Sunday, February 14, 2010

Presidential Cousins

Four of the men above are cousins of mine, sadly one is not. . . How do I know? Ancestry.com has a little button you can press that says, "Find famous relatives." For some reason, this only works on my "Maupin" family tree. So, maybe Barack Obama is a cousin on one of my other family lines. . .
The chart above says, "Living Clinton", but it is William Jefferson Clinton. If you double click on the chart, it will enlarge and you can actually read the names of our ancestors. He is my 8th cousin, twice removed (notice how his chart has 2 entries more than mine---that's the "twice removed.") Double click on the charts to enlarge them.
This is for Jimmy Carter---you may or may not note that he, Clinton and I have the same ancestor Thomas Swann. I also made it a little easier to see how Carter is my 8th cousin once removed. For more information on cousins, click here. This has more information on cousins than even I can digest. But the chart above shows how Carter is "once removed" from me---we are a generation off.Here's a little test. So, what is my "cousinship" with George Herbert Walker Bush?Did you say 6th cousin twice removed? Well, look again at the chart above. . . .He's my 8th cousin on that one. If you look carefully at his family tree, you'll see everything is all right---mine is the probem. I'm related to myself twice---Margaret Via is my common ancestor for both charts: I'm descended from two different brothers: John (b. 1725) and Gabriel (b. 1720) while the Bushes are from their sister Mary (b. 1723)
But, those four living former presidents are not all. If you look on the chart above, I'm also cousins with William Henry Harrison (5th cousin, 4 times removed) and Benjamin Harrison (7th cousin, twice removed). Yes, they were both Presidents of the United States.
But, the one that surprised me the most was John F. Kennedy---I thought his family was all from Ireland. But, apparently the Fitzgeralds were in the United States for many generations. He's my 7th cousin, 3 times removed)

The last one, Zachary Taylor, is probably my closest presidential relative (not counting the Bushes who are "double cousins"). He's a 3rd cousin to my great-great grandfather. So, he's my 3rd cousin, 4 times removed.

So, to all my Cousin Presidents, I wish "Happy President's Day." For the record, I don't think I'm that unusual to be related to so many presidents---this just happens to be a very well-documented family. And, President Obama, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. . . .but, if that means I have to be Dick Cheney's cousin, too. . . .

****UPDATE*****  Barack Obama is my 6th cousin 4X removed through the Jennings line(Maupin) AND Bill Clinton is 9th cousin through his father's side (William Jefferson Blythe---through Harris line which is also my Maupin line).  So he is also a double cousin.

No word on Hillary Rodham or Donald Trump. . . .

3 comments:

Sara said...

That is SO COOL.

hear.t. and hue said...

VERY COOL! :)

Unknown said...

Hello!! My name is john. I am from this maupin line as well. Good to see others. Larance21@gmail.com