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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