De Vältesdag, deen den 14. Februar a ville Länner gefeiert gëtt, ass deen Dag vun den Verléiften. Ouni déi Koppelen, déi virun eis gelieft hun géifen mir net existéieren.
Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated in many countries on the 14th of February, is the time for people to show feelings of love and affection. Without the couples who came before us, we would not exist. Most were married, some cut it close, and at least one lady gave us a non-paternity event.
This is my fourth year doing the Ancestor Score on Valentine’s Day after reading Barbara Schmidt’s “My Ancestor Score – February 4, 2014” post in 2014. [Update: The link to the 2014 post no longer works. She’s moved her blog but not all the content is up. Here’s her My Ancestor Score February 2017.]
My Ancestor Score
The names of 43 new ancestors were added to my family tree database during the year. This is nearly five times more than those added in 2016. Many of these are due to my now having access* to the Family Books of German towns where my ancestors lived and the recent work I’ve been doing with the church records of Luxembourg. The new additions are in the 5th to 8th great-grandparents’ generations. The new ancestors who lived in areas which are now Germany have names and dates. Records are being found in the church records of Luxembourg for those who lived in these German towns which belonged to parishes in Luxembourg at the time.
* Thanks to our newly opened Luxracines library in Walferdange, Luxembourg.
Generation 6 is still hanging in there at 30 of 32 ancestors. I continue to search for the key to the door of my most frustrating DEMPSEY brick wall. Who were the parents of William A. W. DEMPSEY 1820-1867 of Fayette County, West Virginia? As the administrator of my youngest brother’s DNA, I’m beginning to see several cousins, with shared matches, who descend from his daughter Mary Virginia DEMPSEY and son-in-law John A. SNELL who married in 1872.
My Children’s Ancestor Score
My children have 355 more known ancestors than I do. Their paternal ancestry, being mostly Luxembourgish, helps to bring in a whopping 95% score for the first 8 generations – up to their 5th great-grandparents. Even at 10 generations they have 61% compared to my 39%.
I’ve included the stats for previous years in both tables above but here is a list of my posts from the previous years if you are interested in reading them.
- My Ancestor Score as of Valentine’s Day 2014
- My Ancestor Score as of Valentine’s Day 2015
- My Ancestor Score as of Valentine’s Day 2016
Have you done your Ancestor Score recently? Please post your link in a comment below so that I can visit and have a look.
© 2017, copyright Cathy Meder-Dempsey. All rights reserved.
Wow—those are some impressive stats! I think the furthest back I’ve gone is a possible 6th GGF and only one of those. On my maternal side, I can’t get past my great-greats. Nice work!
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Thank you, Amy. The one set of unknown 3rd great-grandparents is annoying but I’m not giving up hope on a breakthrough.
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Never give up!
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I won’t!
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Wow! I am envious of you with 43 new ancestors! That is a terrific accomplishment.
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Thank you, Linda. It means more to work on too.
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I am impressed but not surprised with your diligence and research skills. I have no.idea what my score would be but it could be another goal.
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We don’t have to take this seriously but it’s nice to know the tree is growing. Thanks, Kendra.
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I love this table.. :)) I’m still stuck at my unknown great-grandma. How can a woman so close to my generation be such a mystery? But I’ve gotten a bit further in my TILINSKI/TYLINSKI line.. yay!
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I wondered that when I read your post. Glad to hear you are making progress on your TILINSKI line. Thanks for commenting, Barbara.
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That is a lot of math, Cathy! Seriously, great job!
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🙂 Thank you, Luanne.
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Belated Valentine’s Day wishes! I love that chart – I need to do this, you’re an inspiration!
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Thank you, Paula, for the compliment. I’ve learned from the best, and you are one of them.
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I saw a link to this in one of the Genealogy FB groups, and decided to do one. For my hypothetical grandchild … in generation 10,
I have 411 people out of 512 (if I’ve done the math right … it’s by hand [too sorry to get the laptop out!]). There’s about 200 leaves leading to pissible generation 11 folks. For my personal tree, for generation 8, I have 125 out of 128.
I’m taking advantage of a Series of Unfortunate Events to build — and **document** (and verify) the tree from scratch.
Do you have folks over here poking at your brick wall?
Oh, FWIW, the original blog that gave you the inspiration is locked/private.
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Thank you for your Ancestor Score. Yes, I recently learned the original link is broken. She’s started up a new blog and I’m waiting for her to get everything moved over. Maybe I should just link to her Home page. Appreciate the heads up, Susan.
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You’re welcome! Just set up a spreadsheet for the Really Big Tree and one for each of the 4 big lines (me, hubby, dil’s dad and dil’s mom). I love stuff like this!
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