If a person belongs to a small family branch of a famous person, can they rightfully claim to be the great-grandchild of that famous person?
In my place there is a TV show that is similar to American shows like American Idols or The Voice. In one episode a candidate, after finishing his performance and greatly impressing the judges, claimed to be the 8th generation great-grandchild of a very famous 17th century poet. It sounded pretty legit since they had the same surname as the poet, but that surname isn’t enough to prove anything. First off, the surename isn’t common but it isn’t rare either. Secondly, I have been digging for information on the poet on the net and there is no record of the man ever having a wife or children.
I have this theory: the poet might have had some relative, or even a brother (information about his early life is pretty fuzzy so things like that is quite possible). So supposedly, the branch of the family tree with him in it ended with him, but the branch of the relative or the brother continued to grow, and at some point it comes to the above-mentioned candidate. But even if that is the case, I can’t understand why he could blatantly claimed the poet to be his great-grandpa. After all the only connection of the poet to the candidate is a long lost relative. The family branch of the poet and the candidate stopped meeting after that point. It just doesn’t feel so right to me.
So is it possible that the candidate’s claim is valid, or is it just another stunt to shock the viewers? Apparently everyone believed him immediately and his claim was all over the newspapers for quite a while.
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Sure, although it may not matter much, ya know, “10 degrees of separation”, or however it goes…
I am the great great great great grand nephew of the commanding confederate general who was killed at Shiloh. But I don’t brag about it…
“I have a famous relative” is a way for people to make themselves seem more important than they actually are.
He may be telling truth, but he may be lying, we don’t know. What you propose is possible, he may be a descendant of the poet’s relative. It would make them distant relatives.
Either way, it bears absolutely no significance.
If he is not a direct descendant, no.
What you describe in paragraph two is an 8th generation descendant of a grand uncle, the brother of the poet. Technically, the bloodline is intact. How meaningful this is and whether or not it has anything to with the singer’s present talent is debatable. But to dog and horse breeders these things carry a lot of weight.
For instance, a foal that can claim descendancy from Man o’ War who won the 20 top competitive American horse races from 1919 to 1921—once by 100 lengths against the first ever Triple Crown winner—will quintuple that foal’s selling price against other thoroughbreds. But I seriously don’t think it carries a lot of weight where humans are concerned, since their multigenerational breeding isn’t usually confined to, in this case, artists or poets specifically, especially on the female side.
It’s just an interesting piece of trivia, if true.
Is he a direct descendant of Person X? If so then yes, he can rightfully claim to be the great (x however many)-grandchild of Person X. It wouldn’t mean much, but the claim would be legit.
Why do you care? I mean are you just curious or something more than that?
@imrainmaker yeah, I’m just curious. I just found it strange that people took his claim seriously right away, given that the poet is very famous and almost everyone knows about his life. The claim started from a joke of the judges saying that he and the poet and the man could be related since both of them had the same surname, and the man replied right away that he was actually the descendant of the poet. He became a phenomenon for a while.
I thought that his claim wasn’t valid if he wasn’t a direct ascendant. Thanks for proving me the opposite.
Nowadays, they can’t. They can, however, yell as loud as they can about being a blood-relative of a certain person, it’s their freedom, but when it comes to legal matters (such as property distribution of deceased related family member) they’ll need a birth certificate or DNA tests for their claim to be valid.
I must say that newspaper, too, sometimes like to provoke people by adding speculation in their content. It’s wrong to distribute potentially fallacious information to the public but, then again, the public are generally gullible and foolish.
I once thought that I was related to Abraham Lincoln, because we had possibly that same rare genetic disorder called Marfan’s syndrome . Turns out I don ‘t have it so it was fun thinking that I was related.
For what it’s worth the idea that Abraham Lincoln had Marfan’s is only speculation by some folks. It’s never been established one was or the other.
I had a question just like that – sort of. My Dad’s cousin married the cousin of a famous person, so am I a cousin (x times removed) from that famous person?
@YARNLADY No. There is no blood relation, only by marriage.
@YARNLADY
According to this (look under “Removed”), your father’s cousin is your first cousin, once removed. So, I guess the best you can say is that your cousin, once removed, married the first cousin of a famous person.
HERE is a list of hyperlinks to genealogy programs, some of which are free, some deal with in-law relationships and some of which support foreign languages.
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