Jamie Allen's Fabulous Pedigree

Version 102

I don't even try to keep track of all the additions and corrections I made. Among MANY other additions I added pedigrees for Mata Hari and her husband. At the last moment, a correspondent sent me the pedigree for King Louis XIV's mistress, Louise Francoise de la BAUME le BLANC (Duchess) de la VALLIERE. One thing leading to another, each of these led to many additions.

Version 102 is likely the final version, but do e-mail me if there are any errors or problems with the website.

Version 101

July 17, 2021 I decided to add Anne Vavasour, one of Queen Elizabeth's Ladies of the Bedchamber, and her uncle Thomas (1st Baron) Knyvet. Anne had two famous lovers, both already in my database, Edward de Vere Earl of Oxford, and Sir Henry Lee, a Knight of the Garter.

The 1st Baron Knyvet is the very same man who became enemies with the Earl Oxenford -- the man who made his niece pregnant -- dueled with him, leading eventually to a limp, so that Edward Earl of Oxford retired from court and activities and focused on his writing. I raced to fill all this in. The information wasn't in any of a dozen Gedcoms I refer to frequently, but the great Leo van de Pas had it at his famous and glorious Genealogics.Org. Altogether it took me about an hour, but that was with utter concentration. I remembered the long arcane keystroke sequence (which I should have made into a script long ago) to reorder Leo's ancestor tables into a depth-first sequence.

And I announce this specially, so it be known I no longer have the time for this. I have made hundreds of other changes since Version 100, including sixteen new life forms (some of which were added to provide entries for the Index topic PSYCHOACTIVE Plants), and a pedigree for Ginger Rogers. Version 101 really will be the last!! (Except for V. 102 :-) )

There are some websites with HUGE pedigrees trees on the 'Net, much larger than mine; though some of the pedigrees seem to be even less reliable than mine! At some point I gave up incorporating these huge trees, though I show one of them in this giant ancestor tables for Jean V de Preures.

One thing leads to another! For whatever reason I decided to expand my coverage of the Lister family. One of them married a Bolton woman of uncertain pedigree. But I decided to check some sources to see if I could find her. I discovered a long line of Boltons all the way back to Oughtred de Boulton; most of the Boltons already in my database allegedly descend from him. That Oughtred, missing from my database, is even a supposed great grandson of Leofric the Great King of Mercia! Naturally I had to add this all. Do you see why Version 101 was late? :)

The wife of one Bolton was Sarah Chesebrough, whom I already showed as an ancestress of Connecticut's prominent Goodrich family. Naturally I added them too. Sarah Chesebrough, by the way, is shown with two different husbands and two pedigrees, but similar dates and places. Same woman? I dunno. Just use my website for hints, please!

Version 101 Index

My database is rather complicated, but once the information is recorded there, the pedigree pages are produced automatically by a (complex) piece of software. However the index pages are a different matter. Some of the necessary modifications are done automatically, but even then special care is needed. For example, whenever I add a name to my numbered lists at WEALTHIEST, I need to modify the script that inserts the numbers. Et cetera, et cetera.

While checking the V101 Index I first noted that there was a family surnamed OUTLAW in Virginia who got lumped into the OUTLAW, GUNFIGHTER or MURDERER index group! My apologies to the OUTLAW family! I've separated them out into an "OUTLAW (surname)" index group, but this isn't automated: I'd have to remember to repeat the manual mods if there is ever a Version 102 index.

Version 101 Links

In the pedigrees, some individuals are colored red, denoting that the person'a page has a link to a URL that gives information about that person. But many of the linked pages are no longer present on the 'Web. Does it not seem pathetic that some billion-dollar companies like AOL and Yahoo have taken done lots of wonderful content -- to save money? -- while little websites (like Fabpedigree with one overworked unpaid volunteer!) keep our content available "for eternity"?

For Version 101 I took an inventory of these out-going links:

Due to these problems, I avoid links or bookmarks these days. If I want something I just do a webpage copy. I don't heve the time to repair all those bad links. If you pursue one, and find it in the WayBack Archive, email me! I will amend the website to show the better link!

