How much info in Family Tree?

[WhizPA]

Hi - we are at the very early stages of the process - just been accepted by LA to Stage 1 with Pre-Approval training in early March.

We've been reading plenty of books/articles/blogs etc to try and gain as much knowledge as we can during these 6 weeks. One thing I've come across a few times it how we can affect the progression through the stages by being prepared and doing our side of things in a timely manner etc.

One of the things I understand that will be asked is our Family Tree so thinking that we can be making a start on that. But can anyone advise on how far back/out they normally ask you to go?

Just trying to feel as if we're still being active and moving along during this 6 week wait! Know we'll need to get used to waiting but I think I'll need practise!!

Thanks for any help on either this or anything else you can recommend that we could start doing now.

Hi Whiz, there's a Newbie thread you'd be very welcome to join!

We're a little bit further along, just started stage 2.

At prep course we were asked to bring a family tree, and now in the Home Study we need to make one again.

The one for the prep course was very basic, just listing names and perhaps if they were still alive or dead, and rough ages, for:
yourself and any existing children
your parents
your grandparents
your aunts and uncles
your siblings
your nieces/nephews, so any children your siblings have.

You can include information about divorces/second marriages etc.
You can impress your SWs by using squares and circles for male and female (but I forgot which way round! but if you google you will find quickly)

Now for the Home Study we need to include all of the above, and further adding:
all of those people's partners/spouses
all cousins
all of those people's occupations
dates of birth/death

but different LAs have different requirements. However in any case it will be useful to have done this work already!

Things are different in different counties. I think ours only went as far as

Our parents
Our siblings and their partners and their kids
Our birth child

Ours is the same as Italian's, that's all they wanted,

I'm amazed that I have been allowed to adopt several times without even knowing my cousins dates of birth, some of their occupations or even their spouses. It's madness I tell you .......

hihi - our SW seems very conscientious in some ways! But she is very easygoing in others so that evens it out I guess.

Well I hope that extends to proper preparation and support and not just working about whether or not your cousins first wife was a mechanical or an electrical engineer

we did ours separately as dh's is like a weeks episode of Jeremy kyle we went baclaa far as grandparents siblings. marked on births deaths and divorces. dh not close to a lot of his cousins so just put 4 cousins etc. They were happy with that

I went back to my Grandparents and sideways as far as cousins. We have family members we are no longer in touch with and I included them. It helped to show that we had a little bit of empathy about loss.

Thanks a lot for all the info - as we are both only children with no children ourselves, it starts off very easy....but then FIL was one of 10 and my grandparents were all from large sibling groups so cousins and great aunts and uncles are aplenty!!

I will have fun putting it all together anyway, looking forward to the day when we can add another generation

We went up to my GPs and my DH's Parents. I don't think we put dates of birth for cousins etc, but we did put extra info such as: Cousin X, 3 children, live in Scotland, visit twice per year; Nephew Y age 10, DH is godparent etc.

If there were loads of cousins we never saw I would maybe have lumped them all in together, as broadly irrelevant.