Interesting relations and interesting relationships
Some interesting relatives
I am related to:
- John ALDEN and Priscilla MULLENS, William BREWSTER, and Richard WARREN,
Mayflower passengers. The Wikipedia articles on these people claim the following descendants, all of whom would then be relatives of mine, assuming the claimed descents are correct — which I certainly don’t:- John ALDEN’s descendants include Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Orson Welles, Dan Quayle, Raquel Welch, Frank Nelson Doubleday, Martha Graham, Adlai Stevenson III, Dick Van Dyke, Julia Child, and Marilyn Monroe. (The latter claim relies upon a theory about her unknown father.)
- William BREWSTER’s descendants include Zachary Taylor, Cokie Roberts, Katharine Hepburn, Bing Crosby, Lyndon LaRouche, George B. McClellan, Julia Child (again!), Richard Gere, Nelson Rockefeller, Norman Rockwell, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Chevy Chase, Ted Danson, Howard Dean, Seth MacFarlane, Charles G. Dawes, Bill Richardson, John Foster Dulles, Archibald MacLeish, David Souter, Adlai Stevenson III, and Benjamin C Bradlee.
- Richard WARREN’s descendants include Ulysses S. Grant, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Alan Shepard, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Richard Gere, Joanne Woodward, Henry David Thoreau, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (again!), Amelia Earhart, Orson Welles, William Jennings Bryan, the Wright Brothers, Johnny Carson, Julia Child (yet again!!), and Lee DeForest.
- Galutia YORK
Galutia, whose Civil War letters are the subject of an excellent web site, was my grandmother’s third cousin. He was also her mother’s close neighbor, and he was (deep breath) my grandmother’s cousin’s wife’s uncle. - Millard FILLMORE
Twelfth Vice-President of the United States, and thirteenth President of the United States. Some consider him our least distinguished President. Our common ancestors were John PERKINS (1583-1654) and Judith GATER (1588-1684). Also descended from this couple was… - Charles Gates DAWES
U. S. Comptroller of the Currency, Director of U. S. Bureau of the Budget, and thirtieth Vice President of the United States. Getting back to FILLMORE, his successor in the Presidency was… - Franklin PIERCE: Fourteenth President of the United States. Our common ancestors were John EMERY (1598-1683) and Alice GRANTHAM (1599-1649).
- Rutherford B. HAYES
Nineteenth President of the United States. Our common ancestor was George HAYES (ca 1655-1725). Rutherford’s successor in office was another relative… - James GARFIELD
Twentieth President of the United States. The common ancestor here is Walter COOK (?-1696). - William Howard TAFT
Twenty-seventh President of the United States, and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Our common ancestors were George ALDRICH (ca 1605-1682) and Katherine SEALD (ca 1610-1692). - Gerald R. FORD and Nelson Aldrich ROCKEFELLER
Ford was the fortieth Vice President of the United States, and thirty-eighth President of the United States — and Rockefeller was his Vice President! (The forty-first; he also was Governor of New York State.) Apparently two of my ancestors from around the early 18th century, Hezekiah COLLINS (1707-1775) and Catherine GIFFORD (1718-1801), were also ancestors of FORD, while another one, John ALDRICH (1695-1776), was also an ancestor of ROCKEFELLER. Heck, if I’d known that at the time… well, no, I still wouldn’t have voted for Ford…
Some interesting relationships
Everyone has relatives who married relatives in their family tree. (There wouldn’t be enough ancestors to go around if they didn’t.) Some are a little more startling than others, though. My favorite in my own line is my 2nd great grandmother, Mary Louisa BROWN, whose mother, father, and husband all were first cousins of one another! That is, her father’s mother, mother’s mother, and husband’s father were all siblings. They also were second cousins on their mother’s side and third cousins on their father’s side of Mary’s father’s father, who was himself a child of two first cousins:
Thomas BROWN = Mary NEWHALL
_______________________|______________________
| |
| |
Eleazer BROWN Jeremiah MAIN Thomas BROWN
______|______ _____|_____ |
| | | | |
James BROWN Annah BROWN = Thomas MAIN Jeremiah MAIN Mary BROWN
| | | |
Zebulon BROWN = Anne MAIN Ruth MAIN = Bell YORK
| ________________________|________
| | | |
Zebulon BROWN = Thede YORK Mary YORK Yeomans YORK
| | |
Zebulon BROWN = Sarah LEWIS |
| |
Mary Louisa BROWN = Lelen Collins YORK
This is the sort of thing that sends genealogists running to the nearest mirror to count their eyebrows…
Holmes genealogy 