What started as genealogy fun turned into a genealogy BONANZA!

For the past week, I’ve been playing around with Ancestry’s We’re Related app. This app takes my Heartland_Genealogy tree on Ancestry and compares it to trees of famous people – and Facebook friends (if desired). My list of matches (to date) include: Miley Cyrus, Eminem, Britney Spears, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Matt Damon, Marilyn Monroe, Walt Disney and Winston Churchill and John Kerry. After connecting to a few genealogy friends on Facebook, it added Peggy Lauritzen and Drew Smith. For the most part, I didn’t recognize the common ancestor and didn’t take it seriously.

However, when Peggy Lauritzen, was added, I was curious about how our lines might connect. The app had taken my tree and added several generations of women to make the connection — mothers, grandmothers, etc. that were not in my tree. Our connection goes thru my BURKE line — particularly Elizabeth Graves who the app indicated was the mother of my ancestor Henry F. Burke.

Thus, began my quest to see if I could find documentation supporting the relationship between Henry F. Burke and Elizabeth Graves. Using Ancestry, I found the Burke Family Tree by Barbara_Parker1510. This tree indicated that John Burke and Elizabeth Graves were the parents of Henry F. Burke. Not only did I find a tree supporting the pedigree in the We’re Related app but I hit the jackpot. Barbara had transcribed a lengthy court record that outlined many of the descendants of John Burke in a dispute over his land. Not only did Barbara transcribe this document but she provided enough info to locate the original images on Family Search!

Unfortunately, my link with Drew Smith did not expand my SMITH line(s). Nor have any of the links expanded my CRAWFORD or CURREY lines. However, it seems to add people every few days — so hope is still alive.