Version 100

It's hard for even me to believe, but when I first published "FabPedigree Version 1", the name was sort of an inside joke! I'd already spent a lot of time on the project, and published several increasingly-large versions. Calling that Version "Version 1" was tongue-in-cheek. Perhaps I hoped it would be the last version.

And now I'm up to Version 100. I think this Version will actually be the last one.

This project has gone in many different directions. I've learned a lot about ancient history, myths, DNA and even the taxonomy of plants and animals while preparing my database. I've learned a lot about genealogy.

Some of the data here is my own research. I'm especially proud that I deduced that Colonel John Allen killed in the War of 1812 was my 2nd cousin 6x removed. (The circumstantial evidence that John's father James was the nephew of my ancestor Robert Allan is overwhelming, but was nowhere to be found in books or the 'Net until I published.) I also scraped together pedigrees for some of the obscurer Knights of the Garter. There are many Baronets whose pedigrees are shown in old books, but not in any GedComs until I published them. And of course I incorporated new information sent to me by many MANY other amateur genealogists. Click here for a list of some of the many other genealogists who have helped me.

But the sad fact is that the bulk of my data is "low-lying fruit" gathered from online genealogies. For a while this was a pleasure. Gendex.com was a site run for free by an amateur who brought other amateur genealogists together. Rootsweb.com started in a very similar way. But Gendex.com disappeared long ago, and Rootsweb was bought up by a profit-motivated genealogical conglomerate. The big free site these days seems to be Geni.com, but like my own site, it focuses on raw size rather than documentation and accuracy. And as these conglomerated databases get bigger and bigger, errors and speculations creep in. Unlike my database, where "possible" and "probably not" tags can be added to connections, there is no way with GedCom to distinguish proven links from speculative links.

I'm proud that I have pedigrees for all the Presidents, most of the Vice Presidents, most of the Knights of the Garter, most European monarchs, most of history's most influential people, many of America's famous abolitionists, and so on. But it's hard to continue making progress: There's just too many famous people to show them all! :-) Recently I decided to add Speaker Sam Rayburn as a pedigree root. Wow! Sam Rayburn was already in one of the free Gedcoms I'd downloaded many years ago, and it was easy to copy that pedigree. I should have stopped there!

I didn't stop, I also found a pedigree for Sam Rayburn at Geni.com. That website has huge pedigrees, with no indication of which parts are certain, and which parts wild speculations. Their pedigree for Sam Rayburn had hundreds of medieval Englishmen who were not yet in my database. Adding them was a major effort for me ... and a signal that I could not keep doing this. (If Rayburn's ancestors were ALL new to my database it would have been easy to add them, but he has ancstors already in my database ... and tracing those people further back at Geni.com they lead to extensions or alternatives for pedigrees of people who'd been in my database long before Version 100.)

Early in 2021 there were short squeezes on stocks like GameStop. This reminded me of the famous short squeeze in the 1860's led by Daniel Drew. Geni.com had a pedigree for him, so I added it. Whew! What a lot of new entries that led to!

Sam Rayburn and Daniel Drew were NOT the only additions between Version 99 and Version 100, but just listing the other changes would itself be a project! (I think I'm the only one who appreciates my 'other life form trees', but I added six roots there: beaked whale, homing pigeon, inshore squid, wood sorrel, a fungal spore, and yam.)

Let me offer deep appreciation to all those who have enjoyed my work, and written to flatter me over all these years. Thank you, all!

Version 99

The Abolitionists and Transcendentalists of the first half of the 19th century were so important to America's development that I've added several important figures I was missing, including Wendell Phillips, Caroline Sturgis, Horace Greeley, Cassius M. Clay, Theodore Parker, George Luther Stearns, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry C. Wright and Gerrit Smith. Most of these Abolitionists had near relatives that were already in my database, but Henry C. Wright's pedigree was slightly harder to come by. I found a 13-generation ahnenreihe for him and incorporated most of that. As often happens, this led to many additions and alternations to pedigrees I already had.

