Odds in favor of purely coincidental relationship

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Tony Hoskins

Odds in favor of purely coincidental relationship

Legg inn av Tony Hoskins » 07 mai 2006 00:52:39

"I have, for instance, tried to calculate the degrees of relationship
between some of the married couples amongst the ancestors of Edward
Docwra (1616-1665) of Cherry Hinton, Cambs: his parents were 9th
cousins."

Given at least some ethnic commonality, the statistics are
overwhelmingly in favor of a 9th to 11th or so cousin-ship for *any* two
Americans with even a tendril of 17th century immigrant
European-to-America ancestry. Some cases in point - married couples with
utterly no knowledge of relationship (until I came along):

My parents, William and Jessie (Shields) Hoskins:
9th cousins (descents from Thomas and Phebe (Parkhurst) Arnold); 9th
cousins, once removed (twice) from John and Ann Barlow, also 10th
cousins (twice) from John and Ann Barlow; and 10th cousins, once removed
(twice) from John Pabodie.

My paternal grandparents, Glenn and Louise (Maxwell) Hoskins:
9th cousins, once removed by descents from Anders Bratt [Norwegian
living in Holland, father of the NY immigrants Albert and Arent Bratt].

My great grandparents William and Julia (Comstock) Maxwell:
6th cousins, once removed (twice) by descents from Gideon and Sarah
(Prudden) Allen; 7th cousins by descents from Phineas and Ruth (Wood)
Upham; 8th cousins (twice) by descents from Thomas and Anna (Stacey)
Fitch); 9th cousins (twice) by descents from Francis and Anne (Goode)
Wakeman; and 8th cousins, once removed (twice) by descents from
Sylvester and Sarah Baldwin.

Etc., etc., etc.

In eleven years teaching genealogy at Chicago's Newberry Library, I
never once failed to find at least one student in my four yearly classes
that wasn't at least a 10th cousin of mine.

I was amused but not surprised to discover that my assistant here in
Santa Rosa turns out to be my 8th cousin, once removed - we being
mutually descended from Josiah and Martha (Miller) Hollister (1696-1749
and 1696-1777 respectively) of Glastonbury, Connecticut.

It can truly be said that, for many of us, a high percentage of the
population is a Cousin Unaware!

Tony Hoskins



Anthony Hoskins
History, Genealogy and Archives Librarian
History and Genealogy Library
Sonoma County Library
3rd and E Streets
Santa Rosa, California 95404

707/545-0831, ext. 562

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