Rootstech was last weekend. It’s a family history and technology conference and trade show held annually in Salt Lake City. As part of the conference, Family Search, the public genealogy site of the LDS church, tries to find connections of site users to famous people.
Last year, they suggested I was related to Shirley Temple. She’s supposedly my 7th cousin once removed, through my mom’s side. They also proposed a connection for Oldest Son to Wilbur Wright.
This year, they have eighteen proposed connections, from Babe Ruth and Lucille Ball to Princess Diana and Winston Churchill.
That sounds really impressive until you realize that some of these connections are onion-skin thin. Abe Lincoln and Susan B. Anthony are supposedly my 7th cousins seven times removed. Winston Churchill is a 7C5R. But Bob Ross, Fred Rogers, and Jackie Kennedy are all 14th “direct” cousins, in that they’re not “removed.” Confused? See this page at Ancestry for a decent explanation with a couple of really helpful graphics.
Man, I wish my dad could see these lines.
The coolest part about these connections is the research potential for me. I’m not going to blindly accept that Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis is the 14th cousin of my ex-wife. But I’m definitely going to make note of the lines Family Search traces back, because I don’t have a lot of clues on that side. I think I’ve only confidently researched about five generations back so far, and the trees they’re proposing go a dozen generations total, to William Howe (1629-1695) and Mary Farmer (1640—1695).
And even better than names and birthdates: Family Search provides the link to each person’s page, making it easy to continue my research. But Family Search is something of a double-edged sword. It’s easy for anyone to edit a particular page, akin to Wikipedia. But just like Wikipedia, anyone can edit a page, and there are no requirements for those edits to be properly or correctly sourced. So just like Wikipedia, these matches are a starting point for more research, not a verified connection.
The one thing I find most interesting is that so far, none of the connections Family Search has proposed go through my father’s line or my father-in-law’s line. There are connections through my mom’s line, through both of my first wife’s parents, and through my wife’s mother. But neither her dad or my dad give us any connections just yet.
Curious.
Reading
I had a plot bunny attack me late one night last week. It might give me an opening for that urban fantasy story or series I’ve been considering, based on Bright. I jotted a couple of hundred words of a setup for it, not even really approaching an outline or synopsis. Just some basics about the main character and the story. It’s enough that if I ever get done with the other stories I’ve got going, I can come back to it and see if I still like the idea. One of the things I want to look at is the Harry Potter world. I want to learn how Rowling handled muggles being surrounded by magic and fantastic beasts without noticing it and them.
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