Notables Dec 2019

Question

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

If you are interested in people who are famous, notable, noted, significant, important, historic, heroic, or otherwise fascinating, then the Notables Project might be for you! 

The idea behind this post is for anyone who needs help with connecting Notables to the tree to post to this thread and ask for help, or if you want to tell us whom you have successfully connected up, or if you want to join the Notables Project and get a badge.

Besides checking out the Notables Project page, don't forget to take a look at the Notables List page, where you can find lists of Notables who have profiles which aren't yet connected to the main tree. (For ideas on way to connect unconnected people and branches, see the Hints and Tips on the Connectors Chat page.)

Please remember to concentrate on those Notables who have already passed (died), so that we can see their profiles. If you create a profile for a living Notable, that profile WILL GO UNLISTED and noone can see it except for the PM and anyone on the trusted list!

And remember - Notables should have a Wikipedia page at the very least to qualify. And they should be DEAD! If you manage a profile for any living notable, would you please replace any Notables categories on that profile with [[Category:Living Notables]]? That could clear out a lot of profiles that people can't work on from the various Notables categories, and also keep all the living notables in one place to make them easy to find, should the need arise.

This is the Wikipedia list of those who died last month - Nov 2019

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2019#November

Answer 1

I've connected a number of Canadian notables this month, some of whom are fairly close cousins.  For example, archivist, historian, and genealogist Pierre Georges Roy is my 2nd cousin, twice removed, as is his brother, historian and politician Joseph Edmond Roy.  In addition, journalist Robertine Barry is my 3rd cousin, three times removed.

Comments

Interesting. I'm 4th cousins 6x for the first two and 7th cousins 5x for Robertine.

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My husband (being of Acadian ancestry) is a 6th cousin 3xR to Pierre Georges Roy!!

Hubby is also 7th cousins 5xR from Robertine Barry

Answer 2

I am in for this month

Comments

Some rock musician profiles I'd appreciate help on...

Gene Vincent, rockabilly pioneer: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Craddock-802

Keith Godchaux of the Grateful Dead (someone experienced in Jewish research would be wonderful): https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Godchaux-9

Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls and Heartbreakers: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Genzale-1

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Jessica,

You should rewite this as an answer, not as a comment.

Far more likely to be seen.

Answer 3

Thanks to Scott Fulkerson for helping me out with a bunch of notables last month. Here are the ones remaining from that batch plus a new one. 

Whitney Moore Young Jr. , Sophia Kindrick Alcorn , James Lane Allen, Dan McGann, Barney Bright , Goodman Ace, Leslie Cornelius Arends, Chester Holifield, Isabel McMeekin

Comments

I've added another dozen profiles to the Young connections with no end in sight. I might take a look at Alcorn as well...

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Alcorn should be connected to the tree tonight.

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OK - for Young, I've now got:

2 Young lines fully set up

1 Prentice/Printers line fully set up

1 Guy line fully set up

and I'm cleaning up a Redd line and starting a second Guy line, and all of them criss-cross into each other multiple directions - but nothing even remotely resembling a connection so far. But since there's still several avenues to pursue, I haven't given up yet.

Answer 4

Clearing out accumulated obituaries from my RSS reader:

Branko Lustig, holocaust survivor, director, producer, and actor, died last month. He received his first Oscar for helping to produce Schindler's List. I've created a starter profile for him, but it needs fleshing out, including sources other than Wikipedia, and of course he needs to be connected to the main tree.

Comments

Working through the Welch Name Study:

Edwin Welch, English naval cadet, surveyor, and journalist. He discovered John King, sole survivor of the Burke and Wills expedition. I haven't yet been able to determine whether his father was the David Welch covered in A Naval Biographical Dictionary.

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Another from the Welch Name Study:

Cullum Welch, Lord Mayor of London, and First Baronet Welch.

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I'm just tripping over notables everywhere I turn. Cecil Fane De Salis was the father-in-law of a Welch who I'm working on. He also has a Wikipedia entry, as do a number of his relatives. I don't know anything about him except what I turned up tonight, but it looks like his Last Name At Birth needs to be fixed, along with the LNABs for who knows how many others in his family. Also, the profiles for him and for his son had no sources when I found them.

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Thomas Smith, the inventor of the Christmas cracker, was on the front page of Wikipedia the other day. How could I resist creating a profile for him?

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Greg, Your link to Thomas Smith is not working!!!

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Whoops! My bad. Fixed now.

Answer 5

I would like to join this project.

I have been working on a Profile for Florence Beatrice (Smith) Price. I added a Notable sticker to her profile.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Smith-199904

I suspect I will be working on it off and on for weeks to come. She is noted as the first African-American Woman to be recognised as a symphonic composer.

