Wikipedia Attacks Knowledge

A generally anonymous user at Wikipedia instigated a deletion of the Family Forest® page which had been up since January of 2007 at Wikipedia, and it feels like a malicious attack. So why now and what was the motivation?

What was the real agenda of this person? It appears that he or she doesn’t know what the Family Forest® is, but was sure that it doesn’t deserve recognition. Or could he or she have known what the Family Forest® is, and was carrying out sabotage orders?

Allegedly the Family Forest® fails Wikipedia’s Notability test.  Doesn’t it seem that a system of digital links which can generate tens of billions of pages of high quality ancestral history charts, ebooks, and reports should be considered notable, and a system of digital links which can map out a larger portion of the early ancestral pathways than they can see anywhere else for at least one out of three people on the planet should be considered notable?

In the deletion discussion (which I did not know was going on at the time) I was dismissed as just a genealogy hobbyist. On a typical day now, I can substantially improve the assembled ancestry of tens of millions of living people. This is possible only with the proprietary digital resource (the Family Forest®) I have spent tens of thousands of hours developing.

Someone who has spent 40 to 80 hours per week almost every week for 16 years digitally indexing human history in lineage-linked format should not be dismissed as just a hobbyist.

One of our investors recommends legal counsel (and possible action) to find out if this anonymous, mean-spirited, and unfounded attack, and Wikipedia’s decision to delete the entry without bothering to make any notification to either the individual who wrote and updated annually the entry on the Family Forest®, nor to the company, which is easily contacted from the FamilyForest.com website, is actionable in a court of law as it is quite damaging to the company, scurrilous, and possibly backed by some would be competitor seeking a corporate advantage.

We don’t want to do that. We don’t want to counterattack. There’s a lot I like about Wikipedia, and I have trouble believing that most of the people behind Wikipedia would sanction the wrong that was done to us.

So here is an offer I presented to Wikimedia last week for a win-win solution. If they will reexamine the Family Forest deletion decision, for the next 120 days they can make the following available at Wikipedia.

Every person who contributes $25 to Wikipedia will receive a complimentary $49 download of the 10,142 page Family Forest® Descendants of King Edward III of England eBook.

Exploring this one huge eBook should convince almost anyone that this one title by itself is notable. Since it is like but one grain of sand on the beach compared to all of the titles the Family Forest® can generate, it should be obvious that the Family Forest® should easily pass Wikipedia’s Notability test.

We are still waiting for Wikimedia to respond to our offer. If they have not accepted by the end of this week, we will offer it to the American Red Cross instead.

Google Plus Family Forest®

For a wealth of free history lessons for you or your children, here’s the simple search formula. Google “Family Forest” + __________  = engaging stories from A People-Centered Approach To History®.

Of course we believe that these stories are much more fun and enriching if you have full access to the Family Forest® National Treasure to follow the curiosity these stories are sure to generate, but these stories are great history starters on their own.

For instance, if you are looking for stories about a history event, like the 4th of july, try Googling “Family Forest” (in quotes) + signer. Or substitute in place of signer a word or phrase such as american revolution, or declaration, or independence, or tea party, or ticonderoga, or inventor.

Other history event suggestions are “Family Forest” (in quotes) + alamo, civil war, gettysburg, world war, world war II, pearl harbor, or flight.

As you can see in the previous examples, you can search for specific places. Try Googling “Family Forest” (in quotes) + a place such as hawaii, hi, texas, tx (or any of the other state names or their two-digit postal abbreviation), america, england, ireland, rome (or many other country names), jamestown, plymouth, big bear, boston, or many other key American and European cities.

You can search for specific historical figures. Try Googling “Family Forest” (in quotes) + constantine, charlemagne, milesius, solomon, longshanks, robert I, wright brothers, rockefeller, george washington, adams, jefferson, abraham lincoln, general grant, kaiulani, macarthur, patton, etc.

You can search for general themes. try Googling “Family Forest” (in quotes) + ancestors, ancestral, ancestry, ancestral history, maps, explore, genealogy, charts, cousins, progeny, heros, veterans, baseball, texas ranger, bible, senator, governor, mayflower, first lady, white house, celebrity, history, congress, obama, kerry, bush, sarah palin, royal, royalty, king, queen, prince william, kate middleton, bill gates, etc.

