Archives for June 8, 2016

Am I related to any celebrities, or famous personalities?

 Why are we looking for this information?

• Many families have stories –in many cases not documented- about famous personalities –contemporaneous or from the past- being related to the family. In some cases, these histories might seem something more like “family legends” than real stories.  But as the refrain says, “When the river sounds it might be carrying stones”, and these stories might end by having real sustain.  Maybe you are at that point of your life when you decide it is time to finally check this up, and see what is true about these stories.
• On the other hand, some people live their lives unaware of the fact that they are quite directly related to famous historical people they might even admire. When starting to do your family tree for some other reason, you might find clues for a possible connection to a famous historical personality and,  if at the end of the journey you prove the connection, you might even be willing to go further and get a better insight on the historical time and the circumstances in which your ancestor lived to gain a better understanding of your ancestor’s involvement in a famous historical event, so as to preserve the information for the family and even for your community.
• Some others might want to check their relationship to famous personalities or people from the royalty just for curiosity. I.e. your surname is Clooney and you want to check if you are somehow related to the actor George Clooney.

How do I find out if I am related to famous historical people?

The figure of a tree has been adopted by genealogists, because a tree is a perfect representation of a family, each branch being a lineage.  If I start my family tree by myself, ascendants increase in a geometric progression, as each of them bring their own lineage.  That is, each of us has 4 grandfathers, 8 great-grandfathers, etc. etc. For a hobbyist genealogist it is usually very difficult to reach as far as more than 10 generations, at least in all branches.  With the help of a professional genealogist you might be able to get further away… Just consider the following:

3rd. generation – 4 grandparents

4th. generation – 8 grandparents

5th. generation -16 grandparents

6th. generation – 32 grandparents

7th. generation – 64 grandparents

8th. generation – 128 grandparents

9th. generation – 256 grandparents

10th. generation – 512 grandparents

11^th. generation – 1.024 grandparents

12^th. generation – 2.048 grandparents

13^th. generation – 4.096 grandparents

14^th. generation – 8.192 grandparents

If you consider that besides your grandparents, you have cousins in many degrees, there are really some chances that you find famous historical people among your ancestors –or at least among your indirect ancestors- so that your research time might really be rewarding.

• For years I heard that I am a descendent of the second founder of Buenos Aires, Juan de Garay (this historical event took place by 1580). Family information says that this comes from my maternal branch, and that my connection with Juan de Garay is through Urbana Ricardo y Garay (born abt. 1840 in Argentina), which is my maternal grand-mother´s grand-mother (my 5^th. generation).

Image 1 – Painting on the 2^nd foundation of Buenos Aires, Argentina by Juan de Garay. At present in exhibition at the Conference Room of the Government of Buenos Aires, courtesy of: http://argentina.indymedia.org/images/garay2x.jpg.

I was not born in Buenos Aires, but have spent most of my adult life there, so a while ago I decided to go and check for this. Thanks to family interviews I´ve got to know that when the 300 anniversary of the foundation of Buenos Aires was celebrated by 1880, the organizers sourced the living descendants of Juan de Garay and Urbana and her family were invited to attend.

I have not yet arrived to my 14^th generation, that is the one where I estimate I will find the connection with Juan de Garay (for someone born in 1970 like myself the 14^th. generation will be around 1550) but in my way I was able to prove in the same branch a non-direct connection with another historical personality of Uruguay, Mr. Leandro Gomez (1811-1865) who happens to be the brother of  Urbana´s mother in law. Besides great respect and esteem for this historical personality I have recently found out things in common with him like our great admiration for another historical personality of our country,  Jose Gervasio Artigas, our national hero.

Image 2 – Monument to Leandro Gomez Calvo, courtesy of: http://www.paysandu.gub.uy/index.php/component/joomgallery/image?view=image&format=raw&type=orig&id=3282

Image 3 – Leandro Gomez Calvo in a coin of N$ 500, year 1986, courtesy of :http://www.gadu.org/wp-content/uploads/1821-MLU4632677065_072013-O.jpg

How do I find if I am related to a famous person from present times?

• If what you want to check is if you are related to a famous person from present times, i.e. a President or an actor, what you have to do is to work both, on our own family tree and on the family tree of the famous personality whose relation with you, you would like to find out, so as to be able to compare both trees.
• However, bear in mind that famous personalities sometimes are known per names different from their birth ones, so if you are searching your connection with a famous personality, make sure you are working on the real birth name.

Is it hard to get this information?

• It is not that hard to get information on famous historical people or famous personalities, as their family trees are usually available on the web, and mostly on a free basis. What is harder is to “refine” both family trees to make the connection.
• There are websites with family trees of famous people available, i.e.: https://www.geni.com/popular. This site offers family trees for contemporaneous personalities like Barak Obama, Donald Trump, George Clooney, as well as for famous historical people like, Catherine II “the Great” Empress of All Russia and  William Shakespeare,  among others.  It is also advisable to check places like http://famouskin.com/ (besides personalities they include topics like Royalty, Mayflower ‘descendants, etc.)
• On the other hand, the more popular genealogy sites -same sites you choose for making your own family tree- like ancestry.com, FamilySearch.com, MyHeritage.com, etc. will probably have records of the person whose connection with you, you are intending to find. And through the various search resources they provide, you would probably be able to refine the most difficult part of your search.
• It is astonishing how much information you can get just from writing in Google the name of the person you would like to find followed by the word “genealogy”. Google search engine does also have images of famous people family trees available.
• Your local library or the local library of the place you suspect or have for sure the famous personality from the past could have lived, can also be a great source of information, especially those libraries who have a genealogy section, or that keep historical records in microfilm. Famous historical personalities have influenced their communities and thus are part of their Community History, and local public libraries usually keep records on local history and are thus a great information source.

When looking for information at the web, it is a must that you are persistent and careful so as to be able to get the right information.  Take in account that just finding your surname is not a guarantee, other issues like dates and connections to other known people must be checked so as to make sure you are picking up family data and not just data from homonymous people. For example when looking for information about my father´s grandmother, I found some homonymous women, but with most documents it was easy to discard wrong data once checked husband or other relatives, and dates.  However, some documents like census reports were not conclusive. Ancestry.com has an interesting tool for non-conclusive cases: whenever you are looking for information from their site, if you find something you would like to keep for further check-up, you do not need to save the information to your family tree but you can save it to a “shoe box” where you can keep it until you have time to review it or to compare it with new documents.  I believe this is a great tool for whenever you are sourcing without much firm ground.

By, Carmen Vazquez Sibils