2023 Day 166

Gary Boyd

Thursday June 15th

Stepping out the door this morning, the heated advisory slapped me in my face. It’s already hot, it’s already humid and the sun isn’t even over the horizon yet. Just look at the dew point.. 78°.

The Eastern horizon is just a wall of haze. Pale pink if it has any color at all.. mostly just washed out. Like a fever dream in the sky.. I’m sitting here waiting to take my photos for the day. Sunrise was 10 minutes ago and there’s really not much difference from 30 minutes ago… I’m not going to wait too long for the sun to make an appearance before taking my shots.. because, quite honestly even with the ceiling fans on, it’s not that comfortable on the back porch.

Even the sounds this morning or subdued. The bird songs are few and far between. The sound of traffic on the bypass is muffled.

So while I’m waiting, let me spin you a tale… The tale about family.. about distant cousins, about rock and roll stars, about movie stars.. Even about royalty…

I have always had a bit of an interest in Family History and Genealogy. Back in the 1970’s my interest was first peaked by a book my maternal grandfather had acquired about the Linvilles in America. When I found myself in the linage listed in the book I meticulously copied by hand onto notebook paper. Those notes I managed to hold onto into the 1990’s.

But what really started me on the search was a printout from an early genealogy program I was handed at my father’s funeral by a cousin in 1996. What struck me about it was it didn’t match much of anything we had in our family Bible. The puzzle raised by the discrepancies made me curious to know more. Thousands and thousands of hours later I can honestly say most of what we both thought we knew about our family at that time was wrong…

Luckily for me, genealogy was just hitting the internet at that time. Mostly by a community of individual researchers who transcribed record books, local histories, census indexes, tax lists… you name it,.. someone would eventually put it online. Over the past quarter century the amount of information online has ballooned, though now if you want to access most of it you need a subscription.. go figure, So, for quite some time I have kept my info on Ancestry.com. My tree can be found here if you subscribe to Ancestry… Ancestors of GW Boyd & SL Bales.

In 2008 WikiTree changed the dynamic of online info sharing…

WikiTree is a free, shared social-networking genealogy website that allows users individually to research and to contribute to their own personal family trees while building and collaborating on a singular worldwide family tree within the same system.[1][2] Chris Whitten, developer of the WikiAnswers website, set up WikiTree in 2008;[3] the site is owned and hosted by Interesting.com, Inc.[4]
The site uses a wiki markup language (powered by MediaWiki software) that offers users the ability to create and edit personal profiles, categories and “free space” pages to document their family’s history. As of May 2023, the WikiTree website has more than 1 million registered members and included more than 34 million profiles, with over 11 million having DNA test connections.[5] GenealogyInTime Magazine listed WikiTree as the 15th most popular genealogy site (out of 100) in January 2016 (the most recent time the magazine produced such a list).[6]

Each week in an email, WikiTree sends out news and updates to members. One of the weekly items is a “Featured Connections” list. This is the genealogical version of the parlor game “How many degrees from Kevin Bacon”. Most of the connections listed are nebulous at best… brothers of wife, the mother of an in-law, etc. But you can always check and see if there is an ancestorial connection… and sometimes these distant connection’s can be fun, This weeks list is all about rock stars…

Which led to these interesting “facts”…

Janis Lyn Joplin (1943-1970) and Gary Boyd are both descendants of Mary (Dolbere) Gillett (bef.1607-abt.1685). Janis and Gary are 10th cousins

Grace (Wing) Slick and Gary Boyd are both descendants of Susan (Shaw) Byram (1617-1700). Grace and Gary are 10th cousins

Nancy Wilson and Gary Boyd are both descendants of Elizabeth (Mill) Poyntz (abt.1411-abt.1442). Nancy and Gary are 17th cousins once removed

Stevie Nicks and Gary Boyd are both descendants of Elizabeth (Butler) Dutton (1374-1425). Stevie and Gary are 17th cousins twice removed

Pat Benatar – Pat (Andrzejewski) Giraldo and Gary Boyd are both descendants of Otto (Bodrugan) de Bodrugan (1290-1331). Pat and Gary are 21st cousins once removed

Alanis Morissette and Gary Boyd are both descendants of Marie (Dampierre) de Dampierre (1322-bef.1353). Alanis and Gary are 21st cousins three times removed

Now in the grand scheme of things this doesn’t mean a whole lot… it mainly means if you can go back far enough into the past we are all related, But once a week it’s a fun exercise to see who my distant cousins might be and think back over all of those family history’s that should bind us together…

  • Gary Boyd and Julia Carolyn (McWilliams) Child (1912-2004) are both descendants of Susan (Shaw) Byram (1617-1700).Gary and Julia are 8th cousins twice removed.
  • Gary Boyd and Mary (Stewart) Stuart Queen of Scots (1542-1587) are both descendants of Maria (Egmond-Gelre) Queen Regent of Scotland (bef.1433-abt.1463). Gary and Mary are third cousins 13 times removed.
  • Gary Boyd and Isaac Newton (1642-1727) are both descendants of Robert Puleston (1358-). Gary and Isaac are 11th cousins 8 times removed.
  • Gary Boyd and King Charles III (Windsor) Mountbatten-Windsor KG are both descendants of James Hamilton (1423-1479). Gary and King Charles III are 15th cousins once removed.
  • Gary Boyd and Kyra Sedgwick are both descendants of Nicholas Hodsdon (abt.1611-1704).Gary and Kyra are 10th cousins once removed… My own degree of separation from Kevin Bacon.

Enough fun for one day… Y’all enjoy this summer day and I’ll catch y’all on the other side.

Counting Down To 70 Years – 236 Days