Friday, November 11, 2016

This Week's We're Related Cousin Relationships

The We're Related mobile app on my iPhone keeps adding cousin relationasjhips to me, based on my Ancestry Member Tree and someone else's Ancestry Member Tree (I think!).

This week's list is:

1)  Benjamin Franklin - Politician, 2nd cousin 8x removed, common ancestor is Sarah Morrill (1601-1673):


I'm not sure about this relationship - I don't have Sarah Morrill in my tree as a mother of Catherine Morrill, mother of John Smith (1651-1727), who is in my AMT.

2)  Kate Upton - Actress, 9th cousin, common ancestor is Samuel Blodgett (1658-1743):


3)  Kevin Bacon - Actor, 7th cousin 1x removed, common ancestor is Mary Jones (1672-1760).

4)  Cari Taplin - Facebook friend, 8th cousin 1x removed, common ancestor is John Wilson (1673-1717).

5)  Ann Coulter - Author, 8th cousin 1x removed, common ancestor is Stephen Gates (1634-1707):


6)  Helen Keller - Reformer, 6th cousin 2x removed, common ancestor is Samuel Smith (1641-1691):


7)  Marcia Philbrick - Facebook friend, 9th cousin, common ancestor is Richard Haughton (1614-1683).

8)  Elyse Doerflinger - Facebook friend, 8th cousin 2x removed, common ancestor is Simon Gates (1667-1752).

9)  Theodore Roosevelt - Polittician, 6th cousin 5x removed, common ancestor is Maria Du Trieux (1617-1684):


This is probably not my cousin because it goes through my adopted 2nd great-grandfather, Devier James Smith.

10)  Elvis Presley - Musician, 9th cousin, common ancestor is John Wheeler (1642-1713):


I'm not sure about this line - I need to check his line back to the common ancestor.

11)  Suzanne Shay - Facebook friend, 9th cousin, common ancestor is Thomas Goble (1631-1690).

12)  Mark Twain - Author, 7th cousin 4x removed, common ancestor is Elizabeth Gifford (1567-1634):


This is another line I'm not sure of on my side - I have another mother for Abigail (Briant) Carpenter (1604-1687) in my Ancestry Member Tree.  Why does it show Elizabeth Gifford?  Twain's line goes through daughter Mary (Shart) Gove (1604-1682).  This one doesn't compute.

So there's my list for this week.  

As mentioned in an earlier post, I think that this app can excite an interest in being related to famous persons, but the problem is that relatively few persons can trace their ancestry back to the 1600s, which is when most of the common ancestors lived.  Then there is the issue of connecting all of your relatives with your Ancestry Member Tree if they don't have their own.

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Copyright (c) 2016, Randall J. Seaver

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1 comment:

Unknown said...

Wow!! We have so many common "relatives" we must be related hahaha. I focused on one (President Zachary Taylor) since our common ancestor was a Mayflower passenger. It took HOURS to research and confirm the relationship. I'm not sure I'm willing to do that for each "relative" they indicate. Does make for some interesting conversations between myself and hubby since we have MANY common relatives.