I'm proud I've found pedigrees for all but 62 people on 4 different lists of `The Most Influential 100' (MIPHMHH). I added a pedigree for the abolitionist Frederick Douglass (on two of the lists). At some point I added a pedigree for Edward Jenner, discoverer of smallpox vaccine, but just noticed he was missing his MIPHMHH notation. Lots of other additions, for example a pedigree for Johan Lillie leads to many old Dutch and German lines that I was missing.

Boris Johnson, Britain's latest P.M., likes to joke that he's so politically astute that he placed his ancestors all around the world! (New England, Turkey, Reunion Island, etc.) So I added his interesting pedigree. I'm running out of obvious "other life forms" to add, but I did add Easter lily, Aloe vera, ringed caecilian, garden slug and eyelash mite. I improved the discussion of life's origin. (This is now almost a solved problem! Read The Vital Question by Nick Lane.)

I chanced upon the real-life story that was the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe -- Look under CRUSOE in the index. Alexander Selkirk, the sailor who was abandoned on an island, was a commoner with only a minimal pedigree but I was curious about the very young privateer captain, Thomas Stradling, who abandoned him. The Stradlings include a long line of Knights and land-owners and the Baronet Stradlings of St Donat's: Wouldn't it be likely that a man who commanded a 16-gun ship at the age of 21 come from a well-to-do family? Sources describe him as an "upperclassman." Could I find him? Stradling is a rare surname today, and seems to have been fairly rare even by the 18th century.

Nowhere on the Internet could I find any mention of this pirate captain's parents, or much mention of the pirate, for that matter. As Selkirk had predicted, the unmaintained ship foundered with most souls lost, but Stradling was one of a few who were rescued by the Spanish and sent to a prison in Peru. There his story ends, as far as I can tell. Looking at the Baronets Stradling, I saw that the 4th Baronet had a son Thomas who "died at sea." However I searched for this brother of the 5th Baronet, all I could find was "died at sea." Was he a "black sheep" the Stradling family didn't want to talk about? He was of the right age to be the pirate captain who abandoned the real-life Robinson Crusoe on a deserted island. His ancestors include high-raning Naval officers; this would explain how a very young man with poor seamanship could be an officer in the British Navy. I think these two Thomas Stradlings are probably the same man, but of course I cannot be certain.

I added pedigrees for Alice Liddell, Pierre de Fermat, Katherine Graham nee Meyer and her husband (famous owners of the Washington Post), Greta Garbo's father. I fixed bugs in the databse and in the software; incorporated MUCH work sent by Manuel Pacheco Jiménez (some of it incorporating work by Settipani); these changes to the pedigrees of ancient Spain and ancient Greece are too extensive to summarize: as just one example, I added the famous Plutarch, and show Byzantine descents for his sister.

The parent and grand-parent connections shown in the main body of a pedigree page, should be fairly accurate. The lists of possible spouses, however, may be wrong or misleading. Please click on the child of interest to get a look at who the child's parents might be. With Version 99 I've improved the software that generates the pedigree pages, and soe of the spouses missing in earlier lists are now shown. Still, please report errors or inconsistencies to me.

Once upon a time I was a professional computer programmer. Some epeople thought I was pretty good. One thing professional programmers know is that as a project grows, one must take care that the code is well-modularized. For this "play project" I didn't worry about that. "This will be the final version of the pedigree, anyway" I kept telling myself. But it wasn't the final version; I kept adding pedigrees and features to the software. And the code became ... unmodularized. VERY unmodularized. At first I found this amusing: a textbook example of how NOT to develop software! And, however bad the source code that produced them might be, the output of the software -- the pedigree pages and index pages -- occasionally attracted compliments! I muddled along. But it is no longer easy to fix bugs in the software; and some of the policies I adopted when there were three or more alternate parents are ugly and badly implemented. So some of the lists of "possible Spouses" may be wrong or misleading. Sorry. :-(

