question about ancestry.com?

Question

I know I'm related to some generals ba/bla. My famliy has kept the journals and newspaper clippings, and has some of there stuff.
I was on ancestry.com and I was looking farther back on my dad's/ my tree. I saw this button click to see famous people this person is related too. I was on I need to know if this is for real.
It had a list of all these famous people, that were distant cousins to my ggg grandfather? I need to know if that part is a joke?

I didn't run spell check (sorry)

I already have my ggg stuff. I'm looking farther back , web had a button

mine is right, my 75 yr. old grandfather gave me the list. He already had the basics written down.
This is just on the Schofields's dad side.(haven't even looked at dad's grandmothers.) Ya, I'm distant cousins to 7 first ladies. 3 presidents. 3 signed Declaration Independence.
A women poet,,a women who started the feminist movement during the civil war. a architect and my favorite artist(one of them).
Most of the men on my dad side married European born women or the parents were European (which are hard to trace)
Mom's side my gg grandmother is a Gustin and she is related to the Love's which makes us distant relatives to a looser President. I checked those branches 20times, hoping for an error. I always wondered why he made such bad choices.

Answer 1

It's all as good as the research - yours first.

When you've found your ancestors far enough back then you probably are related to most of those shown. I'd known I was related to a few US Presidents - but for pete's sake, *most* of them - and half their wives? I had no idea.

Related to generals may suggest that your family has a strong military background, and those who were sons of officers probably got better fed, educated, and leadership patterning than some others. Me, I might say to look into who their mothers and grandmothers were!

Answer 2

No joke, but we have found a few errors in them. Like all published research, double check their trees for yourself because we're all prone to errors. One glaring error that I found a few years ago was that they had Daniel Boone listed as dying in Kentucky...not even close. And they had the wrong date. The researcher goofed and we sent them a note. They corrected it pretty quickly but the harm was already done...people had already relied on that info.

If you want to prove that they were distant cousins to your ggg grandfather, it appears the records do exist. Go through all the normal steps of genealogy to prove or disprove the links. Then go to the mainstream research societies where much of this info may be both well-documented and readily accessible (especially if you had generals in the family). Sons of the American Revolution, Daughters of the American Revolution, and Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War are all really excellent resources to help in this kind of research.

Answer 3

Hey Apple,

It is not intended to be a joke. As long as you prove your connections, with Vital Records these are probably true. You can join a DNA project if they are in your Surname. Or you can prove relationship to someone in the surname DNA project and then the DNA will back up your research.

I once ran into Adam and Eve in a Tree, hundreds of generations prior to Cleopatra - that was a joke. But it is realistic to think that you could have famous people in your Tree.