Well, the path just keeps getting shorter, as more and more work is done on the global family trees at Geni.com and WikiTree. Yesterday, I added the following section to my biography on WikiTree:
According to WikiTree, I am 28 steps away from AJ. Here's the path, as reported by WikiTree's Connection to AJ tool:
AJ Jacobs and Pamela Lloyd have 28 degrees of separation:
AJ Jacobs -> Ellen Kheel (his mother) -> Jane Kheel (her sister) -> John Stanley (her husband) -> Everett Stanley (his father) -> Grace Garrett (his mother) -> Sophia Thompson (her mother) -> Greenbury Thompson (her father) -> Chloe Redman (his mother) -> Nancy Redman (her sister) -> Lloyd Benton Prather (her husband) -> Basil Prather (his father) -> Aaron Prather (his father) -> Martha Sprigg (his mother) -> Sarah Sprigg (her sister) -> Katherine Graves (her mother) -> Thomas Graves (her brother) -> Thomas Graves (his son) -> Robert Graves (his son) -> James Graves (his son) -> William Graves (his son) -> Middleton Graves (his son) -> Matilda Herrington (his wife) -> Isaac Herrington (her father) -> John A Herrington (his brother) -> Isaac Newton Herrington (his son) -> Inez Minerva Herrington (his daughter) -> Winston Lloyd (her son) -> Pamela Lloyd (his daughter)
According to Geni.com, I am only 23 steps away from AJ (just count the arrows in the following path). Here's the path, based on Geni's calculations:
Arnold Stephen Jacobs, Jr. is Pamela D Lloyd's first cousin 6 times removed's wife's uncle's wife's fifth great nephew's ex-wife's nephew!
Pamela D Lloyd (Me) -> Winston Dale Lloyd (my father) -> Elmer Bruce Lloyd (his father) -> Samuel Hughes Lloyd (his father) -> Ellen Hughes (his mother) -> Joel Hughes (her father) -> Eleanor Lee (his mother) -> Eleanor Ellis (her mother) -> Mordecai Ellis, Sr. (her brother) -> Nehemiah Ellis (his son) -> Sarah Thornburgh (his wife) -> Benjamin Eli Thornburgh (her father) -> Thomas Thornburgh (his brother) -> Martha Stanley (his wife) -> Micajah Stanley (her brother) -> Mahlon Stanley (his son) -> John Stanley (his son) -> Wyatt Stanley (his son) -> John Richard Stanley (his son) -> Everett Edward Stanley (his son) -> <private> Stanley (his son) -> <private> Kheel (his ex-wife) -> Ellen Jacobs (her sister) -> Arnold Stephen Jacobs, Jr. (her son)
You'll have noticed that the two connection finders start from different directions. WikiTree's starts with AJ and works it's way to me, while Geni's starts with me and works it's way to AJ. One thing I find interesting is that one path goes through my mother's father, and the the other through his mother.
Almost all my connections to random people (that is, people with any fame or notoriety) are through my father. I simply haven't got enough information about my mother's family.
