Getting to Robin Hood via eBay

An old friend asked me to call a friend of his in Atlanta early last week. Something about frustration with his experience at Ancestry.com, and wondering if I could help him. 

Within two hours, I was able to email John a PIN of one of his ancestors in the National Treasure who has a generation-by-generation ancestral pathway to Katharine Hepburn’s character in The Lion in Winter. 

That same character, Eleanor of Aquitaine, is also portrayed in Russell Crowe’s Robin Hood. So John can take his kids to the movies this week to see their own ancestors portrayed larger than life on the silver screen. Cool, huh? 

Maybe we don’t actually make joy, as BMW does, but we certainly enjoy spreading joy. So we’re announcing our Personal Connection Service to Hollywood this week and introducing it via an eBay auction. 

The Family Forest® Project is, among other objectives, Networking Family History with Hollywood™, and we’re trying to make it as easy as possible for you to connect your children personally to history, and to ignite their interest in life time learning.

Ancestral Movie Premiers

I just discovered that one of my favorite ancestral mothers is being portrayed in Russell Crowe’s Robin Hood. 

It’s exciting to see someone portrayed at the movies who documented human history says is one of your own ancestors. It’s a much more powerful attraction than just seeing one’s cousins acting in the movies. Maybe because distant cousins appear so frequently, while portrayals of actual ancestors only happen occasionally. 

From personal experience, one seems to naturally develop an affinity for a Hollywood star who has portrayed one’s own ancestor. For me, the top four so far are Katharine Hepburn (who also portrayed President Obama’s ancestor and is mentioned in the new Hawaii 24/7 article about him, Peter O’Toole, Charlton Heston, and Sophia Loren. 

I’m having a lot of fun with our Family Forest® Project while Networking Family History with Hollywood™, and I’m looking forward to seeing a new Hollywood blockbuster visually illustrating our digital system of family links. 

Most people who read this posting have ancestral pathways that lead directly to one or more characters in Robin Hood.

The First Family has Family Forest® family ties to the Princess Kaiulani movie

Here  is a screen capture from the National Treasure to help illustrate the story that just appeared at Hawaii 24/7

67th Annual Golden Globe Awards

It’s happening Sunday January 17, 2010. A number of the nominees are already extensively networked in the Family Forest® to each other, to historical characters portrayed in the movies, and most importantly, to viewers in the audience. 

More of the free visually engaging Ancestors-at-a-glance™ fan charts have just been posted, and some of the stars and characters include Sigourney Weaver, Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Clint Eastwood and Georgia O’Keeffe. 

The Family Forest® is a digital Hollywood resource that picks up where IMDb leaves off in two areas. One is connecting fans through family ties to Hollywood personalities and movie characters, and the other is having content and family ties for many of IMDb’s character profiles which are now empty or very skeletal. 

The edutaining Family Forest® Project is Networking Family History with Hollywood™ and connecting audiences through actual family ties better than any other digital resource, either online or offline, as the new Family Forest® National Treasure Edition proves. 

Enjoy the show! 

P.S. The Family Forest® Project needs a celebrity spokesperson. Details available here.

Julie and Julia

From the trailer I’ve seen, Julie and Julia looks like a fun movie.

 To add to the enjoyment, the Family Forest® Project has just posted some additional Ancestors-at-a-glance™ charts. 

One is for one of the main characters, Julia Child, and another is for the famous Hollywood actress who portrays her, Meryl Streep. 

According to the family history already mapped out in the new Family Forest® National Treasure Edition, I share an important to me 1600’s ancestor with Julia Child. He is Mayflower Pilgrim George Soule. 

Julia and I also share ancestor George Soule with Amelia co-star Richard Gere and Dick Van Dyke. 

Contrary to what her unusual surname might lead one to believe, Meryl Streep has early American ancestry with much more common surnames, including some who came to America at about the same time as her character’s ancestor, and probably knew each other. 

Some of Meryl’s other ancestral surnames include Betts, Jackson, Walker, Ring, Dean, Howland, Wilkinson, Twining, Conyers, Lacy, Young, Kirk, Elliott, Chapman, Simpson, and Smith. 

