In researching a previous blog post about Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s Finding Your Roots, I checked on WikiTree to find out whether he and I might be related, since we each have Gates ancestors who emigrated from Ireland to America.
![By Ricardo Stuckert/PR - Agência Brasil [1], CC BY 3.0 br, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=725375](https://i0.wp.com/abacosun.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/elizabeth_ii.jpg?resize=595%2C729&ssl=1)
Though I wasn’t able to find a family connection between Mr. Gates and me, I did a bit of exploring to find out what other famous relatives I might have.
Turns out I’m related to long list of famous (and in some cases, infamous) characters including Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Jesse James, Amelia Earhart, Winston Churchill, Barack Obama and even Queen Elizabeth II (we’re 11th cousins, 4 times removed.)
If you’re interested in genealogy and haven’t yet discovered WikiTree, it’s definitely worth a look.
What’s great about WikiTree is that it aims to have just one profile per person. Unlike Ancestry.com and other similar sites, where the same person or family can be listed numerous times in multiple family trees, WikiTree is just one gigantic family tree.
I also like that there’s a bit of a screening process and an honour code for contributors. There are also privacy controls for folks who may not be comfortable sharing personal information online. As a WikiTree member, you can create a profile for an ancestor or relative who’s not yet listed and contribute additional details or images to existing profiles. It’s a much more collaborative process than Ancestry.com. Plus, it’s free to join!
As of today, more than 12.5 million people are profiled on WikiTree, their genealogical information managed by more than 375,000 genealogists around the world.
Are you and I related? On your WikiTree profile page, select “Find” at the top, and then scroll down to “Relationship.” Type your WikiTree ID and mine (Diedrick-05) and let me know if you find a connection!
