Friday, August 4, 2006

Ancestries of famous people

William Addams Reitweisner has an interesting collection of ancestries of famous people, in addition to his own ancestry, on his web site at www.wargs.com.

There are links for European royalty, US political figures, and other people, mainly celebrities. For each person researched, there is an ahnentafel, followed by US census records. Some ahnentafel entries have notes and sources.

In addition to all the US Presidents that I am related to (I blogged about it some time ago), I found that I am also distantly related to Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, Bill Gates, John Kerry, Bill Richardson and Howard Dean. I'm not related to Hillary Clinton, Mark Warner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Britney Spears, among others.

Mr. Reitweisner has had some help in compiling these, and has put in a lot of good work. If you enjoy finding famous distant cousins, this is a good site to review.

One thought that struck me as I reviewed these ancestries was that many of these folks were successful just two or three generations after immigration from the home country.

Do you think Mitt Romney or Bill Richardson will ask their 10th cousin for political advice or wisdom - probably not, but maybe a donation. Ah, I could ask for an ambassadorship!

I think I'll ask my dear cousin Bill (Gates) if he wants to share some of his largesse with his 10th cousin...

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