I had wondered what effect two less ancestors would have on the ancestor count in my family tree. It turned out, two less ancestors meant that in 17 generations I had 254 less ancestors.

I’ve now discovered another cousin marriage in my tree.

My 4th great-grandparents, Arthur Buchan and Agnes Buchan, married at Rathen, Aberdeenshire in 1828. Their fathers were brothers (as shown in the diagram below).

My pedigree is now only typical until the 8th generation, where I lose two 5x great grandparents, which leads to the loss of another 2046 ancestors by the 17th generation.

My ancestor count now looks like this:

If I find any more, I will make sure to update.

(If you believe that I have actually calculated incorrectly, please let me know!)

The post Further Pedigree Collapse appeared first on Geneageek.

In the final post of the series, I mentioned that I had not been able to find any direct link to my family from any of the five men. However, I thought it would probably be a good idea to show the links that are there.

Alexander Ritchie Buchan was my second great-grandfather.

• Charles Bruce was the father-in-law of Alexander’s brother Peter.
• Andrew Buchan was the cousin of Alexander’s brother-in-law (husband of sister Jessie).
• Alexander Strachan and Andrew Strachan were the father-in-law and brother-in-law of Jessie’s husband’s cousin (Elisabeth).
• Andrew Bruce does not currently have any known connection to my family.

Please note: these are the closest connections as they currently stand. The families of St Combs were so entwined, there are bound to be other ways they link and less distant connections may be discovered in time.

UPDATE: 

Less than a day after posting the above, I was able to connect Andrew Bruce. It turns out that Andrew was actually the nephew of Charles Bruce.

Apparently though, Andrew is more closely connected to my family via a different route:

This can be expressed in many different ways – none of those being straight forward.

We could say:

My second great grandfather’s uncle married the second cousin of Andrew Bruce.

OR

My third great grandfather’s brother married Andrew Bruce’s second cousin.

OR

Andrew Bruce was the second cousin of my third great grandfather’s sister-in-law.

OR

Andrew Bruce was the second cousin of the wife of Alexander Ritchie Buchan’s uncle.

OR…

… (It could go on and on.)

Whichever way, I’m glad a connection has been made and will be sure to update here when closer ones are found.

Posts in this series:
Five Men Drowned
Five Men Drowned – Two Recovered
Five Men Drowned – Three Buried at Sea
Five Men Drowned – One Survivor

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