Why are only the famous relatives of my paternal line showing up?
Family Activities - Famous Relatives - is very fun and interesting, but I noticed that nothing shows up for my maternal line. Why is that? Seems like it should show for all the lines. Or, did I miss a setting that I need to change to see the maternal line famous relatives? Thank you.
Answers
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Nobody shows up for me on either side. This means that I don't share any common ancestors with anyone on their list — probably because I have exactly zero American ancestors.
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It's all maternal for me, and I have many US ancestors. But, my maternal line goes back 200 years earlier in North America than my paternal line.
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So, maybe it chooses the maternal or paternal based on whose line goes back the furthest? That still doesn't seem complete. I wish it would show for all of our ancestors. There doesn't seem to be much documentation or information to guide us in this search. Or, at least I couldn't find any.
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I've just had a go. It tells me I am FDR's 7th cousin 5 times removed, but it obviously can't tell me anything about the quality of the FT data in between, so I have no idea whether to believe it or not. It would also be interesting to know how many other FT users are seen as 'related' to FDR similarly or more closely (I imagine it is a sizeable percentage). I guess I could use this 'fact' in prioritising research, but frankly I can't see much point in the thing otherwise, surely it often just leads to disappointment (as with my family's long-standing rumour that we were descended from General Nathanael Greene - FT was innocent of this one, I hasten to add).
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FDR is said to be my 8C2R - I can confirm most of the connections, but a few are dubious. LBJ, on the other hand is my 3C2R, and I can confirm those connections. In fact, I did that before ever looking at Famous Relatives.
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It took a while, but I am now seeing more connections and some of them are through my maternal line. This Activity has so much more potential. I wish it was set up so that we could search just by one parent or the other. My family has a documented connection to Churchill through one line, but Family Search is showing a link to him through the other line. It doesn't show both links. Connections to famous people aside, the lineage to them could be clues for where to search to break through some brick walls or just to extend known lines.
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I only have leaders and scientists show up in famous relatives suddenly. Before many more showed up. They all disappeared within the last few days.
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