One of Meryl’s famous cousins through their royally-descended ancestor Christopher Conyers is Britney Spears. 

If all of the cousins of the cast and characters of Julie and Julia go to see it, this motion picture will be the largest box office hit ever. 

The edutaining Family Forest® Project is Networking Family History with Hollywood™ and connecting audiences through actual family ties better than any other digital resource, either online or offline, as the new Family Forest® National Treasure Edition will show.

Amelia Earhart

A new motion picture about America’s most beloved female aviator, Amelia, will be premiering at theatres on October 23, 2009. 

In advance of the release we have just posted a half-dozen related Ancestors-at-a-glance™ charts. 

One is for Amelia Earhart herself, one is for her husband, George “GP” Putnam, and one is for the famous Hollywood actor who will be portraying him, Richard Gere. 

In this role Richard will be portraying a cousin of California’s next Governor, Meg Whitman. Meg shares early New England Buckminster ancestors with “GP” Putnam. 

Another Buckminster cousin of Meg and GP is Bucky Fuller and he was a real life friend of Amelia. A video can be seen here of her in his futuristic Dymaxion car. 

And yet another Buckminster cousin is current US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. 

If all of the cousins of the cast and characters of Amelia go to see it, this motion picture will be the largest box office hit ever.

The edutaining Family Forest® Project is Networking Family History with Hollywood™ and connecting audiences through actual family ties better than any other digital resource, either online or offline, as the new Family Forest® National Treasure Edition proves.

Congratulations Alec Baldwin

Kristine and I were very pleased to see that Alec Baldwin was selected as a host at Turner Classic Movies earlier this month. We feel this way not only because of the excellent performance he will certainly deliver in that important role, but for Family Forest® reasons.

 

Alec and his famous brothers have been lineage-linked in the Family Forest® since before the New World Edition (we first mentioned his connection here and more recently here), but only skeletally and only as far back as the early seventeenth century. By strategically focusing on his ancestry since the TCM announcement, Alec’s ancestral history has now been connected into the central corridor of genealogy and he has become one of the most extensively networked people within the Family Forest®.

 

Everyone who watches TCM as regularly as we do knows that Robert Osborne is a very tough act to follow, even for someone with as much talent and abilities as Alec Baldwin. So we hope Alec will accept our offer to help him provide an additional new feature at TCM.

 

Alec can see more of his own ancestral pathways, according to recorded history,

mapped out in the Family Forest® than anywhere else, either online or offline. The same can be said for many of the Hollywood stars in TCM movies.

 

The powerful services we provide here at Millisecond Publishing Company makes us uniquely positioned to help him connect large audiences personally, through actual family ties to the cast and characters in many of the great classic films he will be presenting at TCM.

 

The next time that Alec introduces Plymouth Adventure on TCM (see trailer here), he can use the Family Forest® National Treasure Edition to let viewers know the name of his own ancestor who is portrayed in the movie.

 

I can unequivocally declare from my own personal experience that it is a truly magical moment the first time you see one of your own ancestors portrayed in a classic Hollywood movie. It is an enriching experience we hope every TCM fan will have. Best wishes cousin Alec.

 

 

Big Picture Story from the Big Island

A new story just appeared, and we’re pleased that it doesn’t misleadingly try to squeeze our exciting leading-edge digital project into the genealogy pigeon-hole.

 

We do like stories that highlight some of the surprising family ties we’ve networked between famous people such as Brad Pitt and President Obama, and the Family Forest® does perform some amazing genealogy feats for everyday people that no other genealogy resource can, but the real picture of our digital project is so much bigger.

 

The Family Forest® Project is about so many more exciting possibilities than just plain vanilla genealogy, and the new story points to some of them.

 

Please continue to stay tuned here for enriching previews of the future of your own past.

 

66th Golden Globes

As I look through the list of nominees for the 66^th Golden Globes with the aid of the Family Forest®, the festivities on Sunday night appear like they will be like an extended family reunion.

