We Are All Related

William H. Seward Have you ever heard of William H. Seward? Maybe some of you know of Seward's Folly? William H. Seward was a Governor of New York (1839-42), a Senator (1849-61) and later became Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson (1861-69). He is primarily known today as being the buyer of Alaska (1867), which had been termed as Seward's Folly in the press at the time. People thought it was outlandish and a waste of time and money - pure foolishness. After 100+ years, the buying of Alaska is now thought of as a steal and a great investment. Seward was a great orator and nearly became a presidential candidate during the 1860 election. He was also severely injured by a John Wilkes Booth's co-conspirator when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. My 2nd Great Grandfather William Beach - Quite a Character I have researched my father's family, the Beaches, for several years now and I cannot get much of anything past my 2nd great grandfather William

Believe What You Preach I am a fun-loving, joking kind of person most of the time. I sometimes make outlandish statements just to see what the other person says or to see the shock on their faces. You just never know what I'm going to say. Is all of it true - No! "I would love to play Lebron James just once and see if he could dunk over me," I once said. What??? I was just feeling it at the moment. "Well, I would have loved to play him at my prime!" Lebron would abuse me like a freight train running over a snail. I was watching my Golden State Warriors (I love to watch Stephon Curry play) and Lebron had just made one of those faces after a breakaway dunk. My wife looked on as I was watching with a look of disbelief on her face. "Whatever," she said as she laughed at me. All of that is well and good, but there comes a time where you have to believe what you preach - we are all related. Super Tree - Does It Include Everyone? I had been adding peop

Challenge to Myself Amelia Earhart has been in the news lately because the Smithsonian Channel is airing a documentary on new evidence found recently. They claim that she may have been found by the Japanese because of an old photo where some people in the photo resemble Amelia and her navigator Fred Noonan. I got a crazy thought and wondered if I could find out how I was related to her. I have roots in Kentucky and upstate New York, so I believe I am like the universal Anglo Saxon descendant. I am feeling great about the possibilities. First things first When I go to see if I am related to a historical figure, I use geni.com . I do a google search using the keyword geni and the historical figures name. So in this case I googled geni Amelia Earhart . I clicked on the link which took me to an Amelia Earhart tree and I clicked the links on her parents and other ancestors looking for surnames from my ancestry.com tree. You may want to go to your tree and do a once over on your tr

Have You Ever Wondered? Have you ever wondered if any of your friend's are related to you? I have. I am adopted and never had a family tree of my own until late 2015. I found out that one of my wife's friends was related to me (7th cousins 4x removed) and it spurred me to find out if other friends were as well. It can be a tough undertaking, but you can find out - most of the time without asking your friends! This works especially well if you are in a small town or rural setting. For example, this does not work too well in Atlanta, where there is a large, diverse population. But I know this works well in Tuscaloosa, AL. Getting Started - Think Like a Private Eye There is a wealth of information on the web just waiting to be found. I usually start with a google search with the person's name and the town they live in. This sometimes pulls up some newspaper links. Newspapers have obituaries and marriage notices that contain great information for finding parents and gr

The Move As I alluded to in an earlier post  (end of 2nd paragraph), my family moved from the Washington DC suburbs to West Virginia. We moved at the end of 1977, but my father had bought a cabin on an acre of property on a mountain in 1974. As I am prone to remember, we bought the property on August 17, 1974 and moved on December 23, 1977, which was a tough time to move. When we bought the property, the whole family traveled to the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. My father had found out about the new subdivision on the mountain from an ad in the Washington Star. They had also found a similar plan in nearby Shenandoah County, VA. My mother had called and gotten all of the information on both of those subdivisions and we went to one three weeks earlier in Virginia and then we went to the one in West Virginia, Glenwood Forest. We took a tour with a guy named Stan Patty. He had bought a lot a year or two earlier. He was a genial man, balding with black hair, a bushy mustache and bl

We're Not Related To Those Davenports Oh yes you are. One big thing I have found from searching for people in my "Super Tree" is if people in a certain region share a surname, they are related. I used to think, well maybe there were 2 different Johannson families that settled into Rockingham County, VA and they are not related to each other. But from my long hours of experience I am finding that people with those same last names are most definitely related. The exceptions to this rule are surnames like Smith, Jones, Jefferson, Freeman, Washington, Williams, Johnson, etc. Most people can tell you who their grandparents are and maybe, just maybe they can name their great grandparents. People descended from your great grandparents give you your 2nd cousins. You may know a few of them from your family reunions. But most people do not know who their 3rd and 4th cousins are. Populations grow exponentially - that is there are many, many more people at the next generation