Did you see that Henry VIII has replaced Queen Victoria as the Connection Anchor?

Question

Connectors and other WikiTreers,

As of this morning, King Henry VIII has replaced Queen Victoria in the Connection Finder. That is, Henry VIII will now be the one constant "Connection Anchor" to whom we calculate our degrees of separation.

This change was partly to mix things up for variety, and partly just so that we could do a "How are you related to the King?" feature alongside Elvis Presley at the RootsTech conference this week. (Eowyn has bought cardboard cut-outs of Elvis and Henry VIII for the booth. I promise, we will have pictures!)

If Connectors prefer Victoria we can switch her back next week, or keep Henry VIII for some months and then swap in someone else for variety.

Yours in genealogy,

Chris

Comments

I’d prefer different people maybe every month,  not him permanently. He’s not exactly someone to be admired. Just my opinion.

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I love King Henry the VIII, thanks so much!!!

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I don't think he's anyone to lose your head over - ask his wives!

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I am 25 degrees from King Henry VIII and 22 degrees from Elvis Presley, whoever they are but I am 26 degrees from Eowyn Langholf!!!!!!

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Interesting connections to Henry for both my family and that of my husband's, which takes an entirely different route. And so glad to see the connection stays in Britain rather than taking a passage around the globe.

Can some check the 'total connected' on WikiTree please. It's been stuck on 15,992,322 for the last three days. Needs to 'click' over the 16 million mark!

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I looked at that 16, 18, Elvis Presley, Henry 8th, far too close for comfort given the reputation each one had ... gimme back Uptight Vicky, which at least had the virtue of amusing me despite those so-called 21 degrees of smorgasbord of relationships -- I can just hear what my father would have said about the Presley connection

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I am happy with Henry VIII, I am closer to him that I was with Victoria, my late mother would have been over the moon with the Elvis connection xxx

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It would be nice to see the occasional change and move them around a bit. Say quarterly!

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For a change, I suggest for the next anchor https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/De_Bretagne-28 Anne de Bretagne. 

Answer 1

I am  24 degrees from Eowyn Langholf, 20 degrees from Elvis Presley and 19 degrees from Henry VIII of England !

Answer 2

There should be an abundance of different connection paths for a man with so many different wives!

Comments

Henry 8th only had 3 children and only one of those had descendents so not too many people will be DESCENDED from Henry 8th. Connections are more likely to be made through his siblings and his wives!!

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Yes, up, up and sideways :-)

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Henry 8th only had 3 children and only one of those had descendents so not too many people will be DESCENDED from Henry 8th. Connections are more likely to be made through his siblings!!

commented by Robynne Lozier

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Mary Tudor had no children.  Edward VI Tudor had no children.  Elizabeth Tudor had no children.

Henry VIII's older sister Margaret's descendant became James VI & I.

The connection (for me, anyway) is via Henry VIII's wife #6 .. her brother. 

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My connection is through Anna Cleves.

I also have a neat coincidence this week, being 28 degrees from each of the three anchors.

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I'm at 29 degrees from Eowyn Langholf, 26 degrees from Elvis Presley and 22 degrees from Henry VIII of England .. .. all of which are better than I would have expected.  Especially Henry.

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I just have some small corrections to make to the child discussion :) While I was working on writing Henry's biography, I came across a son that he recognised named Henry FitzRoy, who was Henry's son by Elizabeth Blount, so Henry in fact had four children and not three (though only three were legitimate). Though you are correct in saying that he did not have any grandchildren :)

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Unless we get into the discussion about whether the father of Mary Boleyn's children was her husband William Carey, or Henry VIII?

Both Catherine Carey and her brother Henry Carey had 14 or more children each.

Answer 3

Holy cow I am only 21 degrees from Henry 8th through his wife Catherine Parr and her "other" husband John Neville!!!!  And this connection comes down through one of my brothers-in-law.

Answer 4

Marion is 34 degrees from Eowyn Langholf, 29 degrees from Elvis Presley and  26 degrees from Henry VIII of England

All through my ex-husband!!

Answer 5

Wow, I'm only 16 degrees from Henry VIII because my husband is only 15 degrees away. Apparently, Anne Boleyn's sister, Mary, is hubby's 11th great-grandmother. 

* I'm taking that with a grain of salt at this point as I haven't verified his relationship to Mary.

Comments

Congratulations, m'lady!

Answer 6

I'm 18 degrees via Henry's sister Margaret Tudor.  Wow !

Comments

Us too: how are you connected? My husband family married in then it’s almost a direct line to her.

Answer 7

Cool. And I definitely want to see the pictures with the cutouts.

