you are related to............

Hi Angela,

It's a mix. We're not going to tell you that you're grandmother can't be your grandmother, so it's a given that some people are going to add unsourced, possibly incorrect information to Geni. When you get back into the historical parts of the tree, let's say between 1500 and 1850, our volunteer curators do an excellent job of vetting at least the common branches; you're not going to find a child on King Charles I that doesn't belong there. (Interestingly, I checked myself before saying this and Geni has an illegitimate daughter that Wikipedia does not; I found an interesting article about that here: https://jddavies.com/2015/01/12/the-strange-case-of-king-charles-is... )

There are no doubt less-common branches during this time period that are not as well vetted. And when you get back into the Middle Ages and antiquity, there's a lot of debate even among experts about the facts.

The only real way to know for sure is to look for sources on the profiles along the path, and if you can, verify them yourself. Unfortunately there are many profiles with no sources, but since we're all working in the same tree these will accumulate over time and I encourage all of our users to upload their sources as they build or confirm their trees.

Hope that helps!

Mike at Geni

ok thank you i understand that if you go back far enough everyone is related to everyone else so my link to Elvis and queen Victoria and certain American presidents is likely to be right apparantly Colonel Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett also get into my mix i wonder if i should include them on my ancestry tree i dont want to become a name collector
Angie

I think my closest famous profile is Lady Bird Johnson (wife of LBJ) at 7th cousin twice removed. That sounds pretty close but our lowest common ancestor was born in 1650; he and his wife must have tens of millions of descendants! So it's remarkable but hardly makes me special. :-)

i just looked up Lady Bird Johnson she is my 14th cousin 4 times removed, why was she called Lady Bird as a nickname i wonder. No it doesnt make you or me special but so many keep coming up i wonder how true they are, last night for instance i found out i am a distant cousin of Billy the Kid AND Pat Garrett, so many of them

The nickname "lady bird" supposedly comes from a nursemaid who commented on her as a baby, that she was as pretty as a ladybird.

As for all those famous connections - it's pretty neat, and the more I work with our big tree the more believable it becomes. Of course one correction can have sweeping changes... just this week we discovered and disconnected a dubious connection in my 6th/7th great grandparents on my Carmichael line, which cut loose probably 1/3rd of my connections to the big tree. So it goes! I'd rather have the truth.

18th cousin Mike :)