Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton revealed to be distant cousins as family trees show they share same set of royal ancestors

[Olivier]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3210778/Donald-Trump-Hillary-Clinton-revealed-distant-cousins-family-trees-share-set-royal-ancestors.html

True or False ?

[Rob]

On Wednesday, August 26, 2015 at 4:41:35 AM UTC-4, Olivier wrote:
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3210778/Donald-Trump-Hillary-Clinton-revealed-distant-cousins-family-trees-share-set-royal-ancestors.html
>
> True or False ?

Might be false. Details are too sketchy.

[Bronwen Edwards]

I don't really want to be related to either one of them. If true, that would make me (and probably most of the people on this list) distant cousins as well.

[kbran...@yahoo.com]

On Wednesday, August 26, 2015 at 3:41:35 AM UTC-5, Olivier wrote:
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3210778/Donald-Trump-Hillary-Clinton-revealed-distant-cousins-family-trees-share-set-royal-ancestors.html
>
> True or False ?

False

[RobinPatterson]

On Wednesday, 26 August 2015 20:41:35 UTC+12, Olivier wrote:
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3210778/Donald-Trump-Hillary-Clinton-revealed-distant-cousins-family-trees-share-set-royal-ancestors.html
>
> True or False ?

Rob says it might be false. A good genealogist response. Olivier boldly says "False" - OK, please point out a false link. (If I'm a distant cousin of only one of those politicians, I'd like to know which side I'm on!)

[RobinPatterson]

On Wednesday, 26 August 2015 20:41:35 UTC+12, Olivier wrote:

> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3210778/Donald-Trump-Hillary-Clinton-revealed-distant-cousins-family-trees-share-set-royal-ancestors.html
>
> True or False ?

Sorry. the bold one, to whom my question is directed, was "kbran...@yahoo.com", not Olivier.

[D. Spencer Hines]

The Rodham Genealogy is bollixed.

DSH

"Genealogy is an infinite binary series -- both progressively and
regressively -- propagated by means of a terminal, sexually transmitted
disease, producing a 100% death rate -- which we call Life." -- D. Spencer
Hines - 4 June 1997

"RobinPatterson" wrote in message
news:8ed6e5b9-58d0-40f3...@googlegroups.com...

[RobinPatterson]

On Wednesday, 26 August 2015 20:41:35 UTC+12, Olivier wrote:

> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3210778/Donald-Trump-Hillary-Clinton-revealed-distant-cousins-family-trees-share-set-royal-ancestors.html
>
> True or False ?

OK, you've all had a few days to think about it. I'm not certain whether the term "bollixed" is off-topic but it's certainly not accompanied by convincing documentation.

Details in the Daily Mail chart are indeed sketchy. However, every one of the people listed has an article on Geni.com, and more than half of them now have their own articles on Familypedia (where quite a number of them had articles before the Mail came out).

To make it easier for you experts to evaluate, I've created two talk pages on Familypedia each listing one of the lines.

Trump line is at http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Mary_MacLeod_%281912-2000%29 with links to Familypedia pages or Geni.com pages.

Rodham line is at http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Hillary_Diane_Rodham_%281947%29/tree - similarly linked to Geni.com but with links to Familypedia articles all the way. The late lamented William Addams Reitwiesner had already produced about half of the Rodham line.

So, where are the false parentage links?

[D. Spencer Hines]

1. The sources you cite are risible and uncredited.

2. "So, where are the false parentage links?" You say.

3. False Premise.

4. We don't have to prove the descents. The person advocating them has to
prove them.

5. Your source is apparently "Private User".

6. Return to 1. -- Risible and Uncredited.

7. Try to grow a brain...try very, very hard.

DSH

"Genealogy is an infinite binary series -- both progressively and
regressively -- propagated by means of a terminal, sexually transmitted
disease, producing a 100% death rate -- which we call Life." -- D. Spencer
Hines - 4 June 1997

"RobinPatterson" wrote in message

news:b6300946-3092-4538...@googlegroups.com...

[D. Spencer Hines]

Better:

1. The sources you cite are risible and uncredited.

2. "So, where are the false parentage links?" You say.

