Famous Relatives Question
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I know nothing about my ancestory except my parents and my mothers parents. I've always wondered. Last December I found this website. It took a few weeks but I got a family tree that went back to 1050AD. Very cool.
The other day I was looking around the website and found in the menus "Famous Relatives". I clicked on it and I was blown away. Attached is a text file with a list of my Famous Relatives. I find it hard to believe. Going from no ancestry to being kin to almost everybody who was somebody. Could there be some mistake.
Thank you
Jerry
Answers
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Jerry,
Congratulations on your success on finding your family tree! It's is amazing that you have one line traced back to 1050AD. Very cool indeed.
With the technology and ancestor names becoming more available, I too was surprised when I looked at "Famous Relatives" that were in my tree. When I have worked with individuals, families or in a group setting this particular look at family trees sparked a lot of conversations to say the least.
In the recent Roots Tech conference held in March. I joined in on a few events and was impressed that when I joined in on the prompt to find relatives when Roots Tech was live, I had over 84,000 relatives that were available and relatives of others ancestors who were involved in Roots Tech that I was related to at that moment.
All the best in your continued search for more of your ancestors!
Kevin
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I wasn't familiar with the 'Famous Relatives' page so I checked it out. https://www.familysearch.org/discovery/famousrelatives
It's sorted by category but I don't know how it's sorted beyond that. From what I can tell, it's not by closeness to us.
I learned I'm pretty distant from these inspirational people, which doesn't surprise me at all. My family line looks more like this. I do have an uncle who played for the Yankees (1 season, long ago) but he seems to fall below the famous threshold. I suppose I can live with that.
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@Jerry2419 , There is no mistake assuming that all the child to parent connections in Family Tree are correct which they may or may not be. Keep in mind, however, that these are famous relatives not famous ancestors. When you click on most of your famous relatives' view relationship link, you will see that they are generally distant cousins having a common on ancestor with you in the 1400s or so.
In connection with these famous ancestors, you may find this article fascinating: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-all-more-closely-related-than-we-commonly-think/
It basically goes over the statistical calculation that if you have European ancestry, you are related to everyone that was alive in Europe in 1000 AD and are a descendant of everyone of them that have descendancy lines reaching today. Since you have that line going back to 1050 AD, I assume to Europe since that is the easiest way to get such a line, then you can show a relationship to everyone that also has a tree going back that far, including all those famous relatives.
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mod note - @Jerry2419 Community is a public online forum. For privacy reasons, your post was edited to remove your personal information. Please see the Community Code of Conduct for more details.
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How do I find famous people on my mothers side of the tree
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I also used the "famous" relatives and was blown away, up to and including some who are still quite alive. I have two questions: 1. I have seen individual printouts of "branches" showing the way I am related to the Roosevelts. It shows the branch starting before FDR (and Teddy) were born and then follows it directly to me. This was fairly easy to see and with not too many "second" cousins, X times removed. How do I get similar branches that show my direct line to some of the very famous other people on my tree? ;2. My sweetheart is having a hard time accepting these direct lineages from X to the famous person, then down to me. This is SO fascinating! I'd like to get some of these direct lines to prove to her that I actually am related to these folks.
In my family branches, I have some interesting folks (related to the brother of Hanibal Hamlin, Lincoln's 1st vice president). My mother's mom, my grandmom, was a Hamlin and we have done the tracing back to prove the relationship. We are now trying to work forward to find living "cousins, etc." and are having a ball finding these and noting the information on our FamilySearch records. My father's side is "Jensen" (Denmark/Vikings) and "Curtis" families who both settled in Moroni, San Peete county, Utah. So yes, we have lots of Mormons to track down. Thanks so much for this great tool for "Finding Your Roots", and then seeing who the famous and not-so-famous living relatives we have.
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