Despite having a fair amount of information about her parents, I am discovering that finding records is not easy. I wonder how often Census takers skipped the homes of African Americans or failed to enter their communities at all.

Comments

Badge awarded - Welcome to the Notables Team!

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And I sympathize with you greatly Linda. With extremely limited information easily available pre-Civil War and sketchy information post-Civil War up to maybe the 1900 Census, this sort of research proves to be very challenging. But at the same time, very rewarding. I once worked for months on Jackie Robinson's profile and never found a connection, but added hundreds of profiles that were connected to his. Then someone followed behind and added several additional profiles, one of which create a connection, and connected all the profiles that were on the big chain. So I'd encourage you to add whatever you can to her profile in the way of family, cousins, and relations and even if you don't come up with the connection, one day someone might.

Answer 6

I would be interested in joining the project.

Comments

Badge awarded - Welcome to the Notables Team!

Answer 7

I'm in for month.

Answer 8

Been a bad month for Star Trek. First D.C. Fontana, then Robert Walker, Jr. 

Robert was the son of two big time movie stars, and was most well-known for his role as "Charlie X" on the original series of Star Trek.

But I see that we've had people respond, as both are now on the tree and connected! Great job!

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Fontana-179

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Walker-41140

Comments

I was not aware of Robert Walker Jr.'s death. I am saddened. I loved him and his dad. They were both terrific actors!

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Sadly, Rene Auberjonois passed away today of lung cancer. It's been a really bad month for Star Trek.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Auberjonois-1

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Odo simply returned to the Great Link, Scott. =( Will be adding Italy project stuff to D.C. Fontana.

Edit: And done.

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And I saw your other note Chris about Michael Lamper. More sad news.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Lamper-29

He did have a profile and I've opened it up since his recent passing.

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Oops - wasn't your note, but he's open anyway.

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Scott.

Michael Lamper was married to Marina Sirtis. She was listed on the bio as Marian Sirtis. I have corrected the spelling and added details of who she is.

Answer 9

Much less rock'n roll. French author Honoré de Balzac should be connected after the update tomorrow. I set out connecting him through his wife Eve Hanska and it turned out easier than expected since the profile for her father was already there and connected. (It would have been necessary to create profiles not really sourced the way I prefer. As it turns out, there are probably poorly sourced profiles on the connection path, but I did not have to create them...)

Comments

Painter Jules Breton (he painted Song of the Lark) is now connected as well as Carrier-Belleuse, sculptor (some say mass producer of objects), known for having Rodin as his assistant between 1864 and 1870.

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Great work, Isabelle! I'm excited to see more and more French-origin profiles being connected, and even more exciting to see Notables in that list. Thank you!

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I finished connecting Maximilien Robespierre this morning. Not happy with my work as the connection hinges on several uncertainties (courtesy of the huge gaps in archives in the North of France, compounded by the difficulty of actually browsing the registers, when they exist), but as there will probably be no other way of connecting this profile (created in July 2014 and completely unlinked until July 2018), I did it anyway.

Answer 10

So after a bit of research, I've connected Academy Award winning lyricist and producer, Arthur Freed. He was a 3-time winner, winning Best Picture twice, and given an honorary award once. His connection links should update tonight:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Freed-656

There are now 295 profiles in the Academy Awards (20th Century) and 47 more in the 21st Century. A few do overlap, but not many. I'm happy to say that at least most of them are connected to the big tree. My list can be found here:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Academy_Award_Winners

Up next, I believe will be Vincent Winter, juvenile recipient from 1955. He was a successful child actor who won for his appearance on The Kidnappers. With him being from Scotland, born 1947, and passing in Surrey, England in 1988, I doubt I'll get very far with his family, but hopefully there's some research out there that will help.

Comments

I did create a profile for Vincent, but really wasn't able to do much of anything with it. No parents mentioned even in his obit, and the only name that came up was Barbara Harley, who was listed as "Partner" - so the strong implication that they were never married. Guess I'll leave it out there and one day when records are available we'll see if we can't do something more for him.

Answer 11

Last weekend I saw the profile of Werner von Siemens, the founder of the company Siemens. He is connected via his son, who married a daughter of the scientist Hermann von Helmholtz. But there are a lot of other notables connected to him through his children and their in-laws. The good thing is that all those created profiles will be connected with the respective next update.

#I'mDownInTheRabbitHoles

Comments

Love your hash tag, Jelena.

Answer 12

while connecting Rhode Island profiles, i found this Notable profile that needs some love and categories. I will leave this to the Notable gang to figure out.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wilbour-41

He will show as connected tomorrow or the next day.

Answer 13

Danny Aiello has died.

https://www.aol.com/article/entertainment/2019/12/13/danny-aiello-dies-at-86-years-old-after-a-reported-sudden-illness-details/23880201/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Aiello

I'm checking to see if there might be a profile out there for him already.