3. False Premise.

4. We don't have to disprove or prove the descents. The person advocating

[RobinPatterson]

On Friday, 9 October 2015 08:16:49 UTC+13, D. Spencer Hines wrote:
> 1. The sources you cite are risible and uncredited.
>
> 2. "So, where are the false parentage links?" You say.
>
> 3. False Premise.
>
> 4. We don't have to prove the descents. The person advocating them has to
> prove them.
>
> 5. Your source is apparently "Private User".
>
> 6. Return to 1. -- Risible and Uncredited.
>
> 7. Try to grow a brain...try very, very hard.
>
> DSH
>

.....

Well, DSH, I can paraphrase your reply. We don't have to prove the descents. The person asserting that they are false has to prove that they are - or admit that a correct evaluation would be "unproven" rather than "false".

I accept that much of what is on Geni.com is unproven and some of it is risible, but I hope you do not think Familypedia and William Addams Reitwiesner's work are risible and uncredited.

[taf]

On Friday, October 9, 2015 at 6:36:56 PM UTC-7, RobinPatterson wrote:

> We don't have to prove the descents. The person asserting that they are
> false has to prove that they are - or admit that a correct evaluation would
> be "unproven" rather than "false".

For a novel proposed descent the burden does indeed fall on the proposer. Admittedly, there is a difference between unproven and false, but given the rate at which confusion and invention multiplies in this internet age, 'unproven' does not get the benefit of the doubt. It is not considered true unless it can be shown to be true.

> I accept that much of what is on Geni.com is unproven and some of it is
> risible, but I hope you do not think Familypedia and William Addams
> Reitwiesner's work are risible and uncredited.

WAR did good work, and is sadly missed here. That being said, the way he presented his pages, without clear documentation of each generation, would not qualify the material as reliable were we not familiar with the quality of his work. We can assume that he did careful work on those specific lines, because we know he did careful work in general. Still, these pages would not represent reliable sources for a genealogical article or lineage society membership.

Familypedia merits no such benefit of the doubt. We have no idea what the basis is for much of the information, and as with many crowdsourced genealogical compilations, it will span the range from mastery to maybe to made up. In the page you provided a link to earlier in this thread, the only citations given are to the Daily Mail article, and to Geni.com. Well, if Geni.com contains much that is unproven, then how can a Famlypedia page that used a Geni page as its source be any more reliable? No, Familypedia is not a reliable compilation. That doesn't mean it contains no reliable information, but how can we tell what is and what is not reliable without clear documentation?

One thing I notice, in the Rodham ancestry the immigrant is shown as son of Margaret de Grey. That immediately raises a red flag, as the 'de' articles had very much fallen into disuse by the 17th century. My gut tells me that is where the problem likely lies, in identifying the mother of the immigrant.

taf

[jhigg...@yahoo.com]

On Friday, October 9, 2015 at 6:36:56 PM UTC-7, RobinPatterson wrote:

> Well, DSH, I can paraphrase your reply. We don't have to prove the descents. The person asserting that they are false has to prove that they are - or admit that a correct evaluation would be "unproven" rather than "false".
>
> I accept that much of what is on Geni.com is unproven and some of it is risible, but I hope you do not think Familypedia and William Addams Reitwiesner's work are risible and uncredited.

As Todd has noted, WIlliam Addams Reitwiesner was a respected genealogist and is missed here. Have you actually read his work on the ancestry of Hilary Rodham Clinton? If you had, you'd see quickly that he does not carry the Rodham (or Roddam) line anywhere near as far back as the MyHeritage pedigree in the Daily Mail does. No doubt WAR had good reason for stopping where he did - he could find no support for the generations beyond that point, and thus for the connection stated in the Daily Mail. Some elements of the weaknesses in at least the Roddam side of the Daily Mail pedigree were discussed in a related thread in this group on August 27th.

Your comments on who is responsible for proving the truth or falsity of a particular descent don't warrant a serious response - you must be joking.

[D. Spencer Hines]

Indeed.

A favorite trick of fraudulent pseudo-genealogists is to invent a phantom
daughter or son of a prominent person in order to create a fictitious line.

As I said ab initio, the Rodham line is bollixed.

DSH
-------------------------------------------

"You take the lies out of him, and he'll shrink to the size of your hat; you
take the malice out of him, and he'll disappear." -- Mark Twain

"taf" wrote in message
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