Too Much Fun!

Last night I ran across a really fun app on Facebook.  It's called Relative Finder and you can use it to find out if you are related to any of your Facebook friends.  Your friends have to have the app, too, so I couldn't tell if I'm related to them.  But I did find some other fun things.  There's a part where you can find out famous people you are related to.  Here's some of what I found about our family:

Austin Cowles Hyde and Mary Melissa Griffeth Hyde



Through our great great grandmother Mary Melissa Griffeth's line we are related to Oliver Cowdery, President Boyd K Packer, Ezra Taft Benson, Hugh B. Brown, Neal A. Maxwell, Parley P. Pratt, Orson F. Whitney, Reynolds Cahoon, Joseph Knight, Thomas Edison, John M. Huntsman, Mitt Romney, Eliza R. Snow, Gordon B. Hinckley, Spencer W. Kimball, Lorenzo Snow, Eli Whitney, James A. Garfield, Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin D. Roosevelt, William H Taft, and George Washington.

Amy Louisa Hyde and her mother, Mary Melissa Griffeth Hyde

Through our great grandmother Amy Louisa Hyde we are related to Martin Harris, Elder M. Russell Ballard, Elder Dallin H. Oaks, Elder L. Tom Perry, Matthew Cowley, Orson Hyde, Bruce R. McConkie, LeGrand Richards, Marion G. Romney, Lyman Wight, Edward Partridge, Orrin Porter Rockwell, Emily Dickinson, Philo T. Farnsworth, Steve Young, William Shakespeare, Francis Cooke, Harold B. Lee, Joseph Fielding Smith, Emma Hale Smith, Orville and Wilbur Wright, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Calvin Coolidge, Millard Fillmore, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Madison, and Richard Nixon.

Through Mary Ann Cowles, the mother of Austin Cowles Hyde, we are related to Elder Robert D. Hales, James E. Faust, David B. Haight, N. Eldon Tanner, Frederick G. Williams, Elias Higbee, Susan B. AnthonySusan B. Anthony, Walt Disney, The Osmonds, William Clark , Heber J. Grant, George Albert Smith, Wilford Woodruff, John Adams, Quincy Adams, Warren G. Harding, Benjamin Harrison, Herbert Hoover, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Pierce.



Albert William Harrison and Amy Louisa Hyde Harrison

I found one person to whom we are related through Grandpa Harrison.  His name is Gail Halvorsen, also known as the Candy Bomber.

Blanche Atwood Barnes

The biggest surprise to me is that we are related to a few LDS leaders through the Atwoods on Mom's side.  Elder David A. Bednar and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland are both distant cousins of ours through our great grandmother Blanche Atwood Barnes.  We are also related to an early LDS pioneer, Solomon Hancock, and Truman Osborn Angell (the architect who designed the Salt Lake Temple and several other buildings on Temple Square).

Samuel McClellan Ober and Ethel Jane Davenport Ober with their children.  The girl on the front row is Wilma Ruth Ober, our Grandma Barnes.

I found one other connection through Mom's side of the family.  Through our great grandmother, Ethel Jane Davenport Ober, we are related to Inis Hunter, the wife of Howard W. Hunter.

I hope I don't come off as bragging in this post.  I don't think being related to famous people makes us any better than other families.  In fact, I think all families have many interesting people they are connected to (both famous and not famous).  It's just a lot of fun to see who has a connection to our family.  Also, I should say that we are very distantly related to most of these people.  Most of them are 6th, 7th, 8th, or 9th cousins several times removed.  The people we are most closely related to are Orson Hyde (2nd cousin 6 times removed) and Matthew Cowley (2nd cousin 3 times removed).  I hope you had fun seeing who we are related to.  If you are interested you should check out the Relative Finder app on Facebook.