2022 WikiTree Challenge 11: Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon has ended. Thank you for your participation!! [closed]

+98 votes
15.9k views

Hello WikiTreers!

We mixed things up for #11 of the WikiTree Challenge. This one was a special Year of Family Connections challenge focused on the world's most famous connection anchor, Kevin Bacon. His ancestry was already well-developed on WikiTree, but remarkably, his wider connections were not. There were hundreds of collateral relatives that could be added. We adjusted our scoring for this challenge so that points were awarded for every profile added within six degrees.

To make things interesting, we recorded every single member's connection distance to Kevin Bacon at the start of the week. Then we recorded it at the end of the week. Watch for those results! Whose connection distance shrunk? Whose shrunk the most? Were any members within six degrees? We've had a lot of fun with this.

The week officially began on Thursday, June 2nd at noon EDT (4pm UTC) and ended at noon EDT (4pm UTC) on June 9th. You didn't need any particular research skills to help! Live chat occurred in Discord. So much amazing collaboration went on during the week!

As usual, you guys rocked the week!!! Watch the G2G for the announcement of the next set of video shorts to come out for the challenge. See you next challenge week!

WikiTree profile: Kevin Bacon
closed with the note: Thank you for your participation!!
in The Tree House by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
closed by Mindy Silva
Has anyone found any Welsh ancestry or connections to Kevin? If so, what parts of Wales?

I just found John Deere, the tractor guy, connected to the Bacon tree. That was a surprise! He's 8 degrees from Kevin Bacon!

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Deere-10

@Steven Williams, the closest now seems to be Jones-120382, born 1794 in "Wales", being 7 degrees from Bacon.
My nearest confident connection to Kevin Bacon is the marriage of his 7th cousin George Crum to my 8th cousin Phyllis Barkell.

However, I have Deere ancestors from Wisbech, Capital of the Fens, in Cambridgeshire.

A Deere family of Sibton, Coastal Suffolk, in the early 1200s, figure in the records of Sibton Abbey that were copied on the instructions of Henry V’s into his early royal records a couple of years prior to Agincourt.
Oddly enough, I went from 19 degrees to 20; however, my relationship changed from 10th cousin, three times removed to 9th cousins twice removed.

349 Answers

+20 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall or make a connection for Kevin’s great-grandfather Thomas Pryor Bacon, or have questions or research notes on this line.

WT Branches 

Connection Bounty: Bounty claimed and verified on this line!

Brick Wall BountyJoseph Skelton Solved!!

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
Adding info on the Pryor line
Added Margaret Edge (Pryor) Bacon’s parents Thomas White Pryor & Susanna (Edge) Pryor, plus Susanna’s father Jacob Edge. Thomas W’s parents were already on WikiTree so I connected him to them.
Nice work Liza!!
connected Thomas' gr-gr-grandmother Sarah West Bacon to her parents - Charles West and Hannah Cooper West
Great Jana! Thanks!
Broke through the Brick Wall (bounty) of Joseph Skelton (Skelton-21) and verified his line to Kevin Bacon by adding a source to someone in between the two. Also added siblings for Joseph Skelton.

Wow! That was fast Craig! Congratulations. laugh

+16 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall or make a connection for Kevin’s great-grandmother Annie Elizabeth Ellis, or have questions or research notes this line.

WT Branches 

Connection Bounty: Bounty claimed and verified on this line!

Brick Wall BountyMargaret (Willis) Paul Solved!!

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
edited by Mindy Silva

Congratulations on that Ellis connection, Beth!!

Middleton-7585 Profile Ellis-5448 Profile
Thanks!
I don't know if this counts for a bounty, because I haven't found her mother, but... I was able to fill in a citation using her father's will that proves she was his daughter, undoubtedly.
Congratulations N. Gauthier for the bounty points on this line!!
+16 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall or make a connection for Kevin’s great-grandfather Robert Comly, or have questions or research notes on this line.

WT Branches 

Connection Bounty: Bounty claimed and verified on this line!

Brick Wall BountyLlewelyn David

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
edited by Mindy Silva

For Patience M Howell, I added her parents.  Her father, Samuel Howell, existed in the Global Tree so I connected him, and I added her mother, Elizabeth Mifflin, as a new profile.

I found and added the parents of Samuel Howell.  They are Samuel Howell and Ann Evans. The Quakers did such a good job of documenting everything.

I connected the parents of Elizabeth Mifflin.  They were Daniel Mifflin and Ann Walker, and they already existed in the tree.

I connected existing profile Flowers-3378 to the new profile Palmer-26990 which connects his Bacon line again to the main tree.

I added the parents of Sarah Monrow. They were John Monrow and Margaret Mitchell

+15 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall or make a connection for Kevin’s great-grandmother Lydia Townsend Atkinson, or have questions or research notes on this line.

WT Branches 

Connection Bounty: Bounty claimed and verified on this line!

Brick Wall Bounty: Jane Luken Ferris Solved!!

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
edited by Mindy Silva
I added Hockley Cloyd McKee [[McKee-6465]] as spouse of Elizabeth Ballinger Atkinson [[Atkinson-4378]] I included the slaves from the 1850 slave schedule.
I added Sarah A. Black [[Black-21600]] as wife for John Atkinson [[Atkinson-3249]] and improved John's biography.
I added John Atkinson's second wife, Anna T. Newbold Black [[Black-21602]] and connected her to her parents, Edwin Black [[Black-15094]] and Euphemia Newbold [[Newbold-695]].
I added her grandmother Elisabeth (Clement) Townsend [[Clement- 4445]]
Congratulations on that connection Bounty, Margaret!! Nice work.
I added Nancy Phillips Batson [[Batson-1072]] as wife of Dillman Atkinson Rash. I connected Nancy to her father Homer Ward Batson [[Batson-779]].
Ok... Jane Lucken/Lukens Fearis/Ferris Bond have sources and are linked up.
What more would you like to claim the bounty on Jane Luckens Ferris? She is in the will of her father and appears in many scholarly articles on the Lucken/Lukens family. I am happy to keep looking, but tell me what you need so I can focus my attention. Thanks.
Those points have shown up on the score sheet now! Yay!
Thank you so much Mindy! Much love to you!!
I just wanted to let you know that I was able to link up Jane Lucken (via her mother, Jane Scull) to a vast beautiful tree of the Fermor earls that goes back back back to time immemorial.
+15 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall or make a connection for Kevin’s great-grandfather Artemas Henry Holmes, or have questions or research notes on this line.

WT Branches 

Connection Bounty: Bounty claimed on this line

Brick Wall BountyJames Bloomer

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
edited by Mindy Silva
I added his first wife, who died in childbirth. I'm going to try to connect her now.
Good luck Katherine! Let us know how it goes.

From the Global Tree I connected Abijah Little as father of Melissa Jane Little; I also connected Elizabeth Bean as mother of Melissa. Likely no points, but letting you know anyway.

I added the source for the marraige of Artemas Henry Holmes (Holmes-2270)  to Elizabeth Allen (Allen-57738).
I'm going to check those connections tomorrow (to verify each step). Really nice work Morgan and Tabatha!
Great connection, Morgan! Do you have a source for Elizabeth to her father?
I added the parents of Edith Easton Holmes, Artemas Lawrence Holmes' wife & grandson of Artemas Henry Holmes.
I just found Welsh ancestors on this line.
That's great Judi!
+14 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall or make a connection for Kevin’s great-grandmother Lillian Stokes, or have questions or research notes on this line.

WT Branches 

Connection Bounty: Bounty claimed and verified on this line!

Brick Wall BountyWilliam Stokes Solved!!

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
edited by Mindy Silva

I added two wives to Lillian's nephew Walter Watson Stokes (Stokes-2044) They are Mary Longstreth (Constable) Howse (Constable-2121) and Hannah Lee (Sherman) Stokes (Sherman-9189). Also: his son Walter Watson Stokes Jr (Stokes-7314)

I added Lillian's two brothers,

[[Stokes-3972|Henry Bolter Stokes (1848-1914)]] who already had a profile on wikitree and [[Stokes-7313|John S Stokes (1844-)]] whose profile I created.

Henry has a wife and children already on wikitree. Do I get points for them too?
Nice work Karen & Nancy!
I added Mary Constable Stokes's second husband, [[Howze-130|Samuel Perry Howze (1886-)]]
I can only award one connection bounty for this line. It's great that you are making additional connections, though!
I think that I may have the Brick wall broken down on William Stokes's father.  I found their information from the book called "Stokes Records".
Great Chris! Nice find.
+13 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall or make a connection for Kevin’s great-grandfather George Campbell Smith, or have questions or research notes on this line.

WT Branches 

Connection Bounty: Bounty claimed and verified on this line!

Brick Wall BountyFreelove (Rogers) Smith

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
edited by Mindy Silva
Profile updated post-merge duplicate date cleaned and added more sources.
Does this count as a new connection:

From Smith-87105 (existing) 1) added his son Smith-276341 2) added his daughter Smith-276355 3) added her daughter Proctor-6647 4) added her husband Seward-2001 5) added his father Seward-2002 6) connected to his daughter (existing) Seward-1938

Mickey
If you can find one of those that are connected to the global tree, it would work!
The existing daughter Seward-1938 was already connected to the global tree.
Ahh, okay Mickey. I missed that connection!

I added some records for Freelove Smith, including a record of baptizing twins Stephen and Shubael in 1759, which should solve confusion that apparently existed about whether Stephen and Shubel were the same person.  The twin named Stephen apparently died, before a second Stephen was baptized in 1761. I didn't create profiles for the extra children I found in records; someone else can get some points for that.

But I didn't make progress on Freelove, and I have not even come across evidence showing that her LNAB was Rogers.

Thank you for working on that Ellen!
+15 votes

Comment here if you break a brick wall or make a connection for Kevin’s great-grandmother Anne Kammerer Schmertz, or have questions or research notes on this line.

WT Branches 

Connection Bounty: Bounty claimed and verified on this line!

Brick Wall BountyCaroline (von Wesphalen) Schmertz  Solved!!

by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)
edited by Mindy Silva
I added some Kemmerers and Kemmers from Baumholder, Germany.... I was so hoping to connect Kevin Bacon's Kammerers to my Cammerers... But mine were from Blankenloch and his were from Baumholder and Mambachel.
Aww, I hope you find a connection somewhere else!

I was able to connect Eleanor F. Severance (Schmertz) to her husband Samuel Severance.

You've been busy, Robert! Thanks for all of your work.
Where's your brick wall, Beth?
For Cammerer, it is Isaac Cammerer in Blankenloch.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cammerer-23
+33 votes
Ha ha, this looks like fun!  I'd like to be in for this challenge.
by E. Compton G2G6 Pilot (193k points)
Great E! Thanks!!
Bring on the Bacon!!!

Now, if only we could connect the Eggs family! laugh

+24 votes
Sign me up.
by Tommy Buch G2G Astronaut (1.8m points)

Great Tommy! Thanks!! Oh, and we are using the challenge #11 after all laugh

acknowledged
+25 votes
Okay, I will accept this as a worthy replacement to what we would have had and will help where I can. Sorry to hear that the timing wasn't right for Mary Roach.
by Steven Greenwood G2G6 Pilot (117k points)
Great Steven, thanks! Hopefully we get Mary back later in the year.
+23 votes
Sounds like a fun week ahead.  Count me in.
by Karen Stewart G2G6 Pilot (123k points)
Great Karen! Thanks!!
+23 votes
I'll sign up for this one :)
by Jamie Nelson G2G6 Pilot (607k points)
Great Jamie! Thanks!!
+22 votes
Yes please - register my interest
by Rosalie Neve G2G6 Pilot (173k points)
Great Rosalie! Thanks!!
+22 votes
Looking forward to seeing what interesting finds will be found.
by Kathy Nava G2G6 Pilot (292k points)
Great Kathy! Always glad to have you!
+22 votes
I'm in this time. Let's see how much nearer to the center I come.
by Jelena Eckstädt G2G Astronaut (1.4m points)
Great Jelena! Let us know if you get any closer.
+20 votes
Are you going to do a Wikitree  Zoom meeting with Kevin Bacon ? My Bacon Number is 3 but it would be fun to make it 1 .I don’t know, though, whether zoom counts. Or will he just feature in the roundup video ?
by Joe Farler G2G6 Pilot (149k points)
I wish we were! He will just be a 'focus' though, and not a 'guest.' Who knows, maybe he will see the great discoveries that we find and reach out afterwards.
+22 votes
I'd like to join this challenge.
by Tracey Bent G2G6 Mach 1 (15.5k points)
Great Tracey! Thanks for joining in again!
+21 votes
i'm all in
by J. Mancha G2G6 (7.1k points)
Great J!! Welcome to the challenge!
+21 votes
Yes, I will help!
by Michelle Enke G2G6 Pilot (407k points)
It will be neat to see if my number of degrees drop from the current level of 20.
Ooh, let us know if you get closer Michelle!!

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