People researching their own family history usually hope to find out who all their ancestors were,  so they tend to produce 'Pedigree' trees - if you were able to identify every one of your 32 pairs of 4xgreat grandparents, your pedigree would look like a perfectly symetrical inverted triangle or fan shape (rather like this photo of my neighbour's recently pruned apple tree)  with 64 names in boxes across the top row, 32 in the next row, working down to a box containing your name at the bottom of the chart.  But in the real world, although all those 64 people undoubtedly existed (if any one of them hadn't, you wouldn't be here!), actually identifying each and every one of them is very hard work, though finding them can reveal real surprises such as immigrants from other countries and a huge range of trades and social classes.

 

People carrying out a one-name study, usually have an interest in the ORIGIN of the surname they are studying, and many hope to discover how holders of the surname around the world link together. Depending on the type of surname being studied, they may have identified a number of different lines - each headed by a man holding the surname (or a variant of it).  These 'founding fathers' are usually referred to as the 'Most Distant Known Ancestor' (MDKA) of each line.  

So a one-namer's tree will often show the MDKA at the top of the tree, with all known descendants who carry the surname in generations below (though some of us only continue with a branch as long as the surname continues, so children of married daughters may not be included as the surname will have changed on marriage). These are very MESSY trees ... because some families will have a lot of children who bore grandchildren - others may have none or just one or two.  And some branches will die out altogether long before the rest, or become 'daughtered-out' - an expression which refers to a situation when the only surviving descendants are children of married daughters (hence they no longer carry the surname being studied). There may be marriages between cousins to complicate matters.  But the trees produced are fascinating, as they can show how individual branches moved away from the place of origin of the MDKA, perhaps gradually moving across countries or even continents or making the life-changing decision to seek better opportunities overseas.  The bottom row of these trees shows all the living descendants ... distant cousins who may share tales of the adventures their branch encountered as they journeyed through life, and send photos of their older family members who may bear a striking resemblance to those in other branches of the same line.

 

People who are into Autosomal DNA testing (atDNA) need to produce a different type of tree altogether to discover the connections with their atDNA matches!  Their trees look more like a tangled ancient hedgerow, as they first have to work backwards to identify those 64 4xgreat grandparents, then work forwards from each of the 32 couples to the present time, producing descendancy charts for every couple, detailing all possible living descendants (male and female, so lots of surname changes!), so the 'hedgerow' has tendrils weaving back down to take root in the earth at intervals along its length, to represent all the potential living cousins.  And again, when a successful connection is made, the discoveries can be hugely exciting and revealing.