gotta do that someday...

If nothing else there may be some lurkers who might benefit from
discussions like this. I benefit and I was never a lurker or a newbie.
Like Daniel Boone I was never lost, jusy mightily confused at times.

Charlie Hoffpauir...

Actually, I've had "most" of the same issues you are writing about.
And they are the reasons I switched from PAF (my original computer
genealogy program) to FTM, and finally to RootsMagic. Now I can open
two different database with RM (my computer has two monitors) and
compare/copy/paste between the two. When I was using FTM I found that
you could open two copies of FTM at the same time under some
circumstances, and that worked a bit better than trying to have PAF
and FTM open together as you are doing. (I understand that the present
version of FTM allow you to have two databases open at the same time,
so my kludge isn't necessary).

IMO, FTM is "too user friendly". It allows you to be really sloppy
with places, for instance. After converting to RM I reviewed my place
list and found many many instances of misspelled place names, or
slightly different ways of entering the "same" places, especially
cemeteries.
Charlie Hoffpauir

sull1927...

I have RM on my computer also - haven't dl'ed the last fix though. I
like the speed and the ability to simply delete people in gedcoms to
get to what I want to link.

I dl'ed PAF a while ago and I might play with it some (again).

I quit FTM when they insisted on using first name instead of an option
to use middle name on the tabs. Half the time I didn't know who they
were talking about. Down South your grandpappy might have been named
Joe Bob but his name was Bob - except when his maw was disgusted then
it was "JOE BOB SULLIVAN I said NOW.".

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

frisk...

Being from a country where family names are typically not used, I must
admit that I have never had any interest in one-name studies, so I am
going to ignore this question...