Version 98

I added pedigrees for Berry Gordy, Jr. (founder of Motown), Robert Wood Johnson (founder of Johnson & Johnson), Cristiano Ronaldo (famous soccer player -- but I only show his descent from the interesting Drummond noble who served France and Spain), Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy (father of famous musicians), Ethel Skakel (wife of Robert F. Kennedy), the Mordaunt Baronets of Walton, the Fiennes Barons of Saye, Bilbo Baggins (mythical!), palm civet and striped hyena. I added Gordy when I re-read a note from an e-mail correspondent showing that he's a relatively close cousin of Jimmy Carter! (Carter's great grandfather had a child by one of his slaves.) I added Mendelssohn Bartholdy when I noted that the great mathematician Peter Dirichlet married one of his daughters.

As usual, I made a variety of miscellaneous additions and corrections, especially to genealogies of medieval Spain. Thanks again to Ricardo Canedo who has set me straight on a large number of European pedigrees. (I'm afraid that with all the additions I'm introducing new errors faster than he can correct them!) As always, use my website for hints; check data in other sources.

Version 97

Added pedigrees for Pete Seeger, Lucian K. Truscott IV, James G. Thurber, Jane Austen, Oswald Mosley (I've been watching Peaky Blinders!), Louis S. Auchincloss, Prince 'Polecat' the Confederate General, and a few U.S. Attorneys-General. Added fourteen new organisms:

As always there were a large number of miscellaneous additions: Hackley, Lambert, Austen/Austin families, etc.

I just noticed that I never fixed the link to my discussion of Y-chromosome haplogroups, and why I show them in my database. Fixed now.

Version 96

Let me remind visitors again that this web-site has zero full-time employees, just a single unpaid (and over-worked!) volunteer -- Me! This whole site began when I wanted to share our personal pedigree with my nieces, decided that hypertext was the best format, and noted that using free or very cheap Web servers was the simplest way to present and distribute hypertext. As others found my tree on-line I felt an obligation to make correctons, and a perverse whim to expand it. I have pedigrees for all the American Presidents by now, and almost all the First Ladies and Vice Presidents. I am missing 20 Prime Ministers of the U.K., down from 22 in Version 95. So please be patient with the errors and inadequacies at this site. :-(

There were few corrections submitted this month, but I raced out a new version anyway. In addition to two new Prime Ministers and a few other loose ends, I added the patrilineal line of Philo T. Farnsworth the Inventor.

For reasons best known to myself, I've added ascents for various living non-human organisms, growing the set of such organisms slowly. But I "took the gloves off" for Version 96, and added sixteen new organisms, partly to cover some gaping holes.

Version 95

I add individuals to the tree for various reasons. Usually it's to show their famous descendants but this page and this page were for other reasons. :-(

While browsing around my own site, I came across this page. Wow! Almost every individual on the page comes with a "or: poss." alternative. Well, better to admit uncertainty when uncertain, than feign reliability! :-)


Version 95

Background: I already had Senator John Warner's pedigree (husband of Liz Taylor) and of course a pedigree for Andrew W. Mellon (Secretary of the Treasury, co-founder of Alcoa, with his brother, among the richest and most powerful financiers of that era.) Now Senator Warner had another wife, heiress Catherine Mellon -- Wow, did he choose his brides! In Version 95 I showed the link from Catherine to her grandfather (the 14th wealthiest American ever); I showed her mother Mary Conover and grandmother Nora McMullen with no ancestors. I've been adding some famous actors and actresses but don't want to get too carried away. But Warren Beatty and Shirly Maclaine are brother and sister! That's like a 2-for-1 sale so I did their large pedigrees. Looking downward from there, Mary Conover's father Charles appears. Well .... OK! I'll add much of Charles Conover as well! I added lots of other lines; Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

My list of U.S. Presidents has been complete for a long while, so I completed the list of First Ladies.

Version 94

Still couldn't stop! Among several additions, is James Watts, founder of the East India Company. I had to add him after watching the TV series Taboo. I found that his grandson Richard and alleged gt-granddaughter Eleanor Watts were already in my database -- she is an ancestress of the poet e.e. cummings and perhaps Wild Bill Hickock. Another Governor of the East India Company was in the database but without that notation; a third Governor had parents and some siblings already in the database, with parents not shown for one sibling. That so many relatives of the early EIC Governors were already in the database gives me confidence that my coverage is getting broad! :-)

I also added Spencer Tracy, L. Frank Baum, some miscellaneous lines and some more species.

