About more cousins

This is gonna be one hell of a family reunion!

Note: I totally stole this information from other web sites. All you need to do is Google "famous Mayflower descendants" or anything similar and the rabbit holes are endless. And I also didn't calculate the cousin relationships. That was another Google search. Links are below.

For what it's worth: We all know that if it's posted on the internet it's true, right?  

Descendants of Richard Warren

• President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 8th Great grandson. [7th cousin 6x removed]
• President and General Ulysses S. Grant. 5th Great grandson. [6th Cousin 7x removed]
• Henry David Thoreau. Author and Poet. 5th Great grandson. [6th Cousin 7x removed]
• Alan B. Shepard, Jr. Astronaut. 8th Great grandson. [9th Cousin 4x removed]
• Orville and Wilbur Wright. Aviation pioneers. 8th Great grandsons. [9th Cousins 4x removed]
• Orson Welles. Actor. 8th Great grandson. [9th Cousin 4x removed]
• Julia Child (1912-2004) Chef. 8th Great granddaughter. [9th Cousin 4x removed]
• Ernest Hemmingway. Author. 10th Great grandson.
• Laura Ingalls Wilder. Author. 7th Great granddaughter. [8th Cousin 5x removed]
• Amelia Earhart. [9th Cousin 4x removed]
• Matt Damon. 10th Great grandson.
• Richard Gere. 10th Great grandson.
• John Cena. 10th Great grandson. Professional Wrestler/Actor. Typically a pro wrestler wouldn't interest me so much (at all) but he has granted more "wishes" for the Make-a-Wish Foundation than anyone else, therefore he gets a nod.
• Marie-Chantal Miller. 10th Great granddaughter. Crown Princess of Greece. 10th Great Granddaughter. [11th Cousin 2x removed]
• George Herbert 8th Earl of Carnarvon, owner of Highclere Castle (aka Downton Abbey) 11th Great grandson. [12th Cousin 1x removed]

Descendants of Isaac Allerton

• President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 6th Great grandson. 
• President Zachary Taylor (1784-1850) 3rd Great grandson. [4th Cousin 8x removed]
• Joanne Woodward. Actress. 9th Great granddaughter.
• Louis Comfort Tiffany. Artist and Designer. 6th Great grandson.
• George Herbert 8th Earl of Carnarvon. 10th Great grandson.

Descendants of Mary Allerton Cushman

• President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 5th Great grandson.
• Louis Comfort Tiffany. 5th Great grandson.
• George Herbert 8th Earl of Carnarvon. 9th Great grandson.
• Joanne Woodward. Actress. 8th Great granddaughter.

I warned you that this is nerdy...

Links:

Cousin calculator
Mayflower Society Notabel Descendants
Mayflower History Famous Descendants
Mayflower American Ancestors
Famous Kin

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About Cousin Eli

If you are a Ganzer, and most of you are in some form or fashion, you've heard the family story that we're related to Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin. To make a long story short, yes, we are.

Now to make a short story a little longer...

Here's how I got there and how we're related. For my generation (great grandchildren of Violet May) Mary Ann Whitney is our 4th great grandmother and Violet's great grandmother. I logged into Family Search and pulled up Eli's family tree which was pretty easy since he's a historical figure. Lots of data online about him. Oddly enough Eli and Mary Ann are roughly the same age so I figured that if I went back through enough generations I might find a common ancestor. It got confusing because we have a lot of Nathans and Nathaniels and so does he. But after six generations I hit pay dirt--John Whitney and his wife Elinor. 

It appears that they had a bunch of kids over more than 20 years. Eli is descended from their second child and oldest son, John, and we're descended from John's youngest brother, Benjamin. John (the dad) and Elinor Whitney are Mary Ann's and Eli's 4th great grandparents making them 5th cousins.

So you can't really call Eli an "ancestor" since we aren't directly descended from him, but we are related. I have more digging to do because it looks like John and Elinor were part of the Great Migration from England to the New World. They were both born in London, England in the late 15th century and died in Massachusetts. On my "to do" list is to figure out what ship carried them across the pond.

But what is our exact relationship to Eli? He is our 5th cousin 6x removed. How does that even work?  Beats the hell out of me. I lose count after second cousins. I'd like to say that I figured it out in my head, but Ancestry.com did the calcs for me. 

I guess it was simply family lore that kept the story of his relationship to us alive. Keep the lore alive! 

If you want access to the info in our family tree that I've added on Ancestry.com shoot me a message through Facebook or here and I'll get you hooked up. 

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