Which Irish notable are you most closely connected to?

Question

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This week's Example Profile of the Week is St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland.

Featured alongside him are other Irish notables:

• Arthur Guinness
• Maureen O'Hara
• Michael Collins
• George Bernard Shaw
• Constance Gore-Booth
• Grace O'Malley
• Oscar Wilde
• Daniel O'Connell

Who are you most closely connected to? If you're one of the 22,003,000 of us who are connected to each other on our big tree you can check with the Connection Finder.

You can also check for shared ancestors with the Relationship Finder. Are you a cousin to any of them? Your Relationship Finder Quick Links page (see your profile pull-down menu under "Relationships") has quick links for several notable groups.

Let us know below!

P.S. Help us choose and improve profiles for next week's feature: Suffragettes for Women's History Month!

Comments

46 degrees from Patrick ap Calpurnius.

19 degrees from Arthur Guinness.

19 degrees from Maureen O'Hara.

23 degrees from Michael Collins.

19 degrees from George Bernard Shaw.

20 degrees from Constance Markiewicz.13th cousin 3 times removed. MRCA William Brereton (abt 1414 - 1456).

17 degrees from Grainne O'Malley.

25 degrees from Oscar Wilde. Although it didn't register with family finder, I know we share Puleston ancesters through my Awbrey line (i.e. we're cousins).

22 degrees from Daniel O'Connell. 16th cousin 4 times removed. MRCA Thomas de Beauchamp (abt 1314 - 1369).

---

Constance Gore-Booth, 12th cousin twice removed. No other blood and no one closer than 18 degrees using connection finder.

Yet, 23andMe tells me I am mostly Irish!! We must have been the peasant class.

---

Hi, Amy Lynn,

I have just added a long comment to your profile page to help answer your question. You will want to ask your question by posting it as  question of your own. It should look something like this. (Click this link.)

---

Thank you.

I keep getting mail welcoming me here, so I must look even dumber than I feel. But thanks  very much for your time.

---

I just looked at your profile. Lots of nice people are offering to help you. Most of them are advising you to start with yourself, and then your parents. And for most people that's good advice. I'm a bit different. When I joined Wikitree, my father was already in it, so I looked around for something else  to do. The first thing I saw was the photo challenge of the week, so I started there, looking at everyone else's photos and figuring out how to add mine (it took me a while, and I had a lot of help.) I have found so many interesting things that I never did any more of my own tree. I did not read the "guide for new members" page until today. So have fun.

---

Well, since I added myself, my parents, my Grandparents, Great Grandparents, and have 400 years of ancestors records in a well-organized folder, and I'm still being told to "start with [your] parents"? I think this probably isn't a great fit for me.

I don't want to start over. I haven't learned one new thing here, but have been told I'm wrong often. I'm just too depressed for this.

Answer 1

I am most closely connected to George Bernard Shaw, who is 16 degrees away from me.

Constance Gore-Booth is my closest relative on that list. We are 13th Cousins 4x removed. Our common ancestor is William Offley.

Answer 2

I am most closely connected to Arthur Guinness at 22 degrees.

Answer 3

For notables, most closely connected to George Bernard Shaw at 18 degrees.

Most interesting connection, however, is the 16 degree connection with member Beth Stephenson.

Answer 4

19 degrees from George Bernard Shaw
20 degrees from Maureen O'Hara
22 degrees from Gráinne O'Malley
22 degrees from Daniel O'Connell (18th cousins, 4x removed)
22 degrees from Arthur Guinness
22 degrees from Constance Markievicz (11th cousinsx 5x removed)
23 degrees from Michael Collins
26 degrees from Oscar Wilde
49 degrees from Patrick ap Calpurnius

Answer 5

I am 13 Degrees from Arthur Guinness.

Answer 6

25 from Oscar Wilde

Answer 7

I am  50 degrees from Patrick ap Calpurnius, 22 degrees from Arthur Guinness, 23 degrees from Maureen O'Hara, 23 degrees from Michael Collins, 18 degrees from George Bernard Shaw, 23 degrees from Constance Markievicz, 23 degrees from Gráinne O'Malley, 26 degrees from Oscar Wilde, 16 degrees from Daniel O'Connell and 22 degrees from Beth Stephenson

Answer 8

Well, it looks like I am Irish. I am only 13 degrees from Daniel O'Connell, and 37 degrees from him using a common ancestor. My Great Great Grandmother is my only known Irish ancestor going back 5 generations, but DNA says I am 1/4 Irish! Hmmm, looks like more research is needed...

Answer 9

This is the longest path I have seen for me to a notable, for I am 50 degrees to St. Patrick!  The generational path was also interesting to view for it had many ups and downs to trace to him.

I was surprised to see that I am only 18 degrees from Maureen O'Hara, for I do not have any Irish ancestors.

Answer 10

This is too much fun to pass up.  Lets make this a count down by degrees. :D

51 degrees from Patrick ap Calpurnius

26 degrees from Oscar Wilde

24 degrees from Daniel O'Connell

 24 degrees from Michael Collins

22 degrees from Arthur Guinness

21 degrees from Maureen O'Hara 

21 degrees from Constance Markievicz

21 degrees from Gráinne O'Malley

21 degrees from Beth Stephenson

And the winner is....

20 degrees from George Bernard Shaw

Answer 11

George Bernard Shaw at 19 is the closest.  On average I'm farther from this Irish list than many of the other sets of profiles.  It doesn't surprise me.  I'm supposed to be 34% Irish, but the Irish part of my family includes the most recent immigrants, and I suspect they were rather poor in Ireland.  

