What's Your Score?

People love a score. In competition, this shows who's winning; in life; it shows how well we are achieving. But in family history? Surely, that's about quality, not quantity. It's about how well you know your ancestors: when they lived, where they lived  and what they did. We can get all this from both personal and official records. Better still, you may have some way of telling even more about their feelings: their hopes, their triumphs and their disappointments. You may have some of their letters, their diaries or even their photographs or paintings showing some of their character in their face. Surely, no chance of adding a score there?

Perhaps there's another way.

OK, let's start with the blindingly obvious. You have two parents. Yes, I know that advances in medical science have produced the three-parent baby, but we're talking about family history and as I write, in 2015, none of our ancestors were born after 2000. So, two parents. And each of them has two parents; four ancestors so far. Eight in the next generation, sixteen in the next, and so on. By the time we have reached ten generations, we have got 1,022 ancestors whom we can thank for our existence. Quite a lot, eh?

So how far back is ten generations? Taking an average of between 25 and 30 years as a generation, that takes us back only 250-300 years, so quite a reasonable time to hope to trace back. But over a thousand people? How many of these have we identified? Do we know their names? Putting a figure on this might give us a useful score; one which would point us at the empty spaces which need filling in—our brick walls.

In 2012 Crista Cowan in her Ancestry blog post titled 'What’s Your Number?' proposed a solution. Why not put your known ancestors into a table, with a row for each generation? Each row would show the generation followed by the number of possible ancestors for that generation; the number of known ancestors; and the former as a percentage of the latter. OK, that sounds complicated, but look at the image below. Quite simple, really.

In 2014 Randy Seaver reminded us of this idea in his Genea-Musings blog and repeated his suggestion a year later.

My Score

So, what's my number? 116 out of a possible 1,023 - 11%.

Not bad compared to some others, but could be better. So, plenty more opportunity for research there. It's interesting to see how the percentage tails off as we go back through the generations. This highlights the point at which I should concentrate my research; the sixth generation. Wouldn't it be satisfying to move that nearer to 100%? That might also make opportunities for pushing back another generation or two with their ancestors.

How did I produce the figures? By using a simple spreadsheet on Google Drive and capturing the result as an image using ABBYY Sreenshot Reader. Other screen capture software and spreadsheets are available...

The eagle-eyed will notice that the figure 1,023 includes myself as my own ancestor; a biologically unlikely situation. However, this does make adding the totals simpler in the spreadsheet and if you reduce the totals of the Possible People and the Identified People columns each by one you will find it makes no effective difference.

My Known Ancestors

This diagram, produced on Progeny's Genelines programme, shows where the gaps are—and they look pretty big!

James and Jack's Score

What about my grandchildren, to whom this blog is dedicated. First let's look at James and Jack, my son's sons.

I know 15% of their ancestors to the 10th generation. That looks a lot better than my own figure of 11% but this is to be expected. My 5th generation, to which I know all of my ancestors, is their 7th. This shows that there is still much to be done though it should be easier since we will not need to go so far back in the records. However their mother has asked me not to research her side of the family as she would like this to be her privilege. I have included the names I already know but in respect for her wishes I have done no further work on that side. This would bring the number of possible people from my point of view to 32 in the 7th generation, 64 in the 8th, 128 in the 9th and 256 in the 10th, making the final percentage almost 30% according to the figure below. Not bad but, from my own figures, more for me to do on their generations 8, 9 and 10.

Helen and Emma's Score

Next we can look at my daughter's daughters.

Not quite as good as James and Jack's revised figures but still showing almost 800 people to be identified. No laurels to be rested on there!

So, this gives us some focus on where to concentrate our energies on the genealogical side. As the gaps are filled and the ancestors identified we can develop the family history aspect: their stories and the times and places in which they lived.

Finally, if any family members would like to know their score or if you would like to add to my research, do let me know.

Who knows what our Ancestral Scores will be this time next year?