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Navigating the Geni Big Tree to find interesting people in the family tree that someone else created can be very tedious, and you would likely miss the people you wanted to find. I put most of this tree together, so now I would like to list some interesting people in it for relatives who are new to this tree.
I joined Geni in 2011 when basic members were restricted to a small number of profiles. The next year, MyHeritage bought Geni and most graciously and generously opened up the tree to unlimited profiles for basic members. Sometimes you will find text written on profiles that pertain to earlier generations or siblings of the profiled person. That was me stretching the bounds of the profile limits back in the first year.
Geni has a weakness -- the only way to display marriage dates and places is on the Timeline tab (unless you just write the information in the "about me" section). So in my first couple of years on Geni I got used to putting LOTS of information on the Timeline tab, which nobody else seems to use. Mostly you will find information that came from census entries, ordered by census year. So be sure to check the Timeline tab.
By subject:
Royalty
The latest known king (or queen) that we directly descend from is King Henry III of England, in the 13th century. This makes us direct descendants of many other kings and queens from earlier times, including William the Conqueror, King Alfred the Great, and Charlemagne.
Descending from a 13th century king is fairly common, but most people do not. As you go back in time, chances of direct descent from royalty increase exponentially, so the majority of Europeans today descend from Charlemagne.
Connections in Geni change all the time. In the past, we have been called direct descendants of kings more recent than Henry III, but those connections have been corrected by the curators. In case you want to believe that these connections are true, here are the two kings in question:
Charles VI de Valois, roi de France
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The Great Migration
Colonization of New England between 1620 and 1635 is called the Great Migration and began with the Mayflower (1620). We descend from six passengers of the Mayflower, of three separate families.
Elder William Brewster, "Mayflower" Passenger
Mary (unknown) Brewster, “Mayflower Passenger”
Thomas Rogers, "Mayflower" Passenger
Lt. Joseph Rogers, "Mayflower" Passenger
Stephen Hopkins, "Mayflower" Passenger
Constance (Hopkins) Snow, "Mayflower" Passenger
Thomas and Joseph Rogers are our direct ancestors, but not by our Rogers paternal line. Rogers is a common name, and I don't know of any previous connection between the two. Our paternal line is Scotch-Irish, and the Mayflower passengers are more associated with England.
As far as interesting ancestors go, Stephen Hopkins is more than a Mayflower passenger. He had already gone to Jamestown, Virginia, the very first English settlement in the future USA, where he was with John Rolphe and Pocahontas. On his way there, he was accused of mutiny in Bermuda and almost executed. His adventures became the subject of one of Shakespeare's characters in The Tempest.
Looming large for me in the Great Migration is our ancestor Deacon Gregory Stone. One hundred years ago, descendants of Gregory and Simon Stone commissioned a very accomplished genealogist, J Gardner Bartlett, to write their family history. Just before I started researching my 2nd great grandmother Irene Stone Rogers, Google Books had made the work freely available online. This was the biggest easy chunk of research I had before Geni came along. The Great Migration is all over Irene Stone's ancestry.
https://books.google.com/books?id=ZxsVAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&...
Robert Smith, of Saltfleetby & Hampton
There are many more. Deacon Gregory Stone helped lead a group that made the first major protest of taxation without representation to the king of England. Joseph Merriam is ancestor of the founder of Merriam-Webster. Edward Raynsford is descendant of King Henry III that went to the new world from whom we get our connection to royalty.
Outside of New England, we have some interesting ancestors who came to what is now New Jersey:
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Everyone linked so far (except the two kings) is a direct ancestor, that is, a great grandparent. Below are links to aunts, uncles, and close cousins as well.
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Memorial Day
World War II, Civil War, War of 1812, and Revolutionary War heroes.
Brig. General James M. McIntosh (CSA)
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Military
General Bernard William Rogers
Brig. Gen. (USA), John Baillie McIntosh
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Civic
Governor Percival Wood Clement
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Art, science, crafts
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Business
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African-Americans, slavery
At least one biography of Dr Martha George Rogers Ripley (see Civic section above) says that after her family moved to primitive frontier area of Iowa in the late 1840's the family helped runaway slaves that passed through. This contributed to Martha's humanitarianism that would drive her crusade for women's health rights. We don't know if the Rogers continued their underground railroad activity after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 increased the penalties for this activity.
One thing we do know is that Affadilla Moody Deaver did her most important underground railroad work after 1850, not letting unjust laws get in the way. In 1842, before the Fugitive Slave Act, Affadilla almost certainly helped escort Frederick Douglass to freedom. Her neighbor, conductor Thomas L. Gray had his recollection published in the Corning Times about how he and four other conductors helped escort Douglass from Deavertown to Putnam (now part of Zanesville). https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/siebert/id/5951.
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Not-so-good
Every family tree has them - people not so proud of. Some are definitely guilty, others are accused and controversial.
An example of accused could be Uncle George V Rogers (above, in the civic section) who could have been accused of corruption after his loss in the Kansas Supreme Court. I don't know, but he and his family got silent and low key afterwards. Could just be the shame of losing.
On the other side we have George W Stinsman (born 1846). There have been several George W Stinsman's so the date is important.
Also in our ancestry is an accuser of witchcraft who also happened to be a victim of murder:
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I could be tempted to put this under Memorial Day, but for two big exceptions.
1) Seth Hinckley was not a soldier, so his death is a murder, even though killed by enemy combatant.
2) The war he was killed in did not involve the United States, which did not exist yet.
He was one of two known direct ancestors who died by enemy action in a war (all of the men in the Memorial Day section are uncles or cousins). Both of the direct ancestors died in the French and Indian War.
Seth Hinckley was killed by Indians under control of the French.
Nathan Stone (father of Lieutenant Nathan Stone of the Revolutionary War) was a soldier in the French and Indian War, but his demise is not certain. He was missing in action, never found.
Please excuse the impertinent essay on Seth Hinckley's profile. Not my fault.
The impertinent essay on Lieutenant Nathan Stone's profile is my fault. Thanks, everybody, for leaving it alone.
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Mary F Stinsman's mother's side has generations full of sailors, seamen, ship captains and owners from Egg Harbor, New Jersey (present Atlantic City). The tragic end to this culture contributed to the death of one of our direct ancestors, who was lost at sea between Egg Harbor and Long Island, New York.
The 1870's saw the expansion of railroads between coastal communities that cut into business for coastal sailing ships. Ships were being constructed less seaworthy than in the past, and the dwindling pine forests of that part of New Jersey meant that new ships would have masts that were not as strong as in the past.
That decade also saw storms worsening by the year, and 1879 was the worst one. I have been unable to find out which ship Joseph Somers Lee was sailing on when he died, but chances are their cargo was bricks for construction. That looks like the scenario, strong storm comes up, breaks mast, and heavy bricks cause ship to sink, right away or after a long period of aimless drifting.
After Joseph's death, his wife Hester Barrett Lee moved to Gloucester City, which was a good thing for us if you are glad to have been born.