Who's my cousin?

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Rose Garden
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Who's my cousin?

Post by Rose Garden »

If you want to know if you are related to any famous people, you can sign up for Relative Finder and it will tell you. If you are like me and don't care, you might try signing into the LDS Freedom Forum group instead so you can find out who is related to who on this site.

Go to: https://www.relativefinder.org/
Sign in.
Go to "Groups" at the top right.
Click on "Join" in the drop down list.
Type in "LDS Freedom Forum" in the search box.
Password: Freedom

It will show you all the famous people you are related to as well, so to refine the results, go to the left hand side of the screen and tick the box for LDS Freedom Forum. (On a phone you click on Groups at the top of the screen. It has a little arrow next to it.)

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A Random Phrase
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by A Random Phrase »

It says I'm related to Meili - 11th Cousin 4 times removed

davedan
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by davedan »

Thanks for the link, but too much,

It says Im 7-15th cousin to most every prophet or prophet wife; almost every US president, president wife; most all living and near deceased apostles, near all signers of declaration of independence and constitution.

I'm not sure how much it means much to be abt. 10th -12th cousin to William Bradford, Pres. Obama, David Thoreau, Hemingway, JP Morgan, Jesse James, Winston Churchhill, Davie Crockett, Elvis and the Queen of England.

I looked up my wife, and she's even worse. She's seemingly related to just about everyone killed in the Salem Witch trials. Its a miracle she's alive. Does that mean she's guilty of being a witch?

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captainfearnot
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by captainfearnot »

I'm no genealogy buff, so maybe one of you can help me out here. I was surprised to find that I was a 14th cousin of James V of Scotland. Not 14th cousin 20 times removed or whatever, just 14th cousin, as in same generation. How could that be when he lived in the 16th Century?

Can anyone tell me how the right side of this chart works? All these royals born in the 1300s are supposedly descendants of a couple from the 1500s?

Image

In particular, how did Sophie Brandenburg marry M. Wolfenbuttel, and give birth to his son, when he died in 1369 and she wasn't born until 1568? That would be like me marrying someone who lived and died before the USA even existed.

I'm calling shenanigans.

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Rose Garden
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by Rose Garden »

A Random Phrase wrote:It says I'm related to Meili - 11th Cousin 4 times removed
Tenth cousin three times removed coming from my direction.

I'd love to find someone more closely related than eighth cousin. That seems to be the closest out of the people I know.

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Rose Garden
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by Rose Garden »

captainfearnot wrote:I'm no genealogy buff, so maybe one of you can help me out here. I was surprised to find that I was a 14th cousin of James V of Scotland. Not 14th cousin 20 times removed or whatever, just 14th cousin, as in same generation. How could that be when he lived in the 16th Century?

Can anyone tell me how the right side of this chart works? All these royals born in the 1300s are supposedly descendants of a couple from the 1500s?

Image

In particular, how did Sophie Brandenburg marry M. Wolfenbuttel, and give birth to his son, when he died in 1369 and she wasn't born until 1568? That would be like me marrying someone who lived and died before the USA even existed.

I'm calling shenanigans.
Lol. Just roll with it. You always knew you were royal. ;)

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Rose Garden
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by Rose Garden »

Also, I'm thirteenth cousins straight up with Obama. Unlucky man, unlucky number. That's gotta men something.

It's really weird to see his name mixed in with people like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams....

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captainfearnot
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by captainfearnot »

Meili wrote:Lol. Just roll with it. You always knew you were royal. ;)
Sure, we're all descended from Charlemagne. I just wondered if there was some kind of convention with royal lineages, like maybe they were bartered between houses or something.

"As part of this treaty you can claim that your daughter was married to this guy who lived and died 200 years ago."

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Rose Garden
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by Rose Garden »

captainfearnot wrote:
Meili wrote:Lol. Just roll with it. You always knew you were royal. ;)
Sure, we're all descended from Charlemagne. I just wondered if there was some kind of convention with royal lineages, like maybe they were bartered between houses or something.

"As part of this treaty you can claim that your daughter was married to this guy who lived and died 200 years ago."
=))

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A Random Phrase
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by A Random Phrase »

I thought it was weird, too, captainfearnot. I'm related to Obama, too - and a lot of other people. I'm thinking that when we get farther back (11th cousin and all that) most of us with ancestry from the same country are related.

