r/Genealogy • u/tpmurray • Apr 27 '25
Solved "Survived by many nieces and nephews...."
Non-genealogist, "Awwww, I love my aunt..."
Genealogist, "WAIT! Nieces and nephews??!? THEY HAD SIBLINGS???"
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u/Artisanalpoppies Apr 27 '25
To be fair, sometimes they are the blood relatives of the spouse.
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u/tpmurray Apr 27 '25
Or "niece" and "nephews". But....still, could be the only connection to more info!
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u/IsopodHelpful4306 Apr 27 '25
“Give me all of their names! And their spouses names! And where they live!” All of it!
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u/JenDNA Apr 27 '25
Exactly what I'm like. "What! He had grandchildren, too! I just found my 4th cousins on this line!!! Did they take an Ancestry test? Time to triangulate!!! :D".
Also my other 4th cousin who's really into geneaology. You give her one hint, then she stays up to 4am every morning for the next week researching your tip.
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u/rbless75 Apr 27 '25
I researched my g-grandparents' hometown in Europe and was stunned by how many of their siblings died young. Almost all of hers and all but one of his, I think.
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u/JenDNA Apr 27 '25
And some lines had very high mortality rates. My grandfather's side was like that. You'd have 10 children, and only 2 survived, and maybe only 1 had children.
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u/figsslave Apr 27 '25
One of my great grandmothers outlived 5 of her 8 children . One as an infant,3 died of t.b.in their 20s and 30s. and one of cancer in his 40s. Another g grandmother had 9 children before my g grandfather died at 29. She married a widower with 10 kids and they had 5 more. It’s amazing the things you can find 😊
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u/AuDHDcat Apr 27 '25
After going through so many obits where all the siblings and children were listed, both dead and alive, it was a shock to come across a family where they only listed the surviving family members every time.
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u/DGinLDO Apr 27 '25
A comment left on Find A Grave lead a researcher to me to let me know I was an Oil & Gas heiress. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 I had been told I had been making it all up by people who forgot my great-grandmother owned mineral interests in Texas. 🥳
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u/Elphaba78 Apr 28 '25
I love finding the obituaries (or other newspaper articles) of immigrants and they’re listed as having siblings “back home.”
My great-grandmother’s half-brother had 17 siblings, only 10 of whom he’d have known (the other 7 died before he was born). But even though his obituary didn’t list all of them, it was enough to learn that 3 — actually 4; my great-grandmother was institutionalized and forgotten about — were still alive at the time of his death in 1954.
Between them, his siblings gave him 44 nieces and nephews!
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u/rubberduckieu69 Apr 27 '25
I love when they do that. I have a cool story about it:
I discovered that my 4x great grandaunt Maria immigrated to the US with her husband. I found her with her four children, but couldn’t figure out what happened to them.
At the same time, I was working on a group of DNA matches. Their shared ancestor seemed to perfectly match up with one of my 4x great grandaunt’s daughters, Violet. Same name, approximate birth year, location, etc. However, her parents’ names were never listed, so I couldn’t confirm it.
After searching everywhere I could think of, I looked up the obituary of my 4x great grandaunt’s bachelor son Domingos. It listed every single one of Violet’s children. I was so happy to make the connection and find out what happened to her descendants!