I wonder if there is any real research on the extent to which economic status correlates with genealogical traceability.  It seems obvious that the very top of society gets more space in history books and vanity genealogies.  Even for the non-elite I bet the better-off were more likely to attend stone churches with carefully-kept records protected from fire and rot.

Comments

That is an interesting thing to wonder about, though I don't know if anyone has done any systematic research. It also depends on whether anyone thought it was worthwhile to keep track of one's ancestors / descendants. For example, someone thought it was important to find 5 generations of descendants for everyone who got off the Mayflower.

---

Take a look at this question I posted. Why do some people have better family trees than others?

---

Thanks for the link.  Whether people think keeping track of ancestors is worthwhile, as you mentioned, has to be a big factor.  This is bound to apply on many scales, from individual families to entire cultures.

If you have any Bogart relatives from early New York, we are probably related on my non-Irish side.

---

Hello again--Your Bogart ancestors are probably related to my Vander Bogart ones. If I could ever connect my 2-great grandfather, John Vander Bogart, to any ancestors, I could tell you for sure. According to the family Bible, he was born in 1783; according to the census, he was born in Columbia County, New York. However, I think of him not as a brick wall, but as a haystack that might have a needle in it. All I have to do is go through all the records in Columbia County, and find someone with the right birth date and a name that could be  his.

---

That is so interesting, Joyce and J Ryan!  The whole idea of 'worthwhile to keep track of' is interesting because it doesn't just mean rich and aristocratic (who needed to be kept track of for property and title transfers) but also extremely poor and possibly illegitimate, as their parish tried to figure out who should be paying.

---

Hi, Shirlea,

I have been thinking a lot about this. A few days ago, I posted a question; I plan to go back and add an explanation, once everyone has had a chance to read and comment. Take a look.

My grandmother was a Smith. Do you think we are related?

---

Hi Joyce!  After a lifetime of assuming that i'm NOT related to other Smiths and that Smith is a hard name to research, i've come to the conclusion that actually it is not different from other names!  I feel like now i almost specialize in Smith and Jones!  Tell me more about your Smiths - we might indeed be related!  My dad was born in England - his Smith line had been in the south corner of Cambridgeshire for 200 years - Surprisingly, the descendants of one multiple times great-uncle became LDS, so some work had been done on them before i got involved!  At first i thought it must be some mistake, but it was real...and now DNA is backing it up.  I have another Smith line that comes from Londonderry to the Canadian Maritimes in the mid 1700s - maybe that will be our connection...

I remember long ago doing some work on a family that had a name like Gustavus Stickney reoccur 4 or 5 times in 3 generations, which made me stop feeling sorry for myself as a researcher of Smiths, and accept that the same procedures are required for all research!

---

Howdy possible Smith cousins.  (My lot were more Northumberland-ish.)  I do have living non-Smith-named cousins in England, where our lines connect at a Smith.  (Notables, no less.)

Answer 12

Daniel O'Connell - 16th cousin 4x removed

Answer 13

• 50 degrees from Patrick ap Calpurnius
• 16 degrees from Arthur Guinness
• 26 degrees from Maureen O'Hara
• 22 degrees from Michael Collins
• 21 degrees from George Bernard Shaw
• 18 degrees from Constance Markievicz (13C2R)
• 21 degrees from Gráinne O'Malley
• 20 degrees from Oscar Wilde
• 21 degrees from Daniel O'Connell (15C5R)

Answer 14

I am most closely connected to Maureen O'Hara at 20 degrees.

• 20 degrees from Maureen O'Hara
• 21 degrees from George Bernard Shaw
• 22 degrees from Gráinne O'Malley
• 23 degrees from Arthur Guinness
• 24 degrees from Michael Collins
• 24 degrees from Constance Markievicz
• 26 degrees from Daniel O'Connell
• 28 degrees from Oscar Wilde
• 52 degrees from Patrick ap Calpurnius

Answer 15

Arthur Guinness is 19 Degrees from Sandra Vines
Maureen O'Hara is 19 Degrees
Michael Collins is 22 Degrees
George Bernard Shaw is 19 Degrees
Constance Markievicz is 17 Degrees,

9th cousins four times removed

Gráinne O'Malley is 18 Degrees
Oscar Wilde is 22 Degrees
Daniel O'Connell is 21 Degrees

Patrick ap Calpurnius is 48 Degrees

 

Answer 16

14 degrees and 5th cousins 3 times removed from Constance (Gore-Booth) Markievicz, both descendants of Oliver Lambart MP.

Answer 17

You are 47 degrees from Patrick ap Calpurnius, 22 degrees from Arthur Guinness, 21 degrees from Maureen O'Hara, 23 degrees from Michael Collins, 19 degrees from George Bernard Shaw, 23 degrees from Constance Markievicz, 19 degrees from Gráinne O'Malley, 26 degrees from Oscar Wilde, 22 degrees from Daniel O'Connell and 18 degrees from Beth Stephenson.

Answer 18

Daniel O'Connell and I are 17th cousins

Answer 19

48 degrees from Patrick ap Calpurnius

22 degrees from Arthur Guinness

19 degrees from Maureen O'Hara

26 degrees from Michael Collins

20 degrees from George Bernard Shaw

21 degrees from Constance Markievicz, 

21 degrees from Gráinne O'Malley

25 degrees from Oscar Wilde

22 degrees from Daniel O'Connell 

20 degrees from Beth Stephenson.

Answer 20

47 degrees from Patrick ap Calpurnius - apparently his sister is my maternal and paternal 44th Great Grandmother through three Millard siblings and one Mallonee sister as well as my maternal 45th Great Grandmother through another Mallonee sister.

My closest is 19 degrees from Daniel O'Connell