RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: TheBanana on Monday 04 November 13 15:06 GMT (UK)
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I went through a tree and notice I am descended from Royalty in France, Germany, Belgium and those sort of places. I googled some of the names and it also said who he is the distant grandfather of like Obama, Diana etc. But, I am wondering, I may be related to more than just the few listed. Is there a way I can create a search by name and see who that person is the ancestor of, if you follow my meaning?
Here is that link I was taking about - http://fabpedigree.com/s078/f166434.htm
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Consider any tree that has "Fabulous pedigree" and "PLEASE do not treat the information as authoritative " at the start only as a possible guide.
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Re: How to discover who I am related to that are famous?
Step 1. Find out who you are descended from
Step 2. Trace those families forwards to identify people around today where possible
Step 3. Find out as much as you can about them, including whether they are famous or not.
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Here is that link I was taking about - http://fabpedigree.com/s078/f166434.htm
Do you know who created that tree? I see they have a lot of "poss" descendants in there as well as the documented ones (Royal families etc).
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People managed to link my family to "famous" people.
They did so by having someone who died aged 1 resurrected, marrying and giving birth to another child who died, got resurrected, marrying and having children. Its on ancestry now so it must be true. ::)
My advice, follow the paper trail and see where it leads.
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Did you also notice that hidden amongst all the possibles etc it says: " Much of the data in my database is WRONG." I'd take that tree with a very big pinch of salt.
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You trace your own family tree as thoroughly as you can,getting certs where possible to confirm that you are not barking up the wrong tree.Then you work out if any of the names are the real names of famous people.
Quite time consuming I would think?
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It also seems that most of this has come from the trees & GEDCOM's of others & is not the authors own work.
If you've found some sort of link to any of this you will need to back it up with your own research.
jim
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"How to discover who I am related to that are famous?"
You keep digging and digging and digging. Maybe you find a connection to a famous person and maybe not. A lot depends on your definition of fame. I have found connections to interesting people, people who made the news, but no one who was famous, certainly no one whose name is a household word. That's good enough for me - nothing wrong with a state senator, a high school teacher who inspired a Nobel Prize winner, a very prominent missionary, and a victim of a famous serial murderess, amongst others.
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An easier approach would be to call together several of your contemporary, known relatives and give them a limited period, say six months, in which to become famous/infamous :)
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Dan, why do you want to be related to someone famous?
It doesn't make you any better a person :P :P :P
I love GR2's solution ;D ;D ;D ;D
Dawn M
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Well Dan,the only advice I can possibly give you is;In the first place make sure of as accurate as possible record of your own direct ancestors.if you are then able to link directly with any of these apparently famous families,all well and good.
However don't start your research with trying to make links to these families your specific intention but of course if any do become apparent later on,all well and good.
Regards
William Russell Jones.
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Dan ... you raised this topic as a 'josh' (good natured banter) didn't you? ......... well you got a lot of interest.
Take a look at some of the ridiculous trees on ancestry which have hundreds of thousands of names listed ......... must have cost a fortune in verifying don't you think.
I'm happy with my number of 2191 *proven* tree people none of whom were famous or infamous.
Joe
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The simple answer is that the number of your ancestors expands exponentially the further you go back. Get back far enough and you will realise that you are related to everybody. The task at hand is to work out how.
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In my case someone had to find a birth for a david brunton, around the 1760s. They found a birth certificate, this happily had the "correct" fathers name, and this linked up merrily with all the preconceived ideas they had.
Unfortunately, they failed to take into account Davids death certificate the next year, Davids "father" actually died as a child himself, and the actual father was a different line of Bruntons from the same town.
Chinese whispers ensued, and the absurb became "fact" - not helped in any way by the blind assumption that the ancestry website is gospel.
Sure I'm distantly related to Shakespeare, William the Conquerer and Joe from the chip shop myself, as are most of us.
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We (on Rootschat) are all doing our research for our own reasons but, speaking personally, I could think of nothing more boring than spending hours/days/weeks/months/years trying to find a link with a 'famous' person when that link may not even exist or be so remote that is may as well be non-existant.
Give me my Ag. Lab. ancestors with their criminal records, military history and workhouse stories any day.