Comments

Yes!!

Answer 8

Francis West, sometime Governor of Virginia, is only 5 steps from Henry VIII (or maybe only 3 ).

So this might be a good time for the PGMs to adopt and deparent his "uncertain" son, the Duxbury carpenter

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/West-1685

or a lot of people might get spurious connections that way.

https://archive.org/details/franciswestofdux00corn/page/n7

(The Governor did have a son Francis, but he was much younger.  The Governor married his mother Margaret (Unknown) Powell Blayney in Virginia in 1625/6, she having only recently seen off her 2nd husband).

Comments

Mary Clarinda West is my great grandmother.  :)

Answer 9

I am not only connected to all of them but I am actually related to all of them. Eowyn is a 23rd cousin once removed, Elvis is a 16th cousin once removed and King Henry is a 10th cousin 13 times removed. Shocking!

Comments

So is my husband!  Such a small world... in the 'WikiTree' picture!  He is Elvis's 11th cousin, once removed, with a common ancestor of Edward Frost.  He is Eowyn's 10th cousin, with a common 9x great grandfather (William Ward).  And is apparently Henry VII's second cousin 15x removed.

I find this fascinating!

Answer 10

What fun!  I want to see those photos, too!

Answer 11

Henry works very well.  Paths going off in all directions.  And mostly new territory for this.  Please keep him going for a while.

Answer 12

I think it is wonderful.  It would be great to change it every year.  Also, Kings and Queens of England are all well and good.  I like that.  But, if we are a global tree, possibly leaders from other countries or even other continents would encourage more non-anglo connections.

How about switching to Alexander the Great or Gandhi next February?  Can we get them connected to the global tree?

Comments

It would be great to use connection anchors from different countries, but first, we have to connect them (and, ideally, track back to at least their great-grandparents). Unfortunately, we're not having a lot of success on that, at least not so far.

See:

• Can you help connect a head of state? (Afghanistan to Germany)
• Can you help connect a head of state? (Haiti to Lithuania)
• Can you help connect a head of state? (Mexico to Zimbabwe)

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Modern politicians have no class.

Bismarck had loads of ancestry

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismarck_(Adelsgeschlecht)

A lot of it is there.  He just needs hooking up to it.

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Thank you for your work on that, Greg!

Answer 13

17 degrees from Henry.  He is my 2nd cousin 17 x removed through my father's Nantucket Island settlers, the Starbucks.

Answer 14

This is fun! And I hope he stays more than one week! Perhaps not permanently but a few weeks would be great.

Answer 15

Mmm. Just threw up another route through improbable profiles. At least this shows up where the weaknesses are. Perhaps everyone should check through their new list. Perhaps not. Henry was a good choice as it was bound to be torturous.

Answer 16

19 degrees through Catherine Howard’s sister’s husband. I was 20 degrees from Queen Victoria. That’s so interesting.

Comments

Me too, 19 degrees via the Lawry's via Catherine's sister's hubby 

It makes me cringe thinking of what happened to her. What a life! And death. 

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Through the ancestors of Joseph Lawry’s wife, cuz. I presume you are the same.

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Yes, same as you Fi  It's really interesting isn't it!

Hope the weather is nice there for you today ... it's excellent weather for ducks here ~luckily, I love duck weather! 

Answer 17

Huh...Hank is my 8th cousin 14 times removed. This mean I can go up to Prince Harry and be like "Hey! Let's go get a pint, cuz!" He'd....think I was drunk already!

I honestly haven't delved that much into my tree pre-1600 because of all the issues. I did find confirmed connections to four surety barons. That was cool.

Do I wanna know what's going to happen to the cut-outs AFTER RootsTech? Better have pics....

Have fun at RootsTech, everyone. Get pics! Make vids! And no wild parties! 

Comments

ooops, sorry Chris, I accidently selected your answer as best - I have no idea how I did that! Posting above? Very weird. Anyway ... please accept humble apologies that when I realised what I had done I removed the selection  No offence intended ... your answer is great! I just didn't mean to select it.

Answer 18

I am related to all three of them. Elvis is my 15th cousin,  Henry VIII is my 6th cousin 13 times removed and Eowyn is my 10th cousn 1x removed. The connections are  Elvis 23 degrees, Henry VIII 20 degrees and Eowyn 22 degrees.

Answer 19

I prefer Victoria. We are still watching her on the PBS documentary "Victoria", and wikitree is useful for helping us sort our her numerous children

Answer 20

A perfect 23! I’m 23 degrees from Eowyn, Elvis, and Henry.

Comments

That's very cool!