Comments

It doesn't look like there's a profile for him yet, so we should be OK to create one. Looks like he'll have Italian root and appears to have only been married once. It looks like his wife is still living.

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https://ca.news.yahoo.com/danny-aiello-dies-oscar-nominated-153708361.html

A longtime resident of New Jersey, Aiello is survived by his wife of 64 years, Sandy, and three children. A fourth son, Danny Aiello III, died of cancer in 2010.

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I was very saddened to hear of this earlier today. He was a terrific actor!

Answer 14

On the "infamous" side, I got serial killer Paul John Knowles connected today: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Knowles-6402

An absolute maniac with movie star good looks, he embarked on a multi-state rampage in 1974 after his prison penpal called off their wedding on the advice of her psychic (!!!!). He had seemingly no victim profile: he would attack little old ladies, little girls, grown men, and cops. Shortly after his capture, he was killed, with the police claiming he attacked them while trying to escape and some others claiming that the police executed him for killing one of their own.

Comments

I'm working on connecting more of his ancestors.

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I sent a request to the profile manager of his Steedly great-grandparents to connect them to their daughter, their profiles are un-editable.

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As did I.

Answer 15

Danish-born French actress Anna Karina died yesterday. I listed her profile (it's public now). I guess she's not a household name in the US, but she does have Wikipedia pages in 30 languages, including English. She is definitely considered a key actress of the French "nouvelle vague".

Comments

The profile isn't open for editing, unfortunately.

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I saw this, Isabelle! Sad news indeed. I've heard of her - while I don't think she was a household name, she was known in certain circles and her name has been mentioned from time to time.

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As a rule I wait at least a few days before opening the profile of a recently deceased person. If you have an original write-up about her career, or sourced information on her parents, I'd be most happy to include it.

There is not much we can say about her private life, she was born less than 80 years ago and two of her ex-husbands are still living.

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From what I've seen so far, it does not appear she ever had any children. Any possibility of siblings? Considering her age, it's likely that unless she was the baby of the family that any siblings might still be living. This is conceivable, considering what Wikipedia says of her childhood.

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Yes, it is quite possible she had younger half-siblings.

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Anna Karina now has parents linked to her profile, courtesy of one of our Danish contributors (thanks!!).

Answer 16

I started a profile for George Joseph Laurer III, Laurer-20. He was one of the people behind the creation of the UPC code used on products sold in the stores that allow the register to scan the price. He was also an Amateur radio operator. The profile needs a lot of work and is unconnected at this time but feel free to jump in, I am going to be very busy today and probably will not be able to do anything until this evening at the earliest. Yes it even needs the Notables sticker as well as the categories added.

Answer 17

Hi Scott and All,

I added a new Notable last evening. Sir George Christopher Trout Barkley was the son-in-law of (Notable) Henry Cole, KCB, who designed the first Christmas card. I am trying to connect Henry Cole to the family starting with his daughter Mary Charlotte Cole , whose husbant is George Barkley. I've posted his wikipedia page below. I like that he was interested in poverty and social issues! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Trout_Bartley)

Answer 18

I created a profile for University Of Iowa football coach Hayden Fry who passed away yesterday. I'll be working on getting the profile filled out and connected, but it's there for anyone else to work on as well.
https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Fry-6259&public=1
Fry-6259

Comments

I think I've got him connected now...I sure had to create a lot of profiles before I could get him linked to anyone with an existing profile...

Answer 19

Bond Girl (Thunderball) Claudine Auger, has died. She was 78 years old.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/claudine-auger-dies-thunderball-actress-100151337.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudine_Auger

She may need a profile.

Comments

I've created Oger-49

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Thank you Aaron 

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Good luck to connect her. I considered making her a profile before this and its duplicate were created, but did not, seeing that there was no information on her parents anywhere (and her birth information will remain unavailable until 2042 at least).

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Isabelle,

One of her spouses was English and we may be to get her connected through him.

Answer 20

I spent a large part of the afternoon and evening on Friday 20th Dec and early into the morning of Saturday 21st, getting Thomas Hoving connected to the Global tree!!  He is now connected - although it probably wont show up until the 22nd Dec.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hoving-131

He was the director of the Met Museum in NYC from 1967 to 1977. He also wrote a few books. 2 of my favourites were - King of the Confessors and Dancing with the Mummies.

Oh and I have not gone sideways. There are a few siblings floating around. I will get to them eventually...  LOL

Comments

Well done, Robynne! I can't say that I know of him, but I don't run in those circles typically.

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I don't run in those circles either, Scott. LOL

I would never be invited to the Met Gala which is a huge annual celebrity affair!!

But I do like to read his books!!