Having trouble with my MC's family tree line's history

[UltimateUniverse900]

My MC is a super soldier, born in the near-future. What I can't figure out is a way to make the MC's tree line less complicated.

Here's the MC's father's side of the family:

1. US soldier and unknown mother have a son in 1936.
2. US soldier saves an eight year old Polish girl in 1945 during WW2.
3. Polish girl grown up meets the US soldier's son(now grown up as well) and both have a son in 1964 during the cold war.
4. Their son once grown up meets a Serbian woman in 1995 in the Bosnian war.
5. Then their son once grown up meets a woman in 2030, giving birth to the MC.

The MC's mother's side of the family:

1. A US soldier and female British SOE have their son born in the US in 1946 after WW2.
2. Their son meets a French/Vietnamese woman in 1969, during the Vietnam War, having their son.
3. Their son grows up to meet a mercenary woman of Greek/British/French/Italian descent in Central Africa in 1999, having their own daughter born that year.
4. Their daughter grows up and meets the grown up son(who was born in 1995), giving birth to the MC in 2030.

And just to backtrack a little, the reason the mercenary woman in 1999 is descent of Greek/British/French/Italian is because of this; a British soldier and Greek woman had a son in 1941. A French female resistance fighter and a male Italian resistance fighter had a daughter in 1946. Both grown up son and grown up daughter meet in 1971, having their daughter, who grows up to be the mercenary woman in Africa in 1999.

Does this family tree line sound okay? Or do I need to trim it down?

 

[paranoid marvin]

There's a reason why in many stories the protagonist is an orphan, of unknown parentage, or who (by various methods) has a limited number of relatives. Partly this is to do with not having them interfering in your story.

Are any of them necessary to the story you are telling? Ideally you don't want to fill several chapters discussing relatives at the expense of storyline.

 

[Wayne Mack]

What is the purpose behind the genealogy? Unless there are important characteristics or knowledge imparted to the main character from his or her ancestors, I'm not sure there is any advantage to going beyond mention of the immediate parents and even that may not be needed. If the intent is to have a multigenerational type story, then knowing each generation and its story is needed. Of course, if this is helpful to you, as a writer, in understanding the main character, then certainly do this, but don't be worried about detail that is not going to be presented to the reader.

 

[The Big Peat]

It's your story, do what you want with it unless it makes it hard for you to get the intended impact.

Without knowing what genre, what impact the family has, how much you're planning to mention it and so on, it's hard to give better advice.

 

[genelewis]

Is the purpose of having ancestors involved in different wars to get across a theme about the changing (or unchanging) nature of war? That could work and might be very interesting, but I think you would need at least scenes and probably chapters or more with all of these characters to get that across. Or maybe it's a dark running joke that every generation meets their partner during a war. Also could work! But if there's not a clear reason behind doing this, it might be extraneous.

 

[UltimateUniverse900]

Are any of them necessary to the story you are telling? Ideally you don't want to fill several chapters discussing relatives at the expense of storyline.

They are to an extent. They help explain the powers manifested from each family relatives.

What is the purpose behind the genealogy?

Each relative member had something special about them, which transferred to the MC.

It's your story, do what you want with it unless it makes it hard for you to get the intended impact.

Without knowing what genre, what impact the family has, how much you're planning to mention it and so on, it's hard to give better advice.

It's an action adventure story about a super soldiers; which the MC's inherited lycanthropy and vampirism DNA from their ancestors/relatives/parents.

 

[UltimateUniverse900]

Is the purpose of having ancestors involved in different wars to get across a theme about the changing (or unchanging) nature of war? That could work and might be very interesting, but I think you would need at least scenes and probably chapters or more with all of these characters to get that across. Or maybe it's a dark running joke that every generation meets their partner during a war. Also could work! But if there's not a clear reason behind doing this, it might be extraneous.

To some extent, I would say it has alot to do with the changes and unchanged ways of war. But combined with the inheritance of these different powers/enhancements these ancestors carried over. I never thought of it that way, but each generation meeting their partner during a war could be a fun way to explain it. But that means the ancestor/relatives would have to die so they don't interfere with the main MC right?

 

[AllanR]

This strikes me as very odd and the reverse of what commonly can happen.

1. US soldier and unknown mother have a son in 1936.

How was the mother unknown and the father known? Did a stork bring the baby to him?

 

[UltimateUniverse900]

This strikes me as very odd and the reverse of what commonly can happen.

How was the mother unknown and the father known? Did a stork bring the baby to him?

I haven't decided who the mother would be yet so I left her unknown for now.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

The complex family tree is what it is or what it needs to be for you to be satisfied.
I'd be curious:
1. how many of these people -- along with the entire extended family, siblings, cousins, uncles, etc. are still alive -- if any. And why there aren't many, many, more alive than there are.
2. How you will integrate parts of this genealogy into the story in a smooth way.

Remember Kurt Vonnegut's advice for writing stories --- Start the action as close to the end as possible.
I, for one, am pretty bored with origin stories. I liked jumping into the Riddick stories without knowing why he's as bad-ass as he is.

Good luck with your story.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Another thought occurred to me when reading about your genealogy. So many improbable relationships. I'd be curious to see the Collection of Romantic short stories... "How They Met."

 

[UltimateUniverse900]

The complex family tree is what it is or what it needs to be for you to be satisfied.
I'd be curious:
1. how many of these people -- along with the entire extended family, siblings, cousins, uncles, etc. are still alive -- if any. And why there aren't many, many, more alive than there are.
2. How you will integrate parts of this genealogy into the story in a smooth way.

Remember Kurt Vonnegut's advice for writing stories --- Start the action as close to the end as possible.
I, for one, am pretty bored with origin stories. I liked jumping into the Riddick stories without knowing why he's as bad-ass as he is.

Good luck with your story.

Thank you. I think the easiest way for me to do this is to figure out a way to combine and shorten some of these family trees into a lesser group. How can I do this?

 

[UltimateUniverse900]

Another thought occurred to me when reading about your genealogy. So many improbable relationships. I'd be curious to see the Collection of Romantic short stories... "How They Met."

That could be an interesting take. But would it help if I killed some of them off?

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Thank you. I think the easiest way for me to do this is to figure out a way to combine and shorten some of these family trees into a lesser group. How can I do this?

I say go the opposite, have lots of living relatives.
As mentioned above there are so many orphans just to avoid family relationships.

I'm curious what happens when that super warrior has dozens of living relatives?

Then again, its your story. Are you going the typical route where your super warrior is going up against an all powerful supervillain that will hunt down his family for revenge? Or perhaps you are going more nuanced. Being a super warrior is just his job 5 days a week. Perhaps call him Major Tom.

Embrace your robust family tree. Let it live on its own.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

That could be an interesting take. But would it help if I killed some of them off?

Help what? Be different. Let them live.

 

[sknox]

It's fine. Start telling the story. New problems will arise you cannot anticipate until you're hip-deep in the story. At which point, new possibilities will occur to you. But nothing gets solved until you start writing.