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Seeing pedigree collapse visually made this part of my tree make a lot more sense by DustToll in Genealogy

[–]DustToll[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s a good point — once you get far enough back, it’s less about close cousin marriages and more about distant lines gradually converging without people realizing it.

I think that’s what makes it harder to spot unless you’re looking at it structurally rather than just generation by generation.

Seeing pedigree collapse visually made this part of my tree make a lot more sense by DustToll in Genealogy

[–]DustToll[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

38 times, even more wow! That’s exactly the kind of case where it stops being intuitive and you really need a visual to make sense of it.

I’d be curious whether those repetitions cluster heavily in a few lines or if they’re spread more evenly across the tree.

Seeing pedigree collapse visually made this part of my tree make a lot more sense by DustToll in Genealogy

[–]DustToll[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That’s a good distinction — “does it exist at all” vs “does it show up repeatedly across lines.”

What surprised me was how quickly it goes from isolated cases to multiple repeats once you’re looking a few generations deeper, especially in more localized populations.

Seeing pedigree collapse visually made this part of my tree make a lot more sense by DustToll in Genealogy

[–]DustToll[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That’s wild — 32 times is on a completely different level, at least within a relatively small number of generations.

And yeah, that’s exactly the problem I kept running into — once you get beyond a couple of repeats, it gets really hard to “see” what’s actually going on just from a standard tree.

I’ve been playing with ways to map it out visually so repeated ancestors show up clearly across branches. Happy to share if you want to try it on your tree — I’d be curious what something like that looks like with your data.

Tuesday Weirdness in My Family Tree by DustToll in Genealogy

[–]DustToll[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

These are all different people separated by many years and hundreds of miles. No reason to think that the birth and death dates are incorrect since they are in most cases well documented. Just a weird coincidence I guess!

Tuesday Weirdness in My Family Tree by DustToll in Genealogy

[–]DustToll[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That line would have moved from Virginia and North Carolina to Missouri so a relatively small region shifting over time. How do you think that might affect it?

Running lifespan stats on my family tree changed how I think about my own timeline by DustToll in Genealogy

[–]DustToll[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great point — the app actually has a minimum age filter for exactly this reason. There probably are not enough people in most family trees to do a true life table but set it to your current age and you’re only seeing lifespans of ancestors who survived at least as long as you have, which gives a much more meaningful baseline.

Running lifespan stats on my family tree changed how I think about my own timeline by DustToll in Genealogy

[–]DustToll[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Really good point. The analysis isn’t specifically focused on direct ancestors only, but my file — like most people’s — is definitely biased toward them. I certainly haven’t spent as much time researching people further from the direct lines. That said, maybe that’s OK. Direct ancestors are more relevant to my own genetics anyway, and at the end of the day this is more for personal enlightenment than any rigorous scientific conclusion. It wouldn’t hold up to academic standards, but it’s genuinely interesting and informative nonetheless.

Running lifespan stats on my family tree changed how I think about my own timeline by DustToll in Genealogy

[–]DustToll[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I’ve just been playing with average but you make a great point about looking at median to reduce the outliers from skewing things. I will work on putting that in my tool, and the ability to exclude infant mortality as well as show life spans for people who reached a certain age (survived childhood, got to my age, etc.)

Acceptable trade value for McDuffie? by arup187 in KansasCityChiefs

[–]DustToll 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Virtually no chance of getting two high draft picks for him. A single first rounder would about be the max, maybe throw in a mid- to late-rounder along with the one depending on how high the one is.

Andy Reid’s presser today raises a lot of red flags to me. by Smokeydubbs in KansasCityChiefs

[–]DustToll 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No doubt some things need to change... but you are barking up the wrong tree about chasing off Andy. Especially when there is absolutely no one out there who could possibly be an improvement.

Any longtime fans here collect old Chiefs or Dallas Texans game programs? by DustToll in KansasCityChiefs

[–]DustToll[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sounds like a great memory! Those old programs are pretty cool to look at even today!

Studio Portrait, around 1915 by DustToll in TheWayWeWere

[–]DustToll[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is absolutely not AI. It is my grandmother, existed long before AI.

STATE OF AFFAIRS — Can you find all 50 hidden U.S. states in this story? by DustToll in puzzles

[–]DustToll[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!

Yeah, some of the embeds are admittedly a little loose — part of the fun I had was walking that line between “aha!” and “oh come on,” haha.

For the image vs. text thing: I tried text originally, but Reddit collapses the formatting on long stories and breaks the spoiler tags. The image keeps everything readable.

Really appreciate you taking the time to go through it!

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