My maternal Grandmother was a Hardy.
My parents and I loved and laughed at Laurel and Hardy all through my childhood.
I asked my mum one day – were we related to Oliver? She said, “I don’t know”.
Now I do…
This last weekend I noticed a leading article in another blog I read about Oliver Hardy and I thought – are we related?
Guess what?
WE ARE!!!!
Wikipedia provided Oliver’s history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Hardy), along with the names of his mother and father. I did some searching and found that Oliver and I are 17th cousins twice removed!
I use Family Tree Maker v2012 as my primary genealogy program. Using the Relationship Chart report I find that my relationship is through my father’s ancestry – which surprised me.
So, I ran the same report against my maternal cousin Frances, and yup, there he is – Oliver is Frances’ 25th cousin, 3 times removed.
Say, what now? Why is that?
It appears that there is NO link between my Grandmother Hardy and Oliver.
We are related via completely different lines.
Mine through my father and Frances through HER father (my mother’s brother) – and thus me through, our (Frances and my) Grandfather Miller – who married my Grandmother Hardy!!!!!