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A. QUESTIONS ABOUT GENEALOGY IN GENERAL

B. QUESTIONS ABOUT OUR FAMILIES DATABASE IN PARTICULAR
abbreviations? : see B1

Don't forget that various of the database's other support pages
also provide information about the database. We recommend that,
to obtain most benefit from the database, new visitors should
have a look through each of the support pages shown on the left.

A2. Everyone has 2 parents, each of whom had 2 parents, each of whom had 2 parents, each of whom ..... (etc., etc.), so that, if you went back 5 generations, you must have 2x2x2x2x2 = 32 different great-great-great-grandparents. Is that right ?

Not necessarily ! One or more of the sets of parents might have been related to each other so that you were descended from their common ancestors in more than one way. It used to be quite common for relations to marry (or otherwise have a family with each other), perhaps not so much between first cousins (people who share a set of grandparents) but certainly it was quite common between second or third cousins (people with great-grandparents or great-great-grandparents in common). After all, going back 200 years or so, most people did not travel around the country very much but lived in roughly the same area as their parents and grandparents before them. With smaller numbers of people around than there are today, it is likely that most of the people who lived in an area were related to each other one way or another. Friendships and love affairs between relations must have happened regularly. Also, of course, people would have met and had children without knowing that they were related. Think of your own position - although you may know who all your first cousins are (with whom you share a set of grandparents), do you know all your second cousins (shared great-grandparents), or third cousins (great-great-grandparents), or more distantly related ? Probably not. Let's take the point a step further ....

If you go back 34 generations or so, which would take you back about 1,000 years, you might think that you had something like '2 to the power 34' ancestors (2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2) alive in 1000 AD, which is more than 17 billion people. That is clearly nonsense FIRSTLY because there were only about 300 million alive in the whole world at that time (the 1 billion mark wasn't passed until about 1800 AD, the 2 billion mark until about 1925) and SECONDLY because a large percentage of those who were alive at that time must have had no surviving children / grandchildren / great-grandchildren / etc.. For the sake of the discussion, let's guess and say that one-sixth of the people who were alive in 1000 AD produced descendants who are living today. That would mean that the present world population of over 6.7 billion are all descended from about 50 million people alive in 1000. There are two points it seems reasonable to conclude from these facts:
1) there must have been many inter-marriages between the descendants of those who were alive in 1000 AD.
2) it is quite likely that you are related in some way to almost everyone you meet !

A3. It has been suggested, possibly proved (through genetic studies), that if we go back far enough (a few tens of thousands of years) ALL Europeans are descended from the same 10 or so people. Can this be true ?

It would be wrong for us to try to sound knowledgeable about genetics or the evolution & survival of mankind. Furthermore, recorded history does not go anything like far back enough to provide documentary evidence to support this kind of suggestion. Nevertheless, genealogy does provide some 'evidence' to support the view that we are all descended from a relatively small number of people. It shows that people who come from very different backgrounds in different countries, and who may think they have nothing in common with each other, do in fact have at least some ancestors in common. With this as a starting-point, it seems reasonable to make some interesting suppositions. For example: whether or not the people involved actually know it, it seems reasonable to suppose that:
- Everyone alive who has any English blood in them is descended from King Edward 1 of England (1239-1307).
- Everyone alive who has any Scots blood in them is descended from King Robert 'the Bruce' of Scotland (1274-1329).
- Everyone alive who has any French blood in them is descended from King Philip III ('the Bold') of France (1245-1270).
- Everyone alive who has any European blood in them is descended from Charlemagne the Emperor (747-814).
etc. etc.. [Many other people could have been picked as examples.]

Why do these seem reasonable to suppose ? It's because these guys had so many grandchildren, legitimate and illegitimate, that their genes permeate the modern world. Their names appear not just once or twice but many times in most well-researched family trees. It's not just that most if not all English people are descended from Edward I, most/all Scots from Robert the Bruce, and most/all French from Philip III. It is probable also that most Scots are descended from Edward I (one of his great-grandaughters, Joan Beaufort, married both King James I of Scotland and Sir James Stewart of Lorn and had many grandchildren through both marriages), most English are descended from Robert Bruce of Scotland (who had many descendants who lived and bred in England), most Scots and English are descended from Philip III of France (his daughter Margaret was the second wife of Edward I of England, granddaughter Isabella was the wife of Edward II) whilst many French are descended from Edward I and/or Robert the Bruce (both of whom had many descendants who lived and bred in France).

Be cautious about favouring one historical figure over another as you may be descended from the one you don't like !

A4. Genealogy covers the factual reporting of ancestors but different sources say different things. What's going on ?

Although reputable genealogists do try to separate fact from fiction, it is not always easy to do so. It is rare that one has access to prime records that can be relied on - and, even when one does, correct interpretation can be very difficult indeed. Most of us have to rely on secondary or tertiary sources, research done by other people. It is tempting to view something as true because it is in writing, it is old, it looks reasonable (given one's limited understanding of the situation), and/or it is supported by people who appear to have taken trouble to be right - but that something could still be a load of rubbish. You have to be particularly careful of ancestries that support a claim that is made for political, social or financial gain. For example, at various times in Scotland's history it was politically useful to claim that a family had Celtic roots rather than, say, Norman roots. Even back in the 14th century this led to the writing of histories and the creation of genealogies that have since been proven to be completely false. However, if you came across a 14th century document you would probably be tempted to accept what it says simply because it is old.