Special thanks to Christoph Graf von Polier who generously provided copious data on the de Polier and de Goumoeens families. The GOUMOEENS family traces itself all the way back to the 11th century, yet seems to be missing from most databases. Some other lines I took from Christoph's database are JOFFREY, d' ORON, MESTRAL, MENTHON, MAYOR de LUTRY, de PRAROMAN, GINGINS, TAVEL, LOYS, HALLWYL, GREYERZ, ESTAVAYER, COMPEY, BLONAY, etc.

While perusing von Polier's data, I noticed that he shows Alexander von Hesse Duke of BATTENBERG, the great grandfather of the present Duke of Edinburgh, as the son of his mother's lover Auguste Louis (Freiherr) von SENARCLENS-GRANCY. Since the pedigree of the future King Charles is a must-have, I incorporated the pedigree of Auguste Louis's grandfather, with a huge number of additions. I suppose the pedigrees of Auguste Louis's three other grandparents are a priority for the next revision, if any.

Finally, at the urging of my volunteer researcher, Ricardo Canedo, I have made some corrections and additions to the pedigree of Justin Bieber.

Version 93

Guess what? Continued expansion! :-) I expand coverage of history's great geniuses, adding Voltaire, Faraday, Euler, Gottfried Leibniz and more. I added Josiah Willard Gibbs, an important American genius with a huge pedigree. I added ten more roots to the 'other life-form' section: Giraffe, poppy, tiger snake, streptococcus, etc. I'm missing several Lords Mayor of London and I chatted with a man descended from Thomas Andrewes -- that led to some additions. Et cetera, et cetera.

While adding some of history's great geniuses I stumbled upon William Hamilton "9th Baronet." Oh goody, I thought, I've got lots of Hamiltons and lots of Baronets but almost no Hamilton Baronets even though there were lots of them. Boy did they lead to a maze, I had to add dozens of Hamiltons to sort it out. The 9th Baronet claimed his title via a descent from the 1st Baronet's daughter, it seems. Wikipedia mentions the odd charter by the 2nd Baronet, but almost none of the usual sources show the actual descent. I finally got it sorted out, I think, via Stirnet.

One whim leads to another. I watched an interesting YouTube and decided the explorer Tristao da Cunha would be a good addition. I had lots of the da Cunha; maybe adding him would be easy. I already had him! (Though with no notes whatsoever.) But meanwhile I'd stumbled on some big gaps in his ancestry, so added those.

Version 92.1

The day after I uploaded V92, an e-mail correspondent informed me I was missing a generation in a modern royal pedigree. Jorge BAGRATION-MUKHRANELI, the recently deceased claimant King of Georgia, was the ggg-grandson of Bavaria's King Ludwig I, not the gg-grandson. I patched in corrections to the pedigree pages. (The index pages will have some tiny glitches.)

Version 92

I keep working on my index Lists. I already had pedigrees for all the U.S. Presidents, all but five Vice Presidents, almost all Knights of the Garter, most of the wealthiest persons in history, etc. For this version I added several more Signers of the Declaration of Independence. Adding these 18th-century Founders I find new British lineages stretching back to 15th-century or earlier. Wow, I thought I had most of the medieval English lines by now! :-)

Many of the additions I make to the database are due to weird flights of fancy. For example, a correspondent called my attention to a very interesting Essay, ostensibly about the history of mathematical philosophy in the 18th century, but which also contains a variety of biographical information, e.g. it mentions Voltaire's friend, Everard Fawkener. From the usual sources I find that Sir Everard Fawkener was ancestor of the wife of the 4th LEVESON-GOWER Duke of SUTHERLAND. I already had that Duke, but not his wife nor children. Guess who I had to add? :-) This led to the St. Clair-Erskine Earls of Rosslyn, and then eventually to the Moray/Murray of Abercairny lineage, both of which I was missing. And my source for those lines provided new alternatives for ancient Scottish and Norse lineages. And on and on.

