Friday, August 28, 2015

I Am Hillary (Rodham) Clinton's 18th Cousin, and perhaps Donald Trump's 19th Cousin Once Removed

A reader emailed me recently noting the article that Hillary (Rodham) Clinton is Donald Trump's 19th cousin - see Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton revealed to be distant cousins as family trees show they share same set of royal ancestors from the Daily Mail on 25 August 2015.  My reader then asked if I was related to both of them:

I went to www.WikiTree.com which has a thriving project for famous persons.  I quickly found Hillary (Rodham) Clinton's profile (Rodham-1) and clicked on the "Relationship to Me" link (it's under the person's name next to "My WikiTree), and the relationship chart appeared (three screens shown):




So, Hillary is my 18th cousin.  Our common ancestor for this relationship is Pierre de Luxembourg (1390-1433).  

On the right side of the first screen above, there is a box that says "Explore more: 37 common ancestors were found between Hillary and Randy within 25 generations. To view the relationship trails, select the common ancestor here."  That dropdown list provides the names of all 37 of our common ancestors, according to WikiTree, back 25 generations or less.  

Before someone asks about Donald Trump, I tried my relationship to myself also.  He is Trump-66 on WikiTree.  WikiTree said that we were not related by blood back at least 25 generations.  

Interestingly, WikiTree doesn't find a relationship between Hillary (Rodham) Clinton and Donald Trump.  

The Daily Mail article provided a comparison of their lines of descent from John of Gaunt through two of his children, which was probably from the Geni.com relationship calculator - see the Geni.com blog post at Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Are Related – And This is How.

I am related to John of Gaunt, according to WikiTree - he is my 19th great-grandfather through his daughter, Joan Beaufort.  So if Donald and Hillary are descended from John of Gaunt and are 19th cousins (meaning he is their 18th great-grandfather), according to Geni, then I must be a 19th cousin once removed to Donald Trump.  

But WikiTree doesn't show Donald Trump as a descendant of John of Gaunt.  It doesn't show that Hillary Clinton is a descendant of John of Gaunt, but is a 2nd cousin 19 times removed to him.  

Obviously, Geni.com and WikiTree.com have different Royal/Noble entries in their databases.  Who knows which one is more correct!

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/08/i-am-hillary-rodham-clintons-18th.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.


1 comment:

Michael said...

Randy give Wikitree a little time. We have volunteers working on special projects like the Magna Charta Project or the Notables Project and everyone tries hard to ensure that sources are correct. I am sure someone will pick this up and develop the lines further.

FYI, with the relationship finder you can do more than a one to one comparison. You can compare up to 4 others at the same time to find a common ancestor. This is a great help for DNA matching.