It said I was related to Hyrum Smith, Joseph Smith, Alvin Smith, and, I think the last one was Samuel - in three different ways. Two of them close and one of them a bit off.

The info comes from family search, which is inputted by real people. I caught a mistake at least once on family search. Some random person from Colorado had added a boy to my mom and dad's family and had him sealed to them. What they had done is take my dead sister (who died when she was around 1 1/2 years old), altered the spelling of her name a tad, and "did the work" for her/him/it.

I complained, and was surprised to get a phone call from the family search/Church genealogical dept. They said they'd take care of it. Guess what they did? They changed him to a girl. So, now, instead of having twins (a boy and a girl) with very similar names, I have twin sisters with exactly the same name!

But the thing that torqued me the most was that some random-@#$ stranger had done temple work for our family. They had no authority/permission from my mother, my siblings, nor myself to do that (I don't even know them!). AND my parents were sealed in the temple before they had any kids at all!! Every one of us was "born in the covenant." X( X( X(
Last edited by A Random Phrase on May 31st, 2016, 3:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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A Random Phrase
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by A Random Phrase »

I can't say it is all wrong (though I tend to be suspicious of the genealogy I don't recognize). It has me related to 10 of the living apostles (and a bunch of the dead ones), which I view with suspicion. I knew I was related to Elder Perry and another apostle or two, though. This site conveniently showed me how I was related to Elder Perry (my grandmother and his father were first cousins), and I did recognize the genealogy.

So, I don't know how accurate it is when it gets into 8th cousin 3x removed and all of that, but the closer links, the ones I recognize, seem accurate.

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captainfearnot
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by captainfearnot »

I realize Meili's "just roll with it" comment was made in jest, but I do kind of get that vibe from genealogy people in general. Like don't sweat the accuracy too much, it's the spirit of the thing that counts. If accuracy doesn't matter it kind of makes me wonder why we're doing it in the first place.

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A Random Phrase
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by A Random Phrase »

Good point.

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A Random Phrase
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by A Random Phrase »

Can you imagine a man being sealed to a woman a couple hundred years younger than him? Or to his brother's wife because people in the future mixed them up? What a mess. When I was doing genealogy, it was such a big mess with conflicting information, that I stopped doing it. (I rely on my brother who has been doing genealogy since he was around 11 years old, and has learned a lot in the last 40-50 years. Other people I don't trust so much.)

Maybe we ought to wait until the Millennium and start over then.

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SmallFarm
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by SmallFarm »

I'm related to two people in the LDSFF group so far. :ymhug:

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SmallFarm
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by SmallFarm »

Ha I'm related to both Mitt Romney and Cleon Skousen... this is fun

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KurtTheMormon
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by KurtTheMormon »

WOW. I just used "Relative Finder" to find who I'm related to that might be famous. I ended up with:

15 of the Declaration of Independence signers.
Multiple Constitution signers.
Multiple LDS Prophets (Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Thomas S. Monson, and more)
11/12 of the current LDS Apostles and a list of past Apostles so long I can't even put it here.
6/12 Book of Mormon 12 Witnesses
4/8 Book of Mormon 8 witnesses
Edgar Allen Poe and a littany of other famous writers/poets.
Salem Witchcraft Trial people
Amelia Earheart
The list goes on and on....

And now I know why I'm an ultra-Patriotic Mormon and an excellent writer. It literally runs in my family. Hahaha.

ebenezerarise
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by ebenezerarise »

I'm going to defend Family Search here. A Random Phrase is right in saying that it is open edit and for many years this caused me a lot of consternation. But as time has advanced and more and more people are active on lines what I have found is that family records are becoming more accurate, not worse.

Plus the rules of engagement for getting temple work done has strengthened. It's not quite to easy to just invent a person like that.

I had a situation recently where I was researching some cousins, trying to complete the children of 4th great grandparents from the mid 19th century. I was pleased to see my mother had created the record more than a decade ago, long before she passed. But one of the children she apparently got "wrong". The name was correct -- Francis -- but Mom had her down as a girl. In the decade since we've been able to secure more records tied to the family and lo and behold Francis is shown over and over to be Frank -- definitely NOT a girl.

The process I had to go through to fix this simple but obvious mistake was impressive. It took me a while to figure out, including getting some help, which is not my usual course on FamilySearch.

That record is now complete and the temple work, including that for Uncle Frank, is in my hands.

