Genealogy Day!

Today is Genealogy Day, and as you all know, I have been working on my family tree. Actually, I have taken a bit of a break from it. I do that sometimes in order to really pontificate on the stuff I have researched and to plot my next plan of attack. So far, I got nuthin'!! :)

If you do happen to have a family tree, Ancestry.com has a fun search engine that you can plug your tree into. It searches for famous relatives that you may have. Here are some of the famous relatives for my family trees:

On my Dad's side - Howard Hughes, DH Lawrence, Theodore Roosevelt, Butch Cassidy, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Elvis, Amelia Earhardt, Norman Rockwell and Jane Austen.

On my Mom's side - JM Barrie, William Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, Joe Ball (serial killer), Truman Capote, Walt Disney, Lucy M. Montgomery, Robert Frost, Samuel Morse (inventor of Morse Code) and Wernher Von Braun (real life rocket scientist!).

Of course all of these relations would be 2nd cousin, 7 times removed or something like that. So distant it is hardly worth noting - though I am finding out in the world of genealogy anything within 10 generations is fair game. Of course, I am extremely skeptical of all of these. It seems ridiculous to me that I could be related to any of these people - and, the one famous person that I know I am related to - Loretta Lynn - is not on this list.

Having said that, I also did Bill's tree. His family is a lot smaller and more easily managed than mine. One of his famous relatives was Frank James - and, of course, his infamous brother Jesse. To my amazement, that actually checked out. Bill and the James Brothers are 7th cousins, once removed as near as I can tell. All the names check out at least. I am afraid to try and verify my list of famous 'relatives'. I am terrified that Joe Ball the serial killer will actually turn out to be my relative. It would explain some things, let me tell you!