Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Tuesday's Tip - Check Out FamilySearch's Famous Relatives Page

 The FamilySearch Blog posted "Discover Your Famous Relatives" on 13 November, and I tried it out.  

1)  The page looks like this (two screens captured):


The page described how this works:

"The Famous Relatives activity searches the FamilySearch Family Tree for your possible connections to famous people in history. For the experience to work, you need a FamilySearch account (if you don’t already have one, you can create a free one) with at least four generations completed. For best results, fill out your family tree as much as possible, aiming for eight generations or more."

2)  I clicked on the "View Your Famous Relatives" blue button on the screen above, and went to the page with MY famous relatives in this app:


At the top, the page says that there are these people related to me (according to the Family Tree):

* 36 Leaders

*  14 Inventors and Scientists

*  25 Entertainers and Artists

*  43 Trailblazers

*  1 Athletes

3)  The page then shows me images of all of those famous relatives of mine.  I can click on the image of any one of them.  I chose Abraham Lincoln and saw a popup screen.  Here's the top of the popup screen::

and the bottom of the pop-up screen:

4)  So the FamilySearch Family Tree thinks that I am the 6th cousin 4 times removed of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States.  The common ancestors are my 9th great-grandparents Obadiah Holmes (1610-1682) and Katherine Hyde (1608-1682). 

This app works well, but it is difficult (impossible?) to print out your relationships.  

I wanted to know which famous athlete I was related to:  it is Gordie Howe (1928-2016), the hockey player.

5)  I could not sign into the previous Relative Finder page last night - perhaps it has been turned into this Famous Relatives app that is on the Discovery page.  That is unfortunate, because Relative Finder was very useful to find relationships to other groups of people, like Genea-Bloggers, or attendees at RootsTech.

6)  If this is new to you, and you have your ancestral lines in the FamilySearch Family Tree, I encourage you to explore this Famous Relatives app.

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Copyright (c) 2020, Randall J. Seaver

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1 comment:

Lisa S. Gorrell said...

I signed into Relative Finder last night with no problem, but couldn't a day or so ago. I think it was down. I like how it helps you find how other people in your group are related to you. Though most of the relationships are so far back that I question the links. I certainly haven't proven my lines back that far!