The app has identified 151 celebrities who might be related to me.
- If the alleged ancestry for me is correct.
- If the alleged ancestry for the celebrity is correct.
Here is a selection of alleged kin Ancestry has identified for me. In the below cases, I have confirmed our alleged shared ancestor is actually my ancestor. (I haven't researched the alleged ancestries of the celebrity.) The alleged shared ancestor is emboldened.
Betts, Capt. Richard 1613-1713
1. Elizabeth Montgomery
2. Jim Varney
3. John Kerry
4. Johnny Depp
5. Mark Twain
6. Newt Gingrich
7. Tom Hanks
8. Truman Capote
Chamberlain, Joanna 1620-1711
[Note: Joanna Chamberlain married Capt. Richard Betts. Ancestry isn't consistent when choosing which spouse to list as the shared ancestor.]
9. Meryl Streep
10. Mitch McConnell
11. Bill Clinton
Chamberlain, Robert 1590-1639
[Note: Robert Chamberlain married Elizabeth Stoughton. See below]
12. Stephen King
13. Theodore Roosevelt
Frederickse, Myndert 1640-1706 (Son of Frederick Van Iveren)
14. Vincent Price
Horton, Barnabas 1600-1680
15. Henry Fonda
16. Humphrey Bogart
17. Norman Rockwell
Horton, Barnabas 1666-1705
18. Tobey Maguire
Horton, Penelope 1690-1746
19. Robin Williams
Magdalena, Anna 1679-1734
20. Lindsey Buckingham
Rosenberger, Heinrich 1680-1746
21. Blake Shelton
Schauer, Michael 1679-1710
22. Les Brown
Stoughton, Elizabeth 1600-1647
23. Ulysses S Grant
Swazey, John 1621-1692
24. Owen Hart
25. Amelia Earhart
26. Roy Orbison
Swazey, Joseph 1653-1717
27. Richard Gere
28. Warren Buffett
As I have noted in the past, I have not been able to research my ancestry back to John Lathrop, through his daughter Abigail, as the app alleges. However, John Lathrop's son, Samuel, married the daughter of my ancestor, Elizabeth Stoughton. Here are the celebrities that the app claims are Samuel's descendants. [While the app indicates our shared ancestor is John Lathrop, I know if the celebrity ancestry is accurate, we do share Elizabeth Stoughton as an ancestor, at an equal distance.]
1. Alec Baldwin
2. Billy the Kid
3. Carrie Underwood
4. Edgar Allan Poe
5. George H.W. Bush
6. George W Bush
7. Mitt Romney
8. Paul E Brown
There are a total of 36 individuals listed above. The other 115 allege an ancestor for me that I haven't yet been able to confirm. Nor have I found a workaround similar to the Lathrop-Stoughton connection. (It doesn't mean the app is wrong. I'm not claiming that my end-of-line research is anywhere near complete, but it does suggest a lot of the allegations are based on family trees where the researcher has made leaps without documentation.)