You can search for Hollywood and entertainment related history. Try Googling “Family Forest” (in quotes) + a word or name such as television, tv, radio, movie, gunsmoke, hollywood, oscar, golden globes, academy awards, saturday night live, tcm, brooke shields, sarah jessica parker, wdytya, ted danson, meryl streep, braveheart, star trek, john adams, tom hanks, tudors, ken burns, marilyn monroe, paris hilton, britney spears, kevin bacon, susan sarandon, julia child, madonna, buffett, etc.

There are also corporate starters to history. Try Googling “Family Forest” (in quotes) + google, yahoo, disney, microsoft, tnt, amazon.com, hbo, cbs, nbc, or imdb.

Every parent who wants to inspire their children to be smarter and do better in school should give them full access to the Family Forest® National Treasure.

The Family Forest® is also inspirational and enriching for the whole family. Here’s a link to some short videos to show some of the possibilities.

Hint: If you do not want to spend time searching use this page http://familyforest.com/archives.html as a starting point, then follow the links in these stories.

Celebrating King Kamehameha Day

While you and your family are enjoying your tropical vacation here in Hawaii, there is a very good chance that you will see, or even meet, an actual descendant of King Kamehameha the Great.

Two centuries after he boldly united the Hawaiian Islands, according to recorded history his descendants have become quite numerous, and have now spread throughout the population here in Hawaii and elsewhere.

A Family Forest® kinship report, see question ten, of King Kamehameha I lists many of them, and it is available here for free .

In honor of the official State Holiday, for King Kamehameha Day 2011 we will give away a free National Treasure download to the first ten of King Kamehameha’s descendants from the kinship report who email us.

The Family Forest® National Treasure Edition is, among many other landmark claims, the best digital central source for generation-by-generation ancestral pathways leading to and from Hawaii.

Family Forest® Interview on Small Business Roundtable

 I’ve recently discovered a great resource called Small Business Roundtable, and I had the pleasure of being interviewed today by John Martin, one of my distant cousins (17C1R).

I hope you will enjoy my interview, as well as some of the other informative and inspirational interviews archived there, and I strongly recommend that you catch the upcoming Guy Kawasaki interview.

Johnny Depp’s Famous Relatives

Two suspicious articles just appeared about Johnny Depp and Queen Elizabeth II being very distantly related.

One article calls them “cousins, 20 times removed.” This seems very unlikey, because to become any degree of cousins 20 times removed of anyone living at the same time requires the closest ancestral connection between the two to be at least thousands of years ago.

They are also called 20th cousins by “relying upon an unreported but widely known marriage in the 1600s” in another article. It is impossible to become 20th cousins of anyone within that relatively short time span.

The Family Forest® has not yet found a reliable connection between the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ star and the current British monarcy, but a Family Forest® kinship report last night for Johnny Depp did find some of his much closer famous relatives.

They are Major Reno of the Battle of the Little Big Horn fame (3C4R), current US Senators Mark Udall and Tom Udall (both 6C1R), Grammy award winning singer Taylor Swift (7C1R), actress and famous World War II pin-up girl Bettly Grable (9C1R), ‘Superman’ actor Christopher Reeve (10C), and TV newsman Anderson Cooper (10C).

These relationships are summaries representing the fully-sourced generation-by-generation family ties between Johnny Depp and each of these people in the Family Forest®.

The Family Forest Project® is Networking Family History with Hollywood™.

Lionel Richie on WDYTYA

One of my top two favorite episodes so far this season on ABC’s Who Do you Think You Are? series is available online here.

The part I like best is watching Lionel’s delight while giving his children the gift of knowledge about some of their own ancestral heritage.

I also like knowing that there is so much more to the story waiting for Lionel’s family.

I wonder how they will react when they discover that, according to recorded history, they are almost certainly descended from royalty and they actually share ancestors with recent WDYTYA subject Tim McGraw?

