Famous relatives

[Old Crank]

I joined Family Search, nonpaying, quite a few years ago. Just got an email talking about cousins.
I have one in Australia. No real surprise there since most of my lineage comes from GB.

Anyway they have a link for me of famous relatives. The closest one is Winston Churchill. 6th cousin 3 times removed. I'm not sure how accurate my family tree is back more than my great grandparents. But I'll take it. Seems I'm related to Lincoln and Booker T Washington, 7th cousins 5 times removed. FDR also. One side of my family tree had the father live in the US pre revolution and then moved to Canada with teh others.

In theory I have a closer relative in John Wayne, 9th cousin than QEII 12th cousin. Fun to see the list for what ever value or accuracy it is.

[Norrrm]

1. Most important... are you in the will?

We all have a king and a horse thief somewhere back there.

[quaint]

2. Not actually,

but possibly an emir and a camel thief. 😋

[jfz9580m]

3. "We all have a king and a horse thief somewhere back there."

I found a matriarch on my dad’s side on Friday March 7 6, 2026, for inspiration .

Apparently she was a grim old bird and all the men around were terrified of her. I would have liked her. Though it sounds like everyone feared her.

My dad’s oldest sister is probably the most famous person in our immediate family. She was an animal geneticist and an order of Canada awardee.

She was kind of a role model and always encouraged me to pursue science. Strange to think now that I have skipped a generation back to find a female role model more fitting for our regressive times..

It kinda fits..the fall of Roe v Wade surprised me less than most given what I saw bts.

[Norrrm]

5. A friend, 85, found that her grandmother was a madam of a brothel (maybe g-gm)

Trump's grandfather ran a brothel.
Her family members are hard core Trumpers.
D'ya suppose there is a logical, if not blood, relationship there?

[jfz9580m]

6. LOL..cultural?

Well..we have differences in how we view survival and evolution I have noticed, between the left and the right.

My family has what I have seen referred to as “education genes”. We have been shrinking in number and I am the last in my line, because women generally choose stem or other higher education and have few to no children. And it would be considered a demeaning thing to sell oneself..to fail and sort of fade away into genteel poverty so to speak would be acceptable, but not even metaphorical self prostitution/dependence on a male. Ours is a relatively rare matriarchal community from Southern India with gender dynamics frequently flipped.

But I think Trump, Musk etc view it as survival in women to “catch a wealthy” husband and be kept. It is a weird embrace of a kind of blood and soil animal nature, but bolstered by buggy technology. The buggy technology part is especially confusing. But given their regressive views, it actually tracks that the technology is also all rubbish..Science, facts and reality are generally not their friends.

[Old Crank]

9. I have a feeling that I'm not in the will..

[Old Crank]

4. My daughter's maternal side

had a relative that did all the research to join Sons of the American Revolution.
Turns out she is related to Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher.
I trust that line, because of the documentation requirements than the lines I found past my Great grandparents.

[Norrrm]

7. My friend found that spelling was atrocious the further you go back.

Spelling of names would change because literacy and accuracy were not so great back then.

Vito Andolini became Vito Corleone.

[Old Crank]

8. Turns out I have a German relative

The last name was Fyle, When he moved to teh US and married his kids were named File.
My daughters polish grandfather went from Avbrum to Abraham.

Fun stuff. English spelling for stuff have changed over the years also.

[wnylib]

10. Hey, Old Crank, looks like you and I might be related.

I've got FDR in the family tree as a cousin, too, but I have not counted out the cousin number.

Looks like you have a closer relationship to QEII than I do. The last monarch on the British throne in my tree was Edward III. But, since he had a large family and descendants in the royal and noble lines often intermaried, all of Edward III's children are in my tree. In the case of his son, John of Gaunt, I've got both John's wife and his mistress in the tree, too.

All of the British monarchs after Edward III have him in their ancestry, including the current royal family, so I guess I have a very, very distant relationship to Charles III and his mother and children, but I've never bothered to count out the generations of removal. The generations are so far back that I'm sure that I don't have even one cell of their DNA today. Too many intervening generations.

Millions of people have royal ancestry from one country or another and just don't know it. But it's fun to look up those distant ancestors and read about them. I learned more about British, American, and German (the other side of my family) history from genealogy than I ever learned in high school or college.

[Old Crank]

11. Family reunion time

Should you get over here!

One of my distant family, ,circa revolutionary war, came from Baden in Germany. A couple of generations later some moved to Ontario. He was Fyle in Germany and the children became File.

It is pretty fun to see some of the migrations. Depending on how trusting you are in the really old records....
I have some Norman blood immigrating to England circa William the Conqueror.

[wnylib]

12. Yeah, I've got William the Conqueror in my tree.

Last edited Mon Mar 16, 2026, 01:41 PM - Edit history (1)

It was one of William's descendants who started the Plantagenet dynasty. Edward III was a Plantagenet. Edward's descendants fought the Wars of the Roses, aka the "Cousins' Wars." I have ancestors from both the York and Lancaster houses in those Wars. One of my Lancasters was cousin to Margaret., mother of Henry VII.

As new dynasties came to power, my ancestors slipped down the social scale to mere nobility and then to landed gentry and businessmen who joined the Puritan movement and settled in John Winthrop's MA Bay Colony.

The German side of my family came to the US much more recently. My maternal grandmother was 4 years old when her parents brought her and her siblings to the US from Mecklenburg-Schwerin, German Empire, in 1890. My maternal grandfather's family came to the US as political refugees from Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1888. They were from West Prussia. My grandfather was born 2 weeks after they arrived in Buffalo, NY. Poor great-grandma, 8 months pregnant when she and her husband fled with their 3 children, ages 5, 3. And 1. What an ordeal for her.

[MoonchildCA]

13. I'm a direct descendent of General Israel Putnam.

With that side of my family dating so far back pre-revolution, and them (not me) being fairly affluent, I am automatically distantly related to many famous people—at least five presidents, and Benjamin Franklin is quite close, being my first cousin 8x removed.

Also, through my Putnam/Porter line, I’m related to many of the key players in the Salem witch trials, from one of the accusers, to a judge. Thankfully, my direct ancestors, Israel parents, his mother’s side being Porters, came out strongly against the trials.