We try to ensure that our Families Database is factually correct but, because we are reliant on other sources and know that some of those sources are not always truly reliable, we cannot fully do so. To counter this we draw attention to potential weaknesses wherever practicable. [See B2 and B3 below for further comment on this issue.]

In due course the Genealogy Research section of the site will include articles about this sort of problem, ranging from how to allow for it when you are investigating particular families to considering how History has often been re-written or selectively reported for political purposes. However, even our articles will have their bias. It is impossible that they would not. All we can do to provide 'balance' is to encourage different people to offer different views so that you can decide for yourself what to believe.

B2. You've placed a major caveat in your Introduction to the database. How reliable are your data ?

Most of the data may be viewed as secure but some are not. That is the way it has to be. To restrict included data only to information that has been independently professionally scrutinised & verified not only would kill our idea of sharing the information that we have (we simply do not have the resources to check every datum properly, who does ?) but in any case would in practice be impossible since, for many connections, 'primary record' proof no longer exists. We have to rely on 'secondary' records (other people's reports on primary records) and 'tertiary records' (other people's reports on secondary & tertiary records). No differently from other genealogists, we face the problem that it is not always easy to judge the reliability of our sources. Consider Burke's Peerage which often reports a marriage twice, once in the record of the husband's family and once in the record of the wife's. In most cases the information given in the two records is consistent but often it is not. Which record is right ? Although we sometimes report both, we sometimes have to make a choice, albeit normally only after considering yet another source. [See also A4 above and B3 below.]

Should we differentiate more clearly between data that we believe are secure and data that we believe are risky ? We did think of this but only for a moment. Such would in effect be requiring us to bless some sources and condemn others. We are not qualified to do that and would be cautious about accepting the word of anyone who says that he is. Rest assured that, except for data in the 'Ancient & Mythical' section of the database some of which is obviously mythical and should not be taken seriously, we only include data from sources which we have reason to accept as being normally reliable even if not always so. We admit that this can be risky, particularly as this view sometimes comes only because we have seen most of the data given by that source repeated elsewhere for we accept that this may be misleading as they may both be repeating the same errors from an earlier source. However, there is no easy answer to this problem. Do not believe anyone who says that there is !! We do the best that we can and leave it to you, our visitors, to decide which data you want to accept and which you wish to query and investigate in more depth. If you find that we have included data that are wrong then please bring them to our attention, giving your reasons for doubting the data and (if possible) suggesting alternatives. There is not much more we can do other than to slow down our rate of uploading data to give us more time to double-check everything but even that option is not open to us for most of the 'small landowners' that are central to our database and for whom only one data source has been found whilst, for families for which there is more than one source, we still have the problem that the sources may be tertiary sources that repeat errors made in an earlier source. We think we have got the verification level about right for the job we are trying to do which, don't forget, is simply to take information that we have found elsewhere and share it with you.

If you are a serious genealogist who is interested in a particular family, we suggest that you view our database as providing a good starting-place for your research but that you remember our cautions about the reliability of what we report. The database pulls together what various (mostly well-known) sources report about a large number of families and so it may be able to save you much time & effort with your research. However, we have done little more than to report what others have reported and to highlight any discrepancies that have come to our attention. We are generalists who are providing a framework into which other people's research is poured. We do not pretend to be specialists who have proven that research.

B3. Different sources often give different information. How do you rank your sources ?

We thought it only fair to provide some comment on this but stress that the following should not be viewed as anything other than a combination of the personal views of a few people. Furthermore, we are open to the criticism of not always being consistent with what we note below ! This is largely because our database has been developed over time during which our access to certain sources has varied. However, it is also because different sources vary on the amount of detail they provide so, depending on what we have at hand, we may start with one source one time, another source another time. Over time we hope to be able to doublecheck most (if not all) of the Family Lists against all available sources but we do not have the resources to do that quickly. [For example: we did not obtain easy access to 'The Complete Peerage' until March 2003 and we are still in the process of upgrading pages in the database from BE1883 to TCP. If you are not familiar with the abbreviations used in this section then look at our Sources and Acknowledgements page.]