The program tells us that Lionel’s ancestor John Louis Brown was almost certainly either the son, or the grandson, of Dr. Morgan Brown. Dr. Brown is descended from Sir Anthony Browne, Viscount Montagu.

If you click on Viscount Montagu (PIN 27986 in the Family Forest National Treasure and ask for a ten generation ancestor view, you will see his generation-by-generation ancestral pathway leading to Edward I Longshanks, King of England (portrayed in Braveheart), through his grandson, Edward III.

You will also see another see another ancestral pathway leading to Longshanks through one of his granddaughters, Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent.

If you ask for a 20-generation descendant view of Viscount Montagu, you will see some lines of descent to some famous cousins of Lionel, including President FDR, Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau, Senator John Kerry and Senator John Edwards, Queen Elizabeth II, Sarah Ferguson, Cary Elwes, Winston Churchill, Princess Diana, and “The Thornbirds” star Rachel Ward.

If Lionel’s ancestor John Louis Brown was the son of Dr. Morgan Brown, you can click on Dr. Brown’s wife Elizabeth Little  (PIN 282063 in the Family Forest National Treasure and ask for a twenty generation ancestor view. You will see her generation-by-generation ancestral pathway leading to Robert I, King of Scotland (also portrayed in Braveheart).

If you like Who Do you Think You Are?, you will enjoy visually exploring the National Treasure to see what we mean when we say that the Family Forest Project is Networking Family History with Hollywood™.

Tim McGraw on WDYTYA

This is another worthwhile and well-done episode available online here from the team that creates the Who Do you Think You Are? program on NBC.

My favorite part is seeing how proudly people react to discovering and sharing with relatives that they have actual family ties to historical places, historical events, and real historical figures, and in this case, to two of Tim’s heroes.

It was interesting watching the story unfold leading up to being able to tell Tim that his hero George Washington knew Tim’s ancestors, and another one of Tim’s ancestors came to America with one of Elvis’ ancestors.

I wonder how Tim and his family will react when they discover that, according to recorded history, they actually share ancestors with George Washington, Elvis Presley, General Patton, Reese Witherspoon, and many other well-known people?

The Family Forest® is now capable of generating a huge number of relationship charts connecting Tim and his children through common ancestors to most of the key people, places, and events in human history, as well as to many of Tim’s entertainment collegues, and probably even more importantly, to Tim’s fans and potential fans.

The Kindness of Strangers

A new Family Forest® customer wrote “Actually, I had no idea about that. Thank you so much! That’s fabulous! Most of my information is from census records and marriage records, which, as you know, are quite impersonal. I will definitely have to check out that book.” 

Elizabeth was writing about a story our ancestral history tour guide service discovered about one of her own ancestors. 

With two of his brothers and their father, young Samuel Boyd was in a skirmish in South Carolina in the American Revolution. He was left for dead after a musket ball passed through his temple and took out his right eye. An old colored woman found him and took care of him until he was able to get away. 

He did not have any children at the time, but after surviving a shot to the head, he went on to become an early pioneer settler in Kentucky and father of a large family of children who became the ancestors of many living people today. 

What if that kind old colored woman had not befriended Samuel at that critical time? Would his descendants have never been born? Or would they have been born as someone else? 

While we’ll never know the answer to that, we do know something else for certain. History pivots on small events, including the kindness of a stranger. 

The story about Samuel’s pivotal Revolutionary event and his ensuing full life begins on page 121 in the 1892 Autobiography and Sermons of Elder Elijah Martindale by Belle Stanford.

The 83rd Academy Awards

The Family Forest® Project is, among other objectives, Networking Family History with Hollywood™, and it can connect far more people personally, through their own family ties, to Hollywood content than any other digital resource.

For instance, take one of the five Oscar nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Jeff Bridges. After running a Family Forest® kinship report I found some connections to the 83rd Academy Awards within Jeff’s almost 300,000 relatives.

They include two of his co-stars from “True Grit” Matt Damon (19C1R) and Josh Brolin (21C2R), King George VI (17C2R) from “The King’s Speech” who was portrayed by another one of the five Oscar nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Colin Firth, and one of the five Oscar nominees for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Amy Adams (24C2R) for her role in “The Fighter.”