 

The Kevin Bacon style six-degrees-of-separation connections in the Family Forest® starting with the five Best Picture finalists will probably surprise almost everyone.

 

Each of the people I name below, plus Kevin Bacon, are already lineage-linked into the Family Forest®. This was a far more difficult task than it might appear at first glance, since before the end of the last century, the requirement for entry into the Family Forest® is that one must be related by birth, marriage, or adoption to someone who is already included.

 

Start with Frost/Nixon. Sir David Frost’s wife and Richard Nixon both connect into the Royal Channel, which means that David Frost was actually interviewing a distant cousin by marriage.

 

Then there is Ron Howard-directed The Reader co-star Ralph Fiennes, who also connects into the Royal Channel, which means that he has family ties to both of the two Frost/Nixon main characters. He also shares ancestors with the historical figure he is up for Best Supporting Actor for portraying in The Duchess, Sir William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire (who by the way is an ancestor of a wife of Norman Mailer), as well as being a distant cousin of many of the other characters in the picture.

 

For his performance in Bernard and Doris Ralph Fiennes is also up for Best Actor in a Mini-series or Motion Picture made for Television. His co-star in Bernard and Doris, Susan Sarandon, is up for Best Actress in a Mini-series or Motion Picture made for Television for her portrayal of Doris Duke, who is also in the Family Forest®. 

 

Another Best Picture nominee is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button starring Brad Pitt, who is up for Best Actor for his performance in this picture. His girlfriend Angelina Jolie is up for Best Actress for her performance in the Clint Eastwood picture The Changeling. Each of these three stars can be connected through six-degrees-of-separation family ties connections to almost everyone already mentioned above.

 

Other 66^th Golden Globes nominees in the Family Forest® are Kyra Sedgwick of The Closer (click here for some of her cousins), Sean Penn for Milk, Tom Cruise for

Tropic Thunder Shirley MacLaine for Coco Chanel, Laura Dern for Recount, and Alec Baldwin  for 30 Rock.

 

The Family Forest® is a unique digital Hollywood resource that picks up where IMdB leaves off in two areas. One is connecting fans through family ties to Hollywood personalities and movie characters, and the other is bringing content and family ties to many of IMdB’s character profiles which are now empty or very skeletal. Our earlier blog about John Adams and star Paul Giamatti, another 66^th Golden Globes nominee, helps explain why.

 

Enjoy the show!

 

P.S. The Family Forest® Project is looking for a celebrity spokesperson. Details available here.

 

Family Forest® Casting Call

Millisecond Publishing Company, Inc. (MPC) is looking for celebrity spokespersons to internationally introduce the upcoming Family Forest® Hollywood Edition.

 

The ideal candidates will be those who regularly appear in international print and broadcast media as instantly recognized celebrities, who are welcome guests on Oprah, Larry King Live, The Charlie Rose Show and others, and who are already very extensively networked through actual family ties to a large number of everyday people in the Family Forest®.

 

This role should be fun and personally rewarding, and when millions of people discover the staggering amount of their own early ancestral history that has already been assembled by the Family Forest® Project, this performance will be as easy as leading a parade just by stepping out in front of it and walking in the same direction. Plus the affiliation will simultaneously promote the spokespersons’ own projects.

 

Here are our top twelve choices at this time, not necessarily in priority order.

 

Tom Hanks (and maybe his relatively close cousin, Oscar-winner Sissy Spacek): Almost as important as his superstar status, Tom’s personal passion for history, as can be seen in his interview concerning the John Adams mini-series, and his own family ties to the Da Vinci Code make him a perfect Family Forest® spokesperson. In addition, his production company Playtone can benefit from the ancestral marketing opportunities the Family Forest® provides.

 

Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick: In addition to being a famous husband and wife team who are both extensively networked through actual family ties in the Family Forest®, Kevin’s “Six Degrees of Separation” fame is shorthand for the concept that we are all connected. The Family Forest® illustrates this concept using genealogy, and both Kevin and Kyra can be hubs for these surprising webs of connections.

