A special thanks to cousin Jane R. Kellam of Binghamton, NY. Jane brought to my attention a series of articles based on the book American Ancestors and Cousins of the Princess of Wales that appeared in NEXUS, the bimonthly newsletter of the NEHGS.

Those of you who are descendants of Gideon and Dorcus (Dorothy) STRONG SKINNER are related to 'Lady Diana Frances Spencer, Her Royal Highness, The Princess of Wales' affectionately known to us colonists as 'Lady Di' and a slew of other well-known Americans through Dorcus' line:

Russell G. Colt, husband of Ethyl Barrymore; Presbyterian Clergyman Lyman Beecher; sculptor Alexander Caulder; Samuel Colt, inventor of the Colt 45; Congressman and US Senator Roscoe Conkling; Admiral George Dewey; Thomas Edmund Dewey, Governor of NY; John David Drumond, 17th Earl of Perth; detective novelist Earle Stanley Gardner; Edward Brissell Hunt, husband of Helen Hunt authoress of Ramona; ethnologist and anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan; Frederick Law Olmstead, designer of Central Park in NYC; Bertrand Arthur William Russell, the 3rd Earl Russell; Lilian Hillyer Egelston, wife of pathologist Theobald Smith; Jane Davenport Cheney, 1st wife of pediatrician Benjamin Spock; Evelyn Wadsworth, 1st wife of US Senator William Stewart Symington; among others.

It seems that Princess Di and I are ninth cousins, once removed, having common ancestor couple John Fobes and Constant Mitchell. Other noted relations based on this same ancestor are:

Horatio Alger; Susan B. Anthony; John Bartlett, of Bartlett's Quotations; Richard E. Byrd; John Pierpont (J.P.) Morgan; William Howard Taft; Henry David Thoreau; (George) Orson Welles; among others.

Thanks again, Jane!