Facebook Cousins

Yesterday morning, I decided to check Facebook before heading out to church. There was the beginning of a discussion on a photo that Pam Sayre had posted about a photograph of Linda Woodward Geiger and a Perkins cousin and his wife that she had met at the Museum of Appalachia during the FGS Conference in Knoxville. Linda had posted a comment about being descended from John Perkins and Judith Gater of Ipswich, Massachusetts. I quickly chimed in "Cousin Linda" for I, too, am descended from that couple. It wasn't long until Polly Kimmitt joined those claiming kinship. After comparing lines of descent, we discovered that Linda & I are 9th cousins once removed (with the common ancestor being the immigrant John Perkins and his wife Judith Gater), Polly & I are 9th cousins once removed (with the common ancestor being the immigrant's son John Perkins and his wife Elizabeth Evelith), and Linda & Polly are 9th cousins twice removed with the common ancestor being the immigrant once again. Since then, Bill West has also claimed to be our cousin. We'll have to calculate the degree of kinship when we have his line of descent. Now the really interesting thing was coming up with a way to cite a comment on a Facebook photograph that would meet Evidence Explained standards. I don't claim to have done it the way Elizabeth might have, but I came up with a way to do it since it is temporary documentation anyway (and not on my direct line).

Update (9/7/2010): Bill and me are 10th cousins once removed. Bill & Polly are 11th cousins. Bill and Linda are 9th cousins twice removed. Other Perkins cousins found are Melinde Lutz Sanborn, Natalie Cottrill, and Randy Seaver. We don't have enough info at the moment to calculate the degree of relationship to the last three. Natalie and Bill do share a descent through John & Judith's daughter Mary.

Update (9/9/2010): Randy Seaver and Linda are 9th cousins twice removed. Randy, Bill, and Polly are 11th cousins. Randy and me are 10th cousins once removed.

Facebook: Some Applications are Seriously Flawed

I've seen a few Facebook applications lately that need new statisticians. There's one application that supposedly answers the question "How common is your birthday?" I've seen answers varying from 1% to 6% for the persons who have taken this quiz. There are 366 possible dates. Only 365 of those occur each year. One of those occurs every 4 years with the exception of certain millennial years. 1/365.25 = approx. .2738%. In other words, I'm skeptical that anyone's birthday is even 1%.

Then there is one that calculates how common one's last name is. When you consider all the surname possibilities in the world and the amount of people, do you really think that something other than a very common surname such as "Smith" would garner more than a 1% share of surnames, yet I saw a fairly uncommon name with 2% just moments ago.

It's obvious that the people who can't spell when they create the online Facebook quizzes are also the ones who are computing the statistics for some of these applications.

Kidnapped

I've been getting kidnapped quite a bit lately on Facebook. I've always been a fan of Trivial Pursuit, and one of my favorite categories was the blue one (geography). To escape your kidnapper, you must answer a trivia question based on the geographic location in which your kidnapper is hiding out. This is one Facebook application that I really enjoy. I'm in my fourth hideout city at the moment, but I'm sure I'm about to be kidnapped back to Rio de Janeiro at any minute!