"She's my seventh cousin!" - I was quoted in the Daily Herald newspaper

On Friday morning at RootsTech, in Hall D awaiting the Keynote presentations, I turned around and talked a bit to my SDGS/CGSSD colleague and friend J. Paul Hawthorne.  The young lady next to Paul said something like "are you a genealogist?"  I mumbled "yes" and Paul said "he's one of the top genealogy bloggers in the world."  So we started talking, and she said she was Amy McDonald, a reporter for the Daily Herald newspaper based in Provo, Utah, and asked if she could interview me.  She aimed her iPhone toward me, and asked several questions which I tried to answer cogently and coherently.  One of them was "are you related to Laura or George Bush?"  And I said I knew I was related to George W. Bush, who is about my 7th cousin (I couldn't remember exactly...).

Today I looked for the newspaper article (click here) and there is my quote in the article "Laura Bush talks family, memories and ancestry at RootsTech."  Here's the top of the online newspaper page (two screens):

The Randy part is right at the top of the text:

"SALT LAKE CITY -- "She's my seventh cousin."

"Such was the response given by genealogy blogger Randy Seaver, speaking about the appearance of former First Lady Laura Bush on Friday at the RootsTech genealogy conference."

That was fun, and it took only about five minutes.  Here's a picture of Paul and Amy after the interview:

That was genealogy fun for me!  Thank you, Amy, for the chat.  I think she liked our beads.

But ... is Laura Bush my seventh cousin?  Um, no, I messed that part up.  Geni.com says Laura (Welch) Bush is my 9th cousin twice removed, as is George W. Bush.  Oh well. I wonder if Amy can correct the article?

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/02/shes-my-seventh-cousin-i-was-quoted-in.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver