How many degrees are you from Kevin Bacon? Who is closest?

+28 votes
1.8k views

Yesterday we finished up our "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" WikiTree Challenge. It was one of our best challenges yet, with 80 members participating and 1,016 relatives added within six degrees of Kevin!!! 

After integrating him more closely on our global family tree, how many degrees are you from him? You can check by going to his profile and selecting "Connection to Me" on the Bacon-2568 pull-down menu at the top of the page.

Altogether, 52,200 WikiTree members are closer to him than they were last week! Are any of us now within six degrees? Not quite. The biggest winner was Joan Burns (Wallace-4305). She was 24 degrees from him at the start of the week, and is now just nine degrees.

The other closest members:

  1. Grubb-375: 9 degrees from Kevin Bacon
  2. Zelley-5: 10 degrees
  3. Larsen-6543: 10 degrees
  4. Ward-35277: 10 degrees
  5. Brown-84618: 11 degrees
  6. Zwillinger-18: 11 degrees
  7. Chalmers-124: 11 degrees
  8. Clarkson-855: 11 degrees
  9. Lillevang-1: 11 degrees
  10. Jennings-7954: 11 degrees
  11. Lawrence-14415: 11 degrees
  12. McClintock-599: 11 degrees
  13. Day-9163: 11 degrees
  14. Gillett-1886: 11 degrees
  15. Arbuthnot-157: 11 degrees
  16. Guenther-272: 11 degrees

P.S. Watch for next Wednesday's WikiTree Family News newsletter. Every member who moved closer to him during the challenge week will get a special notice in their newsletter saying how much they moved during the week.

WikiTree profile: Kevin Bacon
in The Tree House by Mindy Silva G2G Astronaut (1.1m points)

Here are the members who moved the most, i.e. whose number of degrees changed the most dramatically during the week:

  1. O'Halloran-556: 24 degrees closer to Kevin Bacon
  2. Palfreyman-125: 18 degrees closer
  3. Oldham-2526: 18 degrees closer
  4. Lietzenmayer-1: 16 degrees closer
  5. Wenden-93: 16 degrees closer
  6. Springle-21: 16 degrees closer
  7. Goldberg-73: 15 degrees closer
  8. Nogroski-3: 15 degrees closer
  9. Wallace-4305: 15 degrees closer
  10. Blackman-1972: 15 degrees closer
  11. Mendelsohn-56: 15 degrees closer
  12. Hen-37: 15 degrees closer
  13. Canter-451: 15 degrees closer
  14. Bearg-17: 15 degrees closer
  15. Fuller-12938: 15 degrees closer
  16. Fuller-12941: 15 degrees closer
  17. Levitt-366: 15 degrees closer
  18. Zelley-5: 14 degrees closer
  19. Towle-180: 13 degrees closer
  20. Hetherington-1144: 13 degrees closer

Shawn Ligocki was awesome in keeping us up-to-date with charts like this one. He wrote a script that pulled stats every three hours and then graphed our progress. For us non-techies - it showed how much growth had occurred (profiles were added) at each of the six degrees. The final one, the sixth degree from Kevin Bacon, is represented by that upper brown line. It was fun to watch it climb higher throughout the challenge week!! Thank you Shawn!!

Dave Elya (Elya-8) is 19 Degrees from Kevin Bacon. Before the challenge there was no connection found!

I'm 19 degrees from Kevin Currently. The tie goes in a straight line from me to him on the material side of my biological tree.

Don't quite understand how to translate degrees to cousins and the like.

I also know I am missing people on that tree so the number may change.

30 Answers

+6 votes
I am the same as before the challenge -- 20 degrees.  I was hoping to move closer, but am happy to have added to the tree.
by Michelle Enke G2G6 Pilot (407k points)
Thanks for your help Michelle. You never know, you may move closer yet.
+5 votes
Wikitree has advised me that I'm 17 degrees from Kevin Bacon now, instead of the original 20 degrees they had reported.

Joe Morgan
by Joe Morgan G2G6 (7.0k points)
WooHoo! That means the connections and growth are working.
+5 votes

Went from 20 to 16 degrees and 15th Cousin, The MRCA is Agnes (Dolte) Baldwin (abt. 1475 - bef. 1566) Uncertain. There are 56 Common Ancesters.

by Jennifer Robins G2G6 Pilot (246k points)
Yay Jennifer! I'm glad you moved closer! We added a lot of profiles!
+5 votes
17 degrees from Kevin Bacon, Bacon-2568, 2 branches (5-13)
by Mildred Wheeler G2G6 Mach 7 (77.2k points)
That's great Mildred! I hope that gets even closer as more profiles are added.
+6 votes

15 degrees - and 6th cousins once removed from 
Susannah (Cole) Budd (abt.1715-abt.1770)

KB's fifth great grand mother, my 6th

237 common ancestors

Closer than to many other folks, but not close . . .

How about Kyra Sedgwick too?  She is also notable, perhaps as notable, imho, as her husband ("The Closer" comes to mind!, there are many other roles also).

Apparently an extensive genealogy has  been done and  (https://famouskin.com/famous-kin-menu.php?name=17830+kyra+sedgwick

I guess her permission would be needed to create a public profile on wikitree . . .?

by Mary Gossage G2G6 Mach 2 (27.2k points)
she already has a profile at ...

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sedgwick-172
+5 votes
well! how funny! i remember when this was actually a very witty thing to mention and DO back in the late 90s! i was almost ALARMED by the fact that Kevin and i are SUPER far apart (in real life!)!! i think maybe 18 degrees or something crazy. to me. because when that game was popular, my roommate at the time had a boyfriend who clearly needed a JOB and one day calculated my proximity to Mr. Bacon. now, i grew up on Martha's Vineyard (and live there now) and was rather spoiled, as we all are, growing up here with celebrities all around. we didn't pay much attention unless there was $$ involved! so i was in a movie called, "The Bostonians" with Christopher Reeve (what a sweet, absolutely real, cool guy he was!!) when i was 13. i was also in the worst movie EVER made, "Jaws: The Revenge". so he somehow made some actual calculations (better served at a JOB) and i was only 3 degrees away from Kevin Bacon! it was hilarious because HE used to tell other people about it and embarrassed the helsinki out of me all the time (i certainly was NOT trying to flaunt that Jaws 4 choir girl role in anyone's face..ugh..). so i'm going to stick with my IRL Kev-Bac # for now! lol!

Azi~
by HeatherAzi Goodwin G2G1 (1.6k points)
+3 votes
Who cares?!  Degrees are not RELATED so it is MEANINGLESS!!!
by John Albertini G2G6 (8.5k points)
+5 votes
Currently 19 degrees away from Kevin Bacon in our global tree.
by Emily Holmberg G2G6 Pilot (153k points)
+5 votes
I’ve added nearly a thousand profiles to my CC7 number since June, yet both my Kevin Bacon number and my QE2 remain stubbornly at 17.

Alas.
by Katrina Lawson G2G6 Mach 4 (47.0k points)
Congratulations on adding to your CC7!! I hope that moves closer at some point.
+3 votes
If it isn't a GENETIC degree I don't care one iota!  These degree things are MEANINGLESS if it is by marriage and not by BLOOD!!!
by John Albertini G2G6 (8.5k points)

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