I knew I wouldn't get far with tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission: Impossible! music), is:
1. FamilySearch has a page for "Famous Relatives" at https://www.familysearch.org/en/discovery/famousrelatives. It works if you are connected to the FamilySearch Family Tree.
2. Check out the site. Which connection surprises you? Do you believe that the connection is correct?
3. Share your famous relative connection in your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack, BlueSky, or other social media post. Leave a link to your post on this blog post to help us find your post.
I clicked the link and saw this result:
I found it interesting that on the page behind the pop-up, it says, "Results in Famous Relatives are based on the information currently in your family tree."
As I routinely tell people, no individual has a family tree on FamilySearch. Family Tree is one big collaborative tree to which you may have contributed, but it is not "your" family tree. So saying that is disingenuous, at best.
I am disappointed that my information has to be entered for me to be able to use the tool. I don't put information about living people into FamilySearch. I would prefer that I be able to look up a deceased ancestor and use the tool with that individual. But that does not serve the greater purpose of Family Tree, so it won't be happening.
I got Franklin Pierce - third cousin.
ReplyDeleteCool! Always nice to be able to claim a president, and that should mean you're related to all the rest (except Martin Van Buren, of course). Now, who is this?
DeleteWhen they say "in your family tree" I think they're referring to people whose names you entered in FamilySearch's Family Tree. I've also noticed that FamilySearch now has a banner that says "A Family Tree for the Human Family." I know they realize that no one has an individual family tree. We are all connected in one way or another.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if you were to add living people to the tree, they would not be visible to anyone, at least not until you identify them as deceased.
I actually believe that most people still do think of it as "their" family tree, because I hear that from people at the FamilySearch Center. It suits FamilySearch's purposes to allow people to continue to think of it in that way. FamilySearch wants to create the family tree of the human race, and the banner is an indication of that.
DeleteIt is true that living people would not be visible, but when they become deceased, they then would be, and not all of my relatives wish to be on FamilySearch, alive or dead, so I am honoring the wishes of the living by not entering them.
I'm sorry that you can't use the tool, but how else would they figure it out if you don't enter yourself? As long as you're living with no death date, it is privatized.
ReplyDeleteAh, but that's exactly my point. Why do I need to identify these "famous relatives" from myself when I could connect them to a known, already deceased and entered on FamilySearch, ancestor? The answer to that is that FamilySearch wants me to enter myself, my parents and siblings while alive, etc. That's why no option exists to search for famous relatives connected to an ancestor.
DeleteNow, I don't feel so lonely! I am in the FS tree and still have no connections. I didn't expect any on my Rusyn side, but colonial America is a bit of a surprise.
ReplyDeleteThat is surprising, especially considering how tangled and interconnected Colonial genealogy can be. Maybe your ancestors were honest working people instead of those famous politicians?
DeleteI say we continue to claim Peter Sellers!
ReplyDeleteAnd Grandpa always sounded so definite about it! I did find out he's Jewish (through his mother), but it's Sephardic.
Delete