I can't add ALL famous Americans, but I suddenly noticed I had a large number of the ancestors of Juliette Gordon Low (founder of the Girl Scouts) so I had to add her.

As an example of the miscellaneous names I add -- Cornelis van HAMME from the 17th century. No American or English descendants as far as I know, but with an ancestry that goes back to 14th-century Hollanders I was missing.

Version 91

Once upon a time I had about 7000 names in my database and thought "Wow! what have I done?" Twelve years ago I had about 75,000 names and a fan sent me e-mail rooting for me to make it all the way to 100,000! I wrote back, laughing, and said "No, that won't happen." Recently I got a comment at the Guestbook: "My head hurts just trying to visualize the amount of work you have done." You don't know the half of it.

With Version 102 I am up to 296,896 pedigree pages. (Subtract about 32,000 trivial pages omitted to save space.) Latest additions include pedigrees for some famous actors I was missing: Jimmy Stewart, Joan Crawford, Dick van Dyke, Jamie Lee Curtis; a few famous Americans like General Creighton W. Abrams and Governor Ross S. Sterling; and the usual minor people, e.g. Priscilla DeVol, just to link up with more pedigrees. For other living creatures I added carnation flower, tsetse fly and the deadly pathogen the tsetse fly carries! Version Ninety-One! 91 is the luckiest number (7) multiplied by the unluckiest (13). I think I'll stop now.

BREAKING NEWS: I am a Plantagenet

Do all people with English blood descend from King Henry II, the first Plantagenet King? Maybe, but proving it is another matter. At last, thanks to Ricardo Canedo, a specific link from Henry II to me has been identified in which every single link passes expert scrutiny. My grandfather, who had the same name as me, remembers his Grandma Annie (here's some info about ther and her father); a fellow genealogist showed me that she was the granddaughter of Mahlon Chamberlain HOLDEN, whose middle name helps confirm that he was great-grandson of Lewis CHAMBERLAIN (a Judge). Lewis was in exactly the right place and time to be the son of Rebecca Chamberlain nee Morris but there seems to be no specific documentary proof that he was her son. But her father was Lewis Morris; she named her son after his grandfather. Links have been approved by the experts on much flimsier grounds than this.

From Rebecca Morris the descent from King Henry II can be found easily on the best Internet sites. Rebecca's grandfather was Christopher ALMY, whose grandfather was Stafford BARLOW, whose grandfather was Humphrey STAFFORD, whose grandfather was another Humphrey STAFFORD. This Humphrey was executed in 1486 for taking the wrong side in the War of Roses, but crimes do not invalidate genetic linkage! Anyway this Humphrey was the son of another Humphrey STAFFORD who was slain while leading the King's Army against the rebel Jack Cade; that Humphrey was the son of yet another Humphrey STAFFORD, the son of Maud HASTINGS, daughter of Maud TRUSSELL, daughter of Maud de ST. PHILIBERT, daughter of Ada BOTETOURT, daughter of Maud FitzTHOMAS, daughter of Beatrice BEAUCHAMP, granddaughter of William LONGESPEE. And William Longespee, the Earl of Salisbury was the son of the slightly mysterious Countess Ida and her lover ... King Henry II of the English, grandson of King Henry I.

Yay! I am a Plantagenet!

Version 90

While looking at my Plantagent descent I happened to notice that Elizabeth Almy was a distant cousin of William Ellery, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence I was missing. I had to add him! Wiipedia reported that he was the ancestor of several famous Americans (though none I'd incorporated into my database) so I decided to add 2 or 3 of them, including Edith Minturn Sedgwick, Andy Warhol's "It Girl." I found a HUGE pedigree for Sedgwick with many colonial American lines, and even medieval English lines, I was missing. Yippee!! Kyra Sedgwick is another famous descendant; her husband Kevin Bacon was already on my To_Do list; so I added both of them.