Rishile
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Poor Dan must be wishing he hadn't asked now! I hope we haven't stunned him into silence.
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@Billyblue - I think that is an unnecessary response. I couldn't care less if I was related to famous people, until I look into something that gives me a possible chance.
Thanks for the personal opinions and information people. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Hi, I have been reading all of the response's with interest, It's something I have never thought about to be honest and I don't know what I would do if I found someone in my line who was famous, I suppose I would be very proud, but there again I find myself being proud of all of my ancestors.
As has been said, you just have to double check things you find, and in particular someone else's research findings.
Frank
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I expect if we all dug deep enough and followed various branches we would all eventually find someone famous. The strange thing about the tree that the link showed, is that there were supposedly dozens of famous people, even Noah.
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@Billyblue - I think that is an unnecessary response. I couldn't care less if I was related to famous people, until I look into something that gives me a possible chance.
Thanks for the personal opinions and information people. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Sorry about that Dan. If you couldn't care less, one wonders why the question in the first place?
:P :P :P :P :P
Dawn M
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On the whole I agree with most of those who ask why anyone would specifically search for links to "famous" people - why on earth bother?
But I do get rather worried that some people to accept and adopt these runcible trees "linking" rather improbably back over centuries taking in almost everyone who was "Famous" along the way. As others have pointed out, usually it's quite easy to poke holes right through them if you look properly.
We all probably are linked to various famous names - but we just don't have accurate, documented records that "prove" it. So who cares? We get a load of interest out of managing to put each little person into their place in the jigsaw - and I'm proud of all my farmers, painters and decorators, silk weavers and dairymen, amongst all the others.
In fact I feel rather a perverse pride that with two lines traced as far back as is practical, to the start of Parish Registers, I haven't a title or a famous person ANYWHERE!!
Original poster, stop hunting the famous. If they're there, you'll find them in time. Hunt the ancestors and relatives, and you'll become fascinated by the lives you find, and forget all about fame.
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Thanks to some for the positive feedback.
@groom - Back to Noah? As in the impossible fictional story of Noah's Ark?
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Thanks to some for the positive feedback.
@groom - Back to Noah? As in the impossible fictional story of Noah's Ark?
Yes - he has a link to Noah, that's why that particular tree needs to be regarded with caution. ;D
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Another example of how on-line trees need to be taken with a very large pinch of salt. The only way, really, is to start with your grand-parents and work backwards, doing the research properly, instead of linking into other people's trees. If you are purely looking for famous people, the chances are that you are going to be bitterly disappointed. If you are looking for stories of people in the past, then you will reap wonderful harvests. A lot of FH can be boring when seemingly populated by centuries of Agricultural Labourers. And then you will find a real jewel which will bring their lives into focus: for example a parish record which tells of the Plague coming to a village in the 1500s. Nothing to do with famous people, but more to do with people who were part of a major event in British history, whether they liked it or not.
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From an old faded letter, I learned that an ancestor was a compatriot of
Hereward the Wake. The name meant nothing to me but research rewarded
me with all sorts of fascinating history. Maybe my ancestor wasn't famous
but he knew somebody who was. Like a lot of us perhaps.
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Maybe my ancestor wasn't famous but he knew somebody who was. Like a lot of us perhaps.
Yeah, I posted on this topic a long time ago ...
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=170961.msg385252#msg385252
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From an old faded letter, I learned that an ancestor was a compatriot of
Hereward the Wake. The name meant nothing to me but research rewarded
me with all sorts of fascinating history. Maybe my ancestor wasn't famous
but he knew somebody who was. Like a lot of us perhaps.
Hmm. Perhaps. Hereward the Wake is a semi mythical figure, on the border between legend and history. Although he seems to have existed, no reliable records exist of his family or life, and there are various exaggerated accounts of his actions. What was this faded old letter that you accepted as proof?
Mike
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I agree, Mike. Unless you find a 'gateway' ancestor to which you can link through a well-documented trail, it is almost impossible to trace your family history back to the 11th century. There is a tree online which purports to link one of my lines to William the Conqueror's family, and back until the 1500s the research appears to agree with mine. However, thereafter the site owner has taken great leaps of faith by missing out the odd hundred years here and there when it suits his aims, and at other times changing the surname to fit with noble lines he comes across.
