Do you want to help connect this year's Academy Award nominees to the tree?

Question

The nominees for the 87th Academy Awards were announced today, and the Notables project has already been hard at work connecting famous actors of 2014 hoping to get potential nominees connected ahead of time. (Anyone who wants to continue trying to connect those actors can check out the old G2G thread.)

If you want to jump in and help out, here are the nominees for the acting categories, and their profiles. Winners designated by *

Best Actor:

Steve Carell (unconnected) (connected!)

Bradley Cooper (unconnected) (connected!)

Benedict Cumberbatch (unconnected) (connected!)

Michael Keaton (connected!)

* Eddie Redmayne (unconnected) (connected!)

Best Actress:

Marion Cotillard (unconnected)

Felicity Jones (unconnected)

* Julianne Moore (unconnected)

Rosamund Pike (connected!)

Reese Witherspoon (unconnected)(connected!)

Best Supporting Actor:

Robert Duvall (unconnected) (connected!)

Ethan Hawke (unconnected) (connected!)

Edward Norton (unconnected) (connected!)

Mark Ruffalo (unconnected)

* J.K. Simmons (unconnected) (connected!)

Best Supporting Actress:

* Patricia Arquette (connected!)

Laura Dern (unconnected) (connected!)

Keira Knightley (unconnected)

Emma Stone (unconnected) (connected!)

Meryl Streep (unconnected) (connected!)

Comments

Speaking of connecting notables, what are you supposed to do when you can connect them but can't get cooperation? http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Fonda-35

---

I opened that up, Carrie. Ed is away from WikiTree for now.

---

Thank you!

---

Thanks so much for posting this Erin! I usually use http://ethnicelebs.com/ to get started working back at least a couple generations to where some public records are available. A lot of times they cite sources too. For example http://ethnicelebs.com/reese-witherspoon.

---

Ethnicelebs is such a good little grab bag of leads. Thanks for posting the link, Bob!

(As an aside, there are a lot of photos on Find A Grave for people in Reese Witherspoon's tree, so that might turn up some good pathways for anyone wanting to try to connect her. I honestly think that if we cast a wide net, a connection will pop up pretty quickly for her.)

---

I thought she might have been connected to Rev. John Witherspoon, signer of the Declaration of Independence, but that turned out to not be the case despite some public claims to the contrary. Many Witherspoon immigrants came from Scotland between 1720-50, it's apparently a relatively common name. Most came through Philadelphia (including the reverend's family) but Reese's apparently came through South Carolina and went to Tennessee. There's a couple other common names in her father's tree I filled in (Hughes, Curtis) from findagrave but no good info on earlier connections. Her mother's family might have some possibilities.

Time to work some on Robert Duvall, one of my favorite actors. I see some trees going back to the 1500's, and ethnicelebs says his mother's family is related to Robert E. Lee (though they were from Georgia, and his father's family was from Northern Virginia but were French: 'du Val').

---

Robert Duvall is already connected, see http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:Connection&action=connect&person1Name=Jacobs-2987&person2Name=Duvall-33. I aded a bunch more spouses and peripheral relations. Can't figure out any connection to Robert E. Lee or the Custis family (Martha Washington), none of the names in his tree going back to the 1600s match to any of the Lee/Custis names.

---

Not sure if it'll count but once Reese Witherspoon's ex-husband Ryan Phillippe gets connected to her then in a few days she'll have a connection to the tree through him in several lines.

---

Someone added Steve's matrilineal great-grandmother as Victoria V. Kawoleski.

I think Victoria was Steve's great-grandfather's second wife. But his first wife, and Steve's great-grandmother, was likely Mary Brunnwyko or Burranaski.

The obituary of Steve's maternal grandmother's brother, Jacob Tolosky (born two years before Steve's grandmother), lists Mary as his mother.

http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn84031178/1978-05-25/ed-1/seq-21.pdf

---

Laura Dern (and her mother Diane Ladd) are now connected to AJ: http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:Connection&action=connect&person1Name=Jacobs-2987&person2Name=Dern-122

---

Thanks, Bob!

Answer 1

Looks like you got a start on Steve Carell - can you please open him up for me?

And if you don't mind, please open Bradley Cooper as well. I'll take a shot at the first two on the list...

Thanks.

Comments

Done, thanks Scott!

---

I think I've got Steve Carell connected through his maternal grandmother's side (Tolosky), who married into the Matte family. I was able to trace the Matte's way way way back to the early 1700's in Canada, where another member was kind enough to have provided a connection. We'll see how it goes when the links update tonight.

CORRECTION: The profile I connected to wasn't connected to the tree... darn. More to do to get things connected, but I have lots and lots of branches to explore...

---

Dang, Scott! But at least you found one of those unconnected clusters we're always trying to find and hook into the tree.

If you'd like some help branching out from the Mattes, I love doing Canadian research.

---

That would be WONDERFUL, Erin! Let me know if you're able to fill out one of the many potential branches that might pop up out there.

On the other side, I'm still adventuring in the Polish end of things. Tolosky appears to be a Polish name from the days when Russia held sway over the country. So some of Steve's grandmother birthplace records show Russia, some Poland, and oddly enough an occasional Lithuania. And while one of them did marry into the Matte family, another married into the Leszko famiy, another into the Ryan family, another into the Koch family, and several I'm still digging into further. I'm sure there's a link somewhere - just haven't found it yet.

---

Steve Carell is connected now, thanks to your work, Scott. Just had to go back one more generation in the Mattes and it hooked up. Thanks!