The brief summary of additions I give in this newsletter for each new version belies the extent of the changes. Adding the singer Krist Kristofferson was a major change for Version 90, but I also made a huge number of other additions, and alternate pedigrees, for medieval England, France, Germany, etc. I had a lot of links to the famous suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, so I added her. The I added three other famous suffragists (Pankhurst, Mott, Blackwell) to keep her company.

I had to add the present Countess of Airlie when I saw a Youtube of her shaking President Trump's hand! Her grandfather was one of America's 56 wealthiest ever -- one I was missing from that list. Version 90 additions also include three U.S. Senators (Barry Goldwater, Elizabeth Warren, Charles Sumner) and two famous Texas politicans (Preston E. Smith, and Marion Price Daniels).

Version 89

More additions to ancient Greek pedigrees from Manuel Pacheco Jiménez' excellent database.

I added some DNA clades, and biologic species. I added Cicero, the influential Orator; filling in the gaps between Cicero's cousin and some of their descendants already in my database. Among many other additions to ancient pedigrees of Persia etc., I added Tomyris, the Central Asian queen who was presented after battle with the head of Persia's Cyrus the Great. I added John Bartlett of Bartlett's Quotations, who descends from many colonial immigrants. Jake Gyllenhaal has a huge pedigree with many ancient Scandinavian lines, so I added him. And added several other Kings and commoners as well.

I worked on my index entries. Several explorers were in the database, but not under the Explorer index heading. I made a large number of additions associated with Witchcraft at Salem.

I normally don't add people unless they connect to people in my database. But the daughter-in-law of William Goodsell ROCKEFELLER is apparently a descendant of Paul Revere, so I added her to get to him!

I've given up on making my write-up on the purely agnatic descent of King James I from Homo heidelbergensis a piece de resistance! :-( But please look at it and tell me how to improve it.

Version 88

Increased coverage of Y-haplogroup tree (especially T and R1b-P312 portions), adding 200+ new nodes. I made a huge number of additions to the ancient Greek pedigrees, thanks to Manuel Pacheco Jiménez. Added coverage of Baroncelli, Brougham, Dalston, Doughty, Wilberforce, Wyvill families, etc.

As the Y-haplogroup tree becomes better and better known, interesting discoveries are made. For example, the Y-dna closeness of Cotton and Singleton families can be tracd to Richard Singleton (d. 1246+) who purchased land in Cottam and changed his surname.

Version 87

Mere days after uploading V86, I decided to add Richard Burton, the famous explorer. He descends from the Smythe Baronets (as does King George IV's wife, who I also was missing). Sounds pretty simple, right? No! This led me to a huge plethora of lines I was missing, along with alternates for the lines I already had. ... Just when I thought I was almost done. :-) I also added a pedigree for Gregory Peck. And increased coverage of Y-haplogorups; especiall the T haplogroup.

Version 86

I added several pedigrees of descendants of Bounty mutineers: it seemed interesting to show some of the inter-marriages on secluded Pitcairn Island. Of course this also led to medieval pedigrees for families like Christian, Skillicorne, Senhouse. I added pedigrees for David Crosby, the famous singer; Sumner Welles, the famous diplomat; Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister of U.K; Oxylus from Greek myth; etc ... and the usual miscellaneous additions and corrections. I greatly expanded my coverage of Y-chromosome haplogroups, particularlyshowing clusters of Allens and McDonalds.

Version 85

I uploaded Version 84, and the very next day checked on my Index entry for Copley Medal winners ... and added four more Medalists! A Cavendish father-son pair were the son and grandson of a couple already in my database; Edward Delaval's parents were also in the database; and Lord Rayleigh himself was already in -- I'd noted his Nobel Prize but not his Copley Medal. I added Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife -- there is a large pedigree for Shriver.

And ... the very same day I uploaded V84, I noticed that I had one line shown twice: I'd failed to note that OWTRED and UGHTRED are different spellings of the same surname. (I'm sure there are many duplicated people still in the database.) And more additions. And more corrections. The Errata list has dwindled to almost nothing!

