Geni.com Tells Me I'm Related to Some Interesting Authors

I was browsing through Geni.com today and decided to look for some famous authors.  Here are some of who I found are my relatives:

1)  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) is my 7th cousin 3 times removed:

The common ancestors according to Geni.com were William Collier (1580-1671) and Jane Clark (1590-1666). My Collier ancestor is Ruth Collier according to Geni.com, but my actual Collier connection is Mary Collier (1612-1658) who married Thomas Prence.  So my line back is different, but the result is the same.

2)  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) is my 7th cousin 4 times removed:

The supposed common ancestors are Henry Howland (1564-1635)  and Anne Ailes (1567-1629), who were the parents of Henry Howland (my ancestor) and John Howland of the Mayflower (Ralph's ancestor).  Unfortunately, I don't know who were the parents of my Henry Howland (1603-1671).  So this relationship may be wrong.

3)  Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)  is my 6th cousin five times removed:

The common ancestors are David Stone (1540-1625) and Ursula Clark (1563-????), parents of Simon Stone (1586-1665) (my ancestor) and Gregory Stone (1592-1672) (Nathaniel's ancestor).

4)  Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) is my 5th cousin 5 times removed:

The supposed common ancestors are Richard Church (1608-1668) and Elizabeth Warren (1616-1670) Geni claims my line goes through Deborah Church (1657-????) who married Sylvanus White (1667-1688).  I don't think (and the Mayflower Society) thinks that the Deborah who married Sylvanus White is not Deborah Church but another Deborah.  However, I do have Richard Church and Elizabeth Warren as ancestors, but through their son Joseph Church.  So my line is different from what Geni.com has in its database.

For all of the above, I have assumed that the Geni.com line for the famous person is correct.  I don't know if that's true or not.  I do know that Geni.com does not have all of my lines back to common ancestors correct, as discussed above.  By doing these comparisons, I can find probably errors in Geni.com's database and perhaps be able to correct them.

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