Jeff has many more family ties to previous Oscar winners. They include in order of distance Jane Fonda (6C1R), Bing Crosby (7C2R), Melvyn Douglas (7C2R), Jodie Foster (9C1R), Henry Fonda (9C2R), Katharine Hepburn (9C2R), Michael Douglas (10C), John Huston (10C), Robert Redford (10C), Humphrey Bogart (10C1R), Angelica Huston (10C1R), Jason Robards (10C1R), Joanne Woodward (10C1R), Tim Robbins (11C), Lee Marvin (12C3R), Olivia De Havilland (14C6R), Joan Fontaine (14C6R), Clint Eastwood (18C), Meryl Streep (18C1R), Bette Davis (19C1R), Robert Duvall (19C1R), Liza Minnelli (19C3R), Reese Witherspoon (20C1R), Tom Hanks (20C2R), Jack Nicholson (20C5R), Jane Wyman (21C1R), Audrey Hepburn (21C2R), Marlon Brando (26C4R), Elia Kazan (spouse of a 8C3R), Clark Gable (spouse of a 9C1R), Walter Huston (spouse of a 9C1R), Kim Basinger (spouse of a 10C), Catherine Zeta-Jones (spouse of a 10C), Paul Newman (spouse of a 10C1R), Susan Sarandon (spouse of an 11C), Cliff Robertson (spouse of a 13C5R), Carol Reed (spouse of a 13C4R), Anthony Quinn (spouse of a 15C3R), Nicholas Cage (spouse of a 16C1R), Elizabeth Taylor (spouse of a 16C3R), Grace Kelly (spouse of an 18C), David Niven (spouse of an 18C), Vincente Minnelli (spouse of an 18C4R), Angelina Jolie (spouse of a 19C2R), Spencer Tracy (spouse of a 19C3R), and Goldie Hawn (spouse of a 20C).

Just like Jeff Bridges, anyone who connects to the Royal Channel in the Family Forest® also has family ties to each of these Oscar winners, plus many other Hollywood stars.

Discover your family ties to Hollywood in the Family Forest® National Treasure Edition.

Assessing Potential Ancestors

According to Bishop Stapeldon of Exeter who was sent to inspect her, “The lady … has not uncomely hair, betwixt blue-black and brown. Her head is clean shaped; her forhead high and broad, and standing somewhat forward. Her face narrows between the eyes, and the lower part of her face is still more narrow and slender than her forhead. Her eyes are blackish-brown and deep. Her nose is fairly smooth and even, save that it is somewhat broad at the tip and flattened, yet it is no snub-nose. Her nostrils are also broad, her mouth fairly wide. Her lips somewhat full, and especially the lower lip. Her teeth which have fallen and grown again are white enough, but the rest are not so white. The lower teeth project a little beyond the upper; yet this is but little seen. Her ears and chin are comely enough. Her neck, shoulders, and all her body and lower limbs are reasonably well shapen; all her limbs are well set and unmaimed; and none is amiss so far as a man may see. Moreover, she is of brown skin all over, and much like her father; and in all things she is pleasant enough, as it seems to us.”

The Bishop also added she was neither too tall nor too short for her age, and that she was of fair carriage, and well taught in all that becometh her rank.

Philippa of Hainault was eight years old at the time of her assessment. She lived to become Queen of England and the ancestor of certainly hundreds of millions of people living today, including last year’s Oscar winner and this year’s Oscar nominee, Jeff Bridges, the focal point of the next blog.

The central framework of Philippa’s lines of descent to present day can be found in this eBook.

Anyone with a Family Forest® National Treasure Edition can easily pull up various size ancestor charts for Philippa, including a 10-generation chart with 838 boxes filled in, and a 60-generation chart with 764,590 boxes filled in.

This is one illustration of why we believe at least two billion living people have more of their early ancestry already assembled in the Family Forest® than they can see anywhere else.

P. S. The Bishop’s assessment can be found on page 81 of Debrett’s Kings and Queens of Britain by David Williamson.

See a short video about her descendants