As I write, less than two weeks after releasing V 84, I notice that my database already has 600 additional or revised individual records since the V84 upload. So much for those accusing me of sloth!

Version 84

'Better' cannot wait for 'Best'! I'm rushing a new version with known errors to make it in time for the New Year!

The present database is now so large (and so full of errors :-( ) that I can't even keep up with the corrections and suggestions from friends and cousins who consult the FabPedigree. I have added a list of pending corrections that I haven't had time to get to yet. If you see something that looks wrong, please check to see if it's already on the Errata List.

Except for corrections and additions to my DNA pages, the first addition for this version was Edmund FitzGerald. His pedigree isn't too interesting -- I just wanted to link to the Gordon Lightfoot song!

As usual I made a variety of additions, e.g. Adolf Hitler and Marco Polo. Neither Hitler nor Polo have extensive pedigrees, but one source shows Niccolo Machiavelli marrying a descendant of Marco Polo. Seems unlikely ... but I show all the "allegations" I find! I added Wyatt Earp; he also led to some other missing lines, like Claypoole. The Elizabeth Parry ancestral to several famous Americans (including Judy Garland, Britney Spears and President Kennedy) has a large pedigree.

Et cetera.

I often add ancient pedigrees even when they don't connect to royalty or famous Americans. I stumbled on a huge number of medieval low-nobility Germans I was missing so I added the pedigree of Adam von Podewils (1747-1808) -- a HUGE addition. During this process I discovered that some of these new names did have a descendant already in my database: the wife of Otto von Bismarck! Otto von Bismarck was already one of the notable descendants I show near the top of pedigree pages; becuase of the huge pedigree for Otto's wife, I replaced him with his son Wilhelm von Bismarck.

Version 83

For Version 83 I focused especially on expanding my coverage of Y-dna clading. I show several surname clusters (mostly R1b), and show much of the detailed clading. The Y-haplogroup structure coming into view as surveys and research continues maps directly to campaigns and conquests. Particular royal castes (descended from earlier royal castes) enjoyed enormous procreative advantage. This is such a big topic I'll discuss it in late August after I get Version 83 rushed out. Errata: I'll work on this page in 2018.

Ricardo Canedo deserves a big Thank You for this version. He has been helping identify the errors in my medieval pedigrees for several years. but put in overtime recently to help clean up Version 83. Thank you, Ricardo! Ricardo, like me, is an amateur genealogist but he has the talent and time to survey best research and glean expert knowledge. By now, Ricardo has identified about 300 errors in my database. That seems like a very big number and might make me ashamed of my data quality. But since the database has over 250,000 names, I prefer to imagine that, with Ricardo's help, my database improved from 99.7% to 99.8% correct! :-)

Two famous Americans I'd avoided including are Will Rogers and Rex Tillerson. The problem was that their pedigrees did not seem to connect to other famous Americans, so were uninteresting. But Tillerson and Rogers are distant cousins of each other! Will Rogers, Mr. Secretary -- welcome aboard! Please send me corrections for either Roger's pedigree or Tillerson's. I'm especially interested in Will Rogers' Native American ancestors. Which were these exactly? Were they all Cherokee, or were other tribes represented?

Added a pedigree for Charles d'Artagnan, Captain of Musketeers; this led me to many medieval French I was missing. I also added some ancient Arab lines I was missing.

Scotland's Clan McFarlane has a prominent Y-Chromosome cluster. So I added some Chiefs of McFarlane. (Do they have descents to English Earls or famous Americans?)

Because of poor database design choices long ago, it is often very time-consuming for me to remove faulty connections. However, I have colored about 200 alternate pedigree pages red and added notes reminding users that these are the correct parents for their alleged children. And -- this is so sad -- the sorry software makes the coloring ever-or-never; the person is shown in red everywhere, not just in the charts where he/she is shown as "prob"able parent. :-(

A reminder: Some of my choices are whimsical. For example, the index entry for surname of the WEST includes mainly Roman Emperors, but also includes Dale Evans, `Queen of the West.' I'm sorry if my whimsy annoys some people.

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