pedigree Archives - Geneageek

Further Pedigree Collapse

I previously posted about ‘cousin marriage’ and ‘pedigree collapse’ in my tree here.

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:

Generation	Relationship	Typical Number	My Number	Ancestors Lost
1	Me
2	Parents	2	2
3	Grandparents	4	4
4	1x Great grandparents	8	8
5	2x Great grandparents	16	16
6	3x Great grandparents	32	32
7	4x Great grandparents	64	64
8	5x Great grandparents	128	126	-2
9	6x Great grandparents	256	252	-4
10	7x Great grandparents	512	504	-8
11	8x Great grandparents	1024	1006	-16-2
12	9x Great grandparents	2048	2012	-32-4
13	10x Great grandparents	4096	4024	-64-8
14	11x Great grandparents	8192	8048	-128-16
15	12x Great grandparents	16384	16096	-256-32
16	13x Great grandparents	32768	31562	-512-64
17	14x Great grandparents	65536	64384	-1024-128
TOTAL		131070	128770	-2300

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

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

Cousin marriage is given the side eye these days but it was a relatively common thing for our ancestors. It seemed to happen a lot with the Wrefords in Devon, and the Buchans in North East Aberdeenshire, but I’ve actually only been able to find it once in my direct ancestral line (so far).

Way back in the mid 18th century, my 6th great-grandparents, Sarah Wreford and John Wreford, married. Sarah and John were 1st cousins – their fathers were brothers.

This kind of situation leads to what is known as ‘pedigree collapse’.

A typical pedigree assumes each set of parents are unrelated to each other and each generation doubles (since each person has 2 parents).

Pedigree collapse occurs when two people who share ancestors reproduce.

This is demonstrated in the pedigree of Sarah and John’s son (and my 5th great-grandfather), John Wreford:

Instead of having four distinct sets of great-grandparents, Sarah and John’s children had only three.

Their children had only 6 great-parents instead of 8; 12 second great-grandparents instead of 16; 24 third great-grandparents instead of 32; and so on. (The number of ancestors lost each generation doubles: 8 -2; 16 -4; 32 -8; etc.)

This got me wondering. What knock on effect would 2 less ancestors have on my overall ancestor count?

My pedigree is typical until the 11th generation, where I lose 2 8x great grandparents. So instead of 1024 8xGGP, I have 1022; instead of 2048 9xGGP, I have 2044 ; instead of 4096 10xGGP, I have 4088; and so on.

My ancestor count (so far) looks like this:

Generation	Relationship	Typical Number	My Number	Ancestors Lost
1	Me
2	Parents	2	2
3	Grandparents	4	4
4	1x Great grandparents	8	8
5	2x Great grandparents	16	16
6	3x Great grandparents	32	32
7	4x Great grandparents	64	64
8	5x Great grandparents	128	128
9	6x Great grandparents	256	256
10	7x Great grandparents	512	512
11	8x Great grandparents	1024	1022	-2
12	9x Great grandparents	2048	2044	-4
13	10x Great grandparents	4096	4088	-8
14	11x Great grandparents	8192	8176	-16
15	12x Great grandparents	16384	16352	-32
16	13x Great grandparents	32768	32704	-64
17	14x Great grandparents	65536	65408	-128
TOTAL		131070	130816	-254

Further calculations will need to be made if/when I find more kissing cousins.

Birthplace Pedigree Charts

You may have seen a lot birthplace pedigree charts posted online recently.

I created charts for my own and my husband’s family’s countries of birth knowing that it would visually represent something that I think is pretty rare.

My pedigree:

palmerbirthplacepedigree My husband’s pedigree:

ebbansbirthplacepedigree

Notice anything?

5 generations of English heritage on both the maternal and paternal sides, all the way through.

And this pattern has continued further back too. In fact, the ONLY ancestor I’ve discovered not born in England (so far) was born in America (6th generation) to English parents, due to her father’s service in the British military. Surely, she is considered English too?

Either way, I’d like to know anyone else who has this. I’ve been led to believe it’s pretty rare due to a programme aired (ten years ago now) where people who thought they were completely English found out they were anything but.

Is it so rare?

If you would like to compile your own chart, head to AnceStories for a pre-made template.

Pedigree Chums

georgewrefordpedigreeauthor_edited — George Wreford of Gray’s Inn

I am fortunate enough that part of my family history – the WREFORDs – was already recorded years ago. Long before I came along, George WREFORD of Gray’s Inn, Barrister at Law was the family historian. He compiled a ‘Pedigree and Sketch of the Wreford Family of Clannaborough and Morchard Bishop, Devonshire’ back in 1888 and a revised edition, ‘Records and Pedigree of the Wreford Family of Devonshire’ in 1909.

Genealogy was a completely different’ kettle of fish’ back then and I (as well as many of my Wreford cousins, I’m sure) am grateful that George took the time to do it. But I can’t have him taking all my fun, so over the years I’ve fact-checked, evidenced and fleshed out the details pertaining to my direct line.

You can access physical copies at the West Country Studies Library in Exeter but I have chosen to include the pages pertaining to my line here. You can access these via the top menu or click here to start.

Bombay Love Story Continued…

Obituary Notice for Drusilla WILLS (nee WREFORD) (Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 140, 15 June 1934, p3)

This obituary for Drusilla WILLS (nee WREFORD) featured in my previous post stated that:

Mrs. Wills is survived by two children. Mr James Wills and Mrs. D. Evans, and 15 grandchildren, and 20 great-grandchildren.

My searches of the NZ BDM showed me that Thomas & Drusilla had 3 children:

Richard Henry, Drusilla Howard and James Howard WILLS birth registrations

So you may presume (as I did) that:

a) their son Richard Henry died prior to 1934; and

b) the Mrs D Evans referred to is their daughter, Drusilla Howard.

However a search of Wills/Evans marriages from 1865 only came up with 2:

This means that one of the surviving children was actually ANOTHER daughter called Charlotte (and the D being her husband’s initial). However, there was no birth record of a Charlotte WILLS. So, IS this Charlotte a daughter of Thomas & Drusilla?

I was able to find the marriage of Drusilla Howard WILLS (spelt Drucilla – one of the 3 births listed) to a William SHORT in 1899.

I checked the WREFORD pedigree compiled in 1908 (more on that another time) which notes Drusilla and Thomas had SIX children. With only 3 of those listed in the online BDMs – is it possible to find these other children OR was the compiler mistaken?

Next Steps:

Check birth notices in newspapers (Papers Past)
Check BDM for WILLS deaths prior to 1934
Scour newspapers for any other references to the family