 

Prince William and/or Prince Harry: The Family Forest® can show far more of the ancestral history of the British Royal Family with just a few mouse-clicks than any other digital resource, and it connects Prince William and Prince Harry personally through family ties to everyday people throughout the world. We believe this is a project

Princess Diana would be very proud to have her sons champion.

 

Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece and his family: The excellent photograph and article in the February 2008 issue of Vanity Fair, coupled with their very extensive ancestral history already mapped out in the Family Forest®, make them a picture postcard perfect family to promote the Family Forest® and its usefulness to school students.

 

Richard Gere and Uma Thurman: The Tibet and world peace efforts between

Uma’s father and Richard can make them a great team to introduce the world to the world’s largest maps of human migration, and the resulting conclusion that we are all much closer related than common knowledge has been teaching.

 

Madonna: Although the Family Forest® does not yet lineage-link her into the

Royal Channel, Madonna’s son Rocco is of known royal descent according to recorded history. The enriching benefits of personally connecting schoolchildren personally to human history is a theme Madonna could excellently convey.

 

Jimmy Buffett and his “Uncle” Warren Buffett: Jimmy’s words are true, “Everybody’s Got A Cousin in Miami,” and the Family Forest® shows why. A team of two old friends representing both the entertainment world as well as mainstream America will help show that the Family Forest® bridges many interest areas.  Plus, when the patterns of human genetic migration become better known, as the Family Forest® will teach, it will be obvious that Warren and Jimmy are actually related very very much closer than reported by 23andMe.

 

Paris Hilton: Similar to “When E. F. Hutton talks, people listen,” when Paris does anything, people pay attention. This can be a perfect opportunity for Paris to use her media power constructively for a noble purpose.

 

David McCullough: Listening to his interview by Charlie Rose, it is obvious that David McCullough has one of the best intuitive grasps on the concept of A People-Centered Approach To History®, and his readers can use the Family Forest® to increase their enjoyment of his books.

 

Elvis and the Presley Girls: The “King of Rock” is shown to be descended from historic kings in the Family Forest®, and he is now networked through family ties to ancestors of millions of his fans. His wife, Dancing With The Stars contestant Priscilla Presley, and her daughter Lisa Marie Presley, can utilize the Family Forest® Hollywood Edition to promote the exciting new renovations and expansion at Graceland.

 

Sam Waterston: His portrayal of a deep thinking, caring, and very believable person in Mindwalk, bolstered by his performance in Law and Order, made him an ideal spokesman for T.D. Waterhouse, and can also make him an ideal spokesman for the Family Forest® Project.

 

Icons from the Past: Similar to the technique Steve Martin used so effectively in

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, past Hollywood stars such as Bogart, Hepburn, and others such as the collection represented by CMG, can still perform today. Historical clips from icons who are no longer with us can be used strategically to allow them perform again today as excellent Family Forest® spokespersons.

 

We also welcome inquires from all of the many other celebrities who fit the criteria above.

 

Some of those more extensively networked living celebrities already lineage-linked in the Family Forest® include Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Clint Eastwood, Robert Duval, Ted Danson, Matthew Fox, Ron Howard, Halle Berry, George Clooney, Jody Foster, Willie Nelson, Britney Spears, Cher, Brooke Shields, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts and Eric Roberts, Hugh Grant, Cindy Crawford, Jamie Lee Curtis, Bridget Fonda and Jane Fonda, Anderson Cooper, Kate Hudson, Kurt Russell, Sarah Ferguson, Oliver Platt, Rene Auberjonois, Denise Crosby, Wil Wheaton, Catherine Oxenberg and Casper Van Dien, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson, Michael Douglas, Dick Clark, Don Imus, Andy Griffith, David Hyde Pierce, Eddie Vedder, Christopher Lloyd, George Hamilton, Matthew Perry, Viggo Mortensen, Liza Minnelli, Garry Trudeau, Marie Osmond and Donny Osmond, Grace Slick, David Crosby, The Beach Boys, Joanne Woodward, Raquel Welsh, Sigourney Weaver, Governor and Mrs. Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ward, Dick Van Dyke, The Baldwin Brothers, and Bill Gates.