The work is going to contain mistakes. But FamilySearch is flexible enough to get it right and I believe very much in the power behind this great work and it will eventually be made right, whole and complete.

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A Random Phrase
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by A Random Phrase »

ebenezerarise wrote:Plus the rules of engagement for getting temple work done has strengthened. It's not quite to easy to just invent a person like that.
I think they got the name from a newspaper article that reported the fire that killed my sister and my brother. Some of the articles misspelled my sister's name (also, her nickname sounds like a boy's name, but even her middle name was misspelled in some articles so that it looked like a boy's name). Why in heaven's name they assumed the parents (who lived in a small Utah town chock-full of Mormons) were not sealed in the temple is beyond me. And why they did this without talking to my parents or even my aunts and uncles is also beyond me. Everyone who knew them and everyone related to them knew they were LDS who had gone through the temple.

I don't remember when the people did the work. I'm thinking in the mid-1960s, but it could have been later. They died in 1946. Hopefully, that kind of thing doesn't happen now (seeing some random obituary and doing the temple work for them).

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A Random Phrase
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by A Random Phrase »

Well, then, Kurt, we must be related also, because we overlap a lot.
KurtTheMormon wrote:WOW. I just used "Relative Finder" to find who I'm related to that might be famous. I ended up with:

15 of the Declaration of Independence signers.
Multiple Constitution signers.
Multiple LDS Prophets (Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Thomas S. Monson, and more)
11/12 of the current LDS Apostles and a list of past Apostles so long I can't even put it here.
6/12 Book of Mormon 12 Witnesses
4/8 Book of Mormon 8 witnesses
Edgar Allen Poe and a littany of other famous writers/poets.
Salem Witchcraft Trial people
Amelia Earheart
The list goes on and on....

And now I know why I'm an ultra-Patriotic Mormon and an excellent writer. It literally runs in my family. Hahaha.
Edited to add: When I went back on to see if I was related to SmallFarm, I only had 2 LDSFF relatives - Him and Meili. You should log in to the LDSFF group and see if you're related to any of us here (you and I have to be if that genealogy is accurate. We have too many people in common to not be related, even if it is 11th cousin 8x removed).

Edited again for spelling error. :ymblushing:
Last edited by A Random Phrase on May 31st, 2016, 6:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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A Random Phrase
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by A Random Phrase »

SmallFarm wrote:I'm related to two people in the LDSFF group so far. :ymhug:
So, do I need to pm you or are you going to spill who it is (supposing anyone knows, if the pseudonym is not the same as the real name)?

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A Random Phrase
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by A Random Phrase »

SmallFarm wrote:I'm related to two people in the LDSFF group so far. :ymhug:
Ha! I just went and looked. On my side of the equation, we are 5th cousin 1x removed. What are we on your side?

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SmallFarm
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by SmallFarm »

A Random Phrase wrote:
SmallFarm wrote:I'm related to two people in the LDSFF group so far. :ymhug:
Ha! I just went and looked. On my side of the equation, we are 5th cousin 1x removed. What are we on your side?
Same. It also says I'm related to Meili. I looked at the tree though and it's through Leo Earl Hunsaker (in both cases), who is listed as my great-grandfather in my pedigree, but it is only through adoption. So we're only related through adoption, but that counts right?

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A Random Phrase
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by A Random Phrase »

Absolutely! That counts in my book. :ymhug:

ebenezerarise
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Re: Who's my cousin?

Post by ebenezerarise »

A Random Phrase wrote:
ebenezerarise wrote:Plus the rules of engagement for getting temple work done has strengthened. It's not quite to easy to just invent a person like that.
I think they got the name from a newspaper article that reported the fire that killed my sister and my brother. Some of the articles misspelled my sister's name (also, her nickname sounds like a boy's name, but even her middle name was misspelled in some articles so that it looked like a boy's name). Why in heaven's name they assumed the parents (who lived in a small Utah town chock-full of Mormons) were not sealed in the temple is beyond me. And why they did this without talking to my parents or even my aunts and uncles is also beyond me. Everyone who knew them and everyone related to them knew they were LDS who had gone through the temple.

I don't remember when the people did the work. I'm thinking in the mid-1960s, but it could have been later. They died in 1946. Hopefully, that kind of thing doesn't happen now (seeing some random obituary and doing the temple work for them).
Hard to say if it could happen or not but I'm inclined to think not. You have to actually tie a record to a name to make it temple ready and an obit might not do it.

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