In general we rank our sources as follows:
1. for British Peers (including old Irish), 'The Complete Peerage' ("TCP") is ranked highest.
TCP has a drawback in that it normally provides information only on the Peers, their spouses, and heirs. Only on occasion does it include other children. Nevertheless we give precedence to TCP because it was clearly prepared by a group of experts working to very high standards of professionalism. It is good at identifying its sources and contains interesting parcels of information that give added evidence to the depth of the research that was undertaken. Even though it is known that TCP contains some errors, it is widely viewed as the best source around.
2. for Scots Peers, 'The Scots Peerage' ("TSP") is excellent.
TSP normally covers all known children, not just the heirs, and so is particularly useful. Edited by the Lord Lyon King of Arms and released in 1908, it is viewed as more reliable than its predecessors. It was based on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's 'Peerage of Scotland' and is understood to have made many corrections to those earlier works. It contains a wealth of interesting information. It is shown below TCP only because TCP has a slightly greater 'aura of professionalism'. In practice it is very rare that they disagree with each other.
3. Books (and other media) that specialise on particular families or small groups of families.
Some specialist books give confidence that they are even more reliable than TCP or TSP, others do not. The range of interest value and reliability covers the full scale from excellent to appalling so such books are judged case by case. Books that are compilations of work on different families can be particularly difficult to judge. For example, Douglas's 'Baronage of Scotland' appears to be a mixture of work that Sir Robert Douglas did himself (usually excellently, but his resources were limited and he must have been reliant on the documents that were made available to him) and other people's work that he edited with little input. His books are known to have contained many mistakes yet they remain the bases for many family trees.
4. Books (and other media) that report on wide groups of families.
Whilst this category covers a few other sources also, we are thinking here in particular of the various books by 'Burke' - the various editions of BE, BEB, BLG, and BP. They are usually excellent in the broad range of material provided although they vary significantly on the reliability of the detail on different families. Their popularity over many years provides testament to their value. For extinct British aristocratic families we have used BE1883 and BEB1841 quite a lot, even though they (particulary BE1883) are known to contain errors, simply because (unlike TCP) they name most of the children & siblings (and their marriages) and not just the heirs. For non-aristrocratic families, Burke's Landed Gentry (or its predecessor, 'Commoners') is often the ONLY accessible source of data although many families appear only in a very few of the many editions. Remember that there is a major difference between Burke's Landed Gentry and the other Burke publications - the articles in BLG were prepared (and paid for) by the individual families concerned but the articles in the other Burke publications were prepared by the publishers, sometimes without checking with the relevant families.
We should also mention the records of the Visitations of the Heralds made in the 16th and 17th centuries around England. These have proved invaluable for many families, for some of whom no other source has been found. The records vary in the extent of information provided, presumably having depended not least on the amount of information made available to the Heralds by the relevant families. Noting this, and noting that (as with any group of people) the range of independence and expertise shown by individual Heralds varied significantly, we view the records as reasonably (but not wholly) reliable except where there is reason to think otherwise, whether for better or worse.
5. Other web sites.
As with books, perhaps even more so, the range of interest value and reliability covers the full scale and has to be judged case by case. There is every combination of presentation and content you can think of - some sites look brilliant but contain rubbish, others look pathetic but are reliable for what they cover. We tend not to name web sites that have been used for particular Family List pages unless they identify their sources. [This is partly to keep down the number of links in our site as, over time, links tend to fail.] If we report data as having been sourced from "various web sites" (or similar) this means that, although we include it for its interest value, we suggest that it is viewed with some caution. There are many web sites around that present data as factual even when the inter-family connections shown are based wholly on speculation. We try to avoid that !
Note. Unlike our 'Families Database', which has been typed out page by page and enables you to see the descent of a family over many generations on one page, most databases in other sites are controlled & generated by computer and so provide one individual and his/her immediate family connections at a time. Each way offers advantages and disadvantages.

B4. I wish to cross-refer to a particular page in the database. How should I do that?

Your browser's address bar shows http://www.stirnet.com/main/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=79 as the URL wherever you are within the database. [Unless you have come here directly from the link on the site's F.A.Q. page, you should be able to see that URL above because this 'Occasionally asked questions' page is one of the database's support pages.] This is because, to bring the database within the Content Management System used for the rest of the site, and to make possible our Membership Scheme, we use what is called a 'wrapper' which effectively treats the whole database as just one file. Nevertheless, each page within the database still has its own individual URL which can be linked to from elsewhere in the Internet. That URL can be seen (normally at the bottom-left of your screen) when you place your cursor over a link to that particular page.
Example: go to the database's Lead Index Page and click on A within Section III (taking you to the sub-index page for modern families whose names start with the letter A) and then place your cursor over Abdy1. You will see http://www.stirnet.com/HTML/genie/british/aa/abdy1.htm#top which is the URL for (the top of) the Abdy1 page.

The individual URLs of the pages within our database are quite long and so are easy to make a mistake with (which is why we normally recommend people who wish to link to the site to just link to www.stirnet.com and leave it to their viewers to find their way around the site). Of course, the exact URL of a page is needed if you wish to make a link to a particular page but we suggest that, if you just wish to refer to a particular page within the database without providing a link to it, perhaps because you just wish to identify it as the source for some of your own data, you simply use one of the following (with XXX being the name of the relevant page):
- For a one-off cross-reference: "page XXX within the Families Database at www.Stirnet.com".
- When several cross-references are used: "Stirnet (XXX)" with it being explained elsewhere that 'Stirnet (YYY) stands for page YYY within the Families Database at www.Stirnet.com'.