"Finding Famous Relatives" Topic

The truth is, if you go back enough generations, a lot of us are related to each other!

There is a website – relativefinder.org – dedicated to help you find your famous relatives. However, to use this site, you need to first have your family tree at familysearch.org I believe both are free.

You then import your family tree from FamilySearch into RelativeFinder, and you can find your famous relatives.

As I said, if you look back far enough, it's easy to find relationships. Out of 45 U.S. presidents, for instance, I'm related to 28 – including George Bush and Barack Obama!

Under movie stars, I'm related to Deforest Kelly (11th Cousin 2 times removed) and Carrie Fisher (13th Cousin 2 times removed).

Under Famous Americans: Butch Cassidy (9th Cousin 2 times removed), Wyatt Earp (10th cousin), and… ahem… Benedict Arnold (7th Cousin 7 times removed).

Entertainers: Red Skelton (7th Cousin 2 times removed), Jimi Hendrix (10th Cousin), Janis Joplin (10th Cousin 2 times removed), Buddy Holly (12th Cousin 1 time removed), John Denver (11th Cousin 3 times removed), Johnny Carson (12th Cousin 1 time removed), Elvis Presley (14th Cousin) and Johnny Cash (14th Cousin 1 time removed).

This site is really a hoot, and I have only listed a fraction of what it found. Also, it can apparently find relatives who live close to you, though I didn't get that to work for me yet…

Cool! Just from my mom doing her genealogy, we know we're related to Daniel Boone, Louis Joseph Papineau, and Nicolas Perrot. Eventually, far enough back, we tie into the royal families of Wales as well.

Looks like it only imported my 'adopted' relatives and not my 'blood' relatives…

Also, it really helps if your family tree goes back to the 16th Century!

It's kind of cool to be related – extremely distantly! – to Laurel and Hardy, Boris Karloff and Vincent Price, Andy Griffith and Don Knotts!

In our family tree we have a great – Great grandfather named Alexander Rose from Virginia. There was an Alexander Rose who was a company commander in the 6th Virginia during the AWI. We can't find a dob or any information to verify if they are the same person? I'll check this site and see if it helps answer our question. lol

It doesn't seem to do 'military' figures yet, but they are still adding famous people.

I found out that I can take an ancestor from FamilySearch, and the RelativeFinder website will let me enter the ID from FamilySearch and see the relatives. So that let's me see the relatives based on my birthmother.

Which gets me many of the same people. 38 US presidents related to my birth mother. Elvis Presley moves up to 8th Cousin 1 time removed. John Lennon is a 13th Cousin 1 time removed.

My research has turned up distant (and in two cases
fairly close) relatives who are INfamous/notorious
rather than famous….

The main street in Dublin is named for one of my ancestors and another was court chamberlain of Austria for 59 years and three emperors. Good enough for me.

LT

Try it with my ancestry and you'll probably go bananas waiting for a sensible result. With a surname 'Hughes' in the UK you get so many hits it is almost as bad as 'Smith'.

With three generations having the forename Fred it gets even worse.

I can pretty we be sure that none of my family after the 1850's were famous, the nearest we can get is a cousin of my maternal grandmother who married into the Holland's Toffee family.

I'm always suspicious of these sites, they often rely heavily on unsupported data that isn't checked and assumed relationships based on place and date without documentation.

I'm always suspicious of these sites, they often rely heavily on unsupported data that isn't checked and assumed relationships based on place and date without documentation.

This one seems to rely on actual family trees.

So, for example, it says that Bobby Darin is my birthmother's 8th cousin twice removed. And if you click on the name, it shows the chain of relation, going back to Chaddus Brown b. 1600 and his wife E. Sharparowe b.1604.

I'm with Ed Mohrmann – infamous. One of the ancient relatives – by marriage not blood – was William Pitt -introduced Income Tax to the English Speaking World. I don't think I need to look for more.

Connect it to Kevin Bacon,somewhere. ;^)

Twentieth cousin 7 times removed, at that point, who'd really care?

I already know I'm 3rd cousin to Doc Holliday, and related to the Bell Witch, and Josiah Bartlett (Declaration signer), and a descendant of Charlemagne. But then on the latter, so apparently are about half of those of Western European descent, according to Smithsonian magazine.