---

Awesome teamwork, Erin!! Thanks!! I had a sneaky suspicion there was a connection there somewhere - glad you were able to find it!

On to Bradley Cooper now.

Answer 2

If anyone wants to help connect Meryl Streep, there's a separate thread going about her Wilkinson ancestors in Pennsylvania.

Comments

Doug Lockwood got Meryl connected, and she'll show in the calculator tomorrow. Thanks, Doug!

Answer 3

J.K. Simmons is connected! The link is a bit of a tenuous one hinging on a married man who stepped out, so evidence or family lore may come out to disconnect him from his child. Anyway, he's 36 steps from AJ. If someone wants to look for another connection, that would be good too.

Answer 4

I may be way off here, but aren't profiles of living persons supposed to be private?

Comments

True to an extent, but public figures are public, not private. So my understanding is the rule of thumb is that if there is extensive public knowledge available online on them already and they're considered a public figure, then they are public. I'm sure there's a rule out there somewhere for this.

---

See http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:Notables for guidelines on adding living Notables. They are considered Notable if they qualify for their own WikiPedia article. Their birthdate and related non-famous relatives remain private within WikiTree (unlike many other sites), but their tree should be public (so we can connect to them) as well as their biography (for source references and family information).

Thanks so much for participating!

Answer 5

Just curious, can anyone determine if this is true:

This bio of Diane Ladd (mother of Laura Dern) says that Diane's maternal grandmother, Rose Schmitt, was Jewish.

http://www.dianeladd.com/health.htm

Rose or Rosa's parents were August Schmitt and Magdalena Honard (?), who were German immigrants.

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M9DF-YMD

Not much more is availabe on them - so I'm trying to see if were they Jewish Germans or non-Jewish Germans?

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Dern-122

Comments

I did take a look, but couldn't really come up with much more than you have already.

Answer 6

Benedict Cumberbatch is now connected to AJ via Edward III.

Update: Actually the calculator found a closer connection through the Queen Mother.

Comments

Thanks, William!!!

Answer 7

Eddie Redmayne is now connected with 35 degrees from AJ. I was expecting the connection to be through Edward III again, but the calculator found a closer connection.

Comments

Good one, William!

---

Do you know anything about Eddie's mother's side? He stated that his maternal grandmother lives in Edinburgh, but I don't know if she's actually Scottish. His paternal grandmother was evidently Irish.

---

Hello Alison,

 I am afraid I do not know anything about his mother's side, other than her name - Patricia Burke.

Answer 8

I just connected  Ethan Hawke to AJ through Amos Hall "Hall-14490" . I'm going to  show the connection below...

20.          Amos Hall            Hall-14490           Father of

21.          Amos Hall II        Hall-15519           Father of

22.          James Carter Hall             Hall-15518           Father of

23.          Thomas Washington Hall, Sr.       Hall-15510           Father of

24.          Thomas Washington Hall, Jr.       Hall-15509           Father of

25.          John Henry Hall                 Hall-15588           Father of

26           Susie Idella (Hall) Green                                Hall-15505           Mother of

27.          Howard Lemuel Green                  Green-13116      Father of

28.          Leslie Green       Green-13115      Mother of

29           Ethan G. Hawke                                Hawke-494

Comments

Thanks, Judi!

Answer 9

Still working on Bradley Cooper - if anyone wants to assist, I'm all for it.

I've done what I can with the Cooper line - there's a few leads still left to explore there, but overall I've not found a link yet. The Campano line has some possibilities. Family Search started leading me into older 1800's Italian records, and it appears that there are some interesting possibilities in the Di Francesco and Ferrara lines that might pan out. We'll see how things turn out...

Answer 10

Edward Norton is now connected to the GFT. 38 steps!

Comments

Nicely done! And just in time.

Answer 11

Emma Stone is connected, and she'll show up once the calculator updates tonight.

Answer 12

I've added a lot of Italian profiles to Bradley Cooper's tree, and not a single one of them has connected yet. His Cooper side was limited as to who I was able to source out, so unfortunately I lost track of the majority of them as they crossed the big pond.

On the other hand, his Italian roots are fairly good - it's just that we don't have a current tie-in to any of them on the tree just yet. I'll keep going to see if something jumps out, but I'm thinking we're going to run out of time for the Awards presentation. Oh well...

Comments

I need a break from working on Mark Ruffalo (who knew there were so many Italians in Wisconsin?!), so I'll help you out with Bradley. You've got so much there, eventually someone will have to hit a connection.

---

OK - I'm hoping we'll have a connection tonight. (Fingers crossed...)

---

It's showing up now - 41 degrees of separation.

---

Thank you, Erin, for finding the key link!

Answer 13

I know that Julianne Moore was started already, so I'm looking at her now to see if there's any clues. I added a few profiles with some sources attached, but it looks like it might take a little work to get it going.

Any other ones that are getting close that need a little push? I also see that Erin was working on Mark Ruffalo. I might take a look there if I get a little time.

The awards show is this weekend, and we still have 6 unconnected profiles (out of 20) - not too shabby, but we might be able to connect a few more.

Answer 14

Got a connection for Mark Ruffalo! It feels like a whole One Place Study for Kenosha, Wisconsin was needed to get it, though. Hopefully it squeaked in under the wire and will get picked up in tonight's calculator update.

Comments

Gratz, Erin! Just confirmed that you were correct. Mark didn't win, but at least he's now connected.