To be honest, if you are subjective when you're doing FH research it's likely to make you jump to conclusions. Distrust everything you find unless you can prove it for yourself. That way you will get yourself an honest family tree. Unless of course you aren't interested in what your ancestors were really doing, but only want to boast that you are descended from King Arthur or whatever. In which case that is likely to be fantasy rather than genealogy.
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Sorry, I misspoke. I do value facts & real traceable paper files to validate
everything in genealogy. Really.
What I meant was that I had uncovered a piece of 'family lore' that disappeared
several generations ago. I don't care if it is true. In researching Hereward the
Wake, I learned so much English history & geography of East Anglia. Even if my
ancestor just watched his horse ride by,
I don't care because it can never be validated. But I learned much of what life
might have been like then for my ancestors.
I'm fantasizing, that's why I posted on The Lighter Side.
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Spandy, I hadn't realised though from your first post that the Hereward the Wake connection was part of 'family law'. I must say I love stories like that which are passed down without any real evidence. My mother told me that we were descended from a beautiful French gypsy woman who arrived in the village long, long ago on the arm of a dashing sea captain. This would be lovely if true, but for as far back as I can find, my ancestors on that side of the family are all staid and industrious Suffolk Ag Labs. Would that I could find this colourful gypsy woman dancing into my tree but as yet she too remains in the realms of 'family law' and I suspect that is where she will stay. :)
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And our family lore is that one of my ancestors was a gardener at a big hall in North Wales and ran off with the Lord's daughter. Like Greensleeves though, all my ancestors turn out to be agricultural labourers, lime burners, horse breakers etc in Shropshire, with (so far) no sign of the runaway lady. My great aunt was convinced of the story, and I wonder how far back it goes.
I too, misunderstood your Hereward the Wake story, so I apologise for coming across as over sceptical!
Mike
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My family lore (from someone born in the 1850s) stated we came from the Calders in the 1600s - my families surname were in the Calders at this time doing Tailor work. All very plausable, probably untrue, but plausable.
Another (from someone born in 1847 - a famous engineer) stated in a book published in 1922 we originated from Dalkeith and he was related to another engineer there.
The engineer from Dalkeith (born in 1821) failed to connect the guy from 1847 in his extensive family tree he did in the 1880s. He HAD my family as a seperate entity in his family tree, why? who knows apart from the fact they were all world famous engineers with the same surname.
I hate family lore, as it gets in the way of facts. 300 years of history and I still can't connect them!
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My mother told me that we were descended from a beautiful French gypsy woman who arrived in the village long, long ago on the arm of a dashing sea captain. This would be lovely if true, but for as far back as I can find, my ancestors on that side of the family are all staid and industrious Suffolk Ag Labs. Would that I could find this colourful gypsy woman dancing into my tree but as yet she too remains in the realms of 'family law' and I suspect that is where she will stay. :)
Family legends can and I suspect often do arise from a chance remark. A friend once told me that it was of little use trying to trace her mother's family since they had been gypsies. A year or two later Jean had a trip back to England to see her mother. The subject of family history came up and Jean referred her mother to the fact that Nan had been a gypsy. Her mother was really surprised and said, 'Where did you get that from?'
Jean then said that it was her mother herself that had told her. Her mum thought for a bit and then burst out laughing.
Fortunately she recalled having once said that her mother was 'a bit of a gypsy' meaning gathering things.
An aunt once told me that my gt.grandfather was a gamekeeper, which we know to be true since I have a photo of him wearing a gamekeeper's uniform. However when I got his death certificate it had been a lung problem almost certainly Phthisis. I then looked up the local paper for that week wondering if there was anything in the story. What I found was that the whole area around East Retford had been inundated with torrential rains which caused floods everywhere.
Another aunt then told me that he had been chasing a poacher but had misjudged the size of a small river when trying to jump it and had fallen in, caught a severe cold and died from that. Again the story was being stretched. But you can see how misunderstandings can easily creep into family stories and of course we all want to hear the colourful side.
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I worked with someone with the surname Wake who had a properly authenticated family tree (and titled relatives!) going back to Hereward.
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One biography of Hereward suggested that The Wake meant he was alert.
More pondering here on the origins of surnames. Especially because mine
makes some people smirk.