Hunting History - Finding Family

So for this weeks 52 in 52 I'm not following the challenge prompt, which is "Surprise."  I have blogged many surprising facts and discoveries and it would probably take me all week to find one I haven't blogged about.  Not just that, but there's a fun little thing making it's rounds on the genealogy groups and I liked it so much I wanted to blog it instead.  Basically people are saying who was alive when they were born vs who isn't now, extending to parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc.  I thought this was a neat little bit on information and thought I could expand on it for a full post. When I was born in 1983 I had: -Two Parents --14 Aunts & Uncles (including spouses) ---Three grandparents ----13 Great Aunts & Uncles (not counting spouses) -----Two great grandparents Now, in 2019 I have: -Two Parents --14 Aunts & Uncles (including spouses) ---no grandparents ----2 Great Aunts & Uncles (not including spouses) -----n...

So today I was going to talk about census reports....but instead I'm going to talk about Marilyn Monroe! Lovely, tortured soul that she was, Marilyn was my 8th cousin 2x removed.  That means that she's eight and I'm ten steps away from a common ancestor, Robert Rivers (1701-1792.)  But unlike my relationship to the Queen of England, this one isn't through marriage, it's through my own line.  And I rather like Miss Monroe, so I thought I'd share this one. Robert Rivers is my 8th great grandfather on my Weller (mom's) side.  I actually hadn't gotten that far, so it was news to me and now I have lots of new ancestors to work through on that line.  This info all came through an app called We're Related, and I'll get back to that in a minute. Robert Rivers (1701-1792) My 9th great grandfather John Rivers (1736-1774) - Robert's son, my 8th great grandfather John Rivers (1757-1820) - John's son, my 7th great grandfather Susannah Rivers (...

It's been said that everyone on Earth is separated by just six degrees of separation.  Now, this is referring more to the fact that people are connected to everyone else by these degrees, in other words, in terms of who you know, each person is connected to every other person by an average of six degrees.  Say I know 100 people.  If each of my friends also know 100 people, then I'm now technically connected to 10,000 people.  Give each of them 100 friends and you've got 1,000,000 people.  Now that the internet and Facebook and networking sites have come along, that number has actually shrunk to 3.5 degrees. In genealogy though, it's a little different.  I've heard that everyone, EVERYONE on Earth is separated by fewer than 100 degrees, although of course I now cannot find that fact to validate it.  The way to determine connection or separation is to take a person (any old person will do) and find a common ancestor.  Trust me, they're there. Then...