Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Dear Randy: Are You Related to Baseball Pitcher Tom Seaver?

I am asked this question at least once a month, especially when I tell people that I am interested in genealogy and family history.  I was reminded of it today when I received a Google alert for "Genealogy for George Thomas Seaver family tree on Geni, with over 150 million profiles of ancestors and living relatives." - see his Geni profile at https://www.geni.com/people/Tom-Seaver/6000000003011055905

I made a special point early on in my genealogy career to find out how I was related to Tom Seaver.  My father, my brothers and I were fans of "cousin Tom" as we called him, without knowing if we were or not.  We wanted to be related, because he represented our surname so well.  

Here is a relationship chart created by RootsMagic 7 from my family tree database:



Look at that - Tom Seaver, the Hall of Fame baseball pitcher, is my 10th cousin, with common ancestors of Robert Seaver (1608-1683) and Elizabeth Ballard (1616-1657).

I was almost related to "Tom Seaver" in a closer way.  When we were expecting our second child in 1976, we did not know the gender before the birth.  We called the baby "TJ" in the womb, and if it was a boy, he was going to be Thomas Jefferson Seaver.  It was the bicentennial year, after all.  We had Tami Joy Seaver instead on the day before my birthday, and she is a wonderful daughter and has brought extreme joy and happiness to our lives.  

Before she was born, Linda had to renew her drivers license at the DMV.  She stood in line for awhile in her advanced state of pregnancy, and when she got to the window, the clerk glanced at the last name and asked "Are you related to Tom Seaver?"  Linda's answer was "I may be any minute!"

The good news is that the Geni database has both of our Seaver lines correct.  I've been looking through cousin Tom's pedigree on Geni.com for closer relationships but haven't seen one yet.  

Are you related to any famous person with your surname?  


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Copyright (c) 2016, Randall J. Seaver

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