Bill's Genealogy Blog

Bill Buchanan is a long-time genealogy enthusiast, living in Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada. This blog will describe my experiences as I research my family history and help others.

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Location: Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada

I am a retired online school teacher. I love family history. From 2007-2020, I spent much of my time providing part-time support for the world's largest free family history site https://familysearch.org This is very rewarding. I have helped others with the Family Tree and related FamilySearch products.
In 2010-2018 I served in the Edmonton_Alberta_Riverbend_Family_History_Centre..I have a FHC blog at Bill's Family History Center Blog Since 2020 I have been a family history consultant for Edmonton Alberta North Stake. For information on the Latter-day Saints and family history click https://www.comeuntochrist.org/

Thursday, October 21, 2021

Finding Famous Relatives

I recently received an email: 

"I was asked if we have a way in Family Search to find famous relatives. This may be a test to make me look stupid. If so oh well."



This was my reply.

The easiest way I know is BYU's Relative Finder web app at  www.relativefinder.org

It uses the data in the FamilySearch Family Tree. So, I see famous people when I use Relative Finder, but I do not see the chiefs of Clan Buchanan. From the Buchanan YDNA Study, I know that I descend from those chiefs, so why are they not shown? 

The reason is that I am missing about 4 generations in Family Tree, that would connect me to them.

The irony is that my wife can see them as her ancestors, through one of her lines that has the necessary links.

I really like Relative Finder, and some other apps created by BYU Computing Science Lab.
Virtual Pedigree makes it easier to view ancestral lines that go back for centuries.
Pedigree Pie helped me see that Family Tree had wrongly standardized the birth places of some of my ancestors. For example, Family Tree listed some as born in Scotland, but Pedigree Pie showed that the birth place was standardized as Scotland, St Helena. Who knew that the little Atlantic island St Helena had a place called Scotland? I was able to make the corrections, once I was aware of the problem.


I just came across this other place.
At familysearch.org > Activities > All Activities > Famous Relatives

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