01 April 2010

Madonna and Ellen DeGeneres

Ancestry informs, reported here, that pop celebrities Madonna and Ellen DeGeneres are 11th cousins.

I'm impressed, not by the fact as everyone likely has at least 4 million 11th cousins. That's based on there being two children in each family who themselves have two children. With three child families everyone would have 726 million 11th cousins.

It's the fact of the survival of the records that impresses. Were they all found on Ancestry?

2 comments:

BDM said...

Does Ancestry ever identify the "family history experts" who did the work? Not that I can see.

JDR said...

Not that I`m aware Brenda. At least WDYTYA names their researchers, either by having them appear or (I think)in the acknowledgements.