U.S. Governors Project - October 2023

Question

With 35 more U.S. governors connected in September, the U.S. Governors Project has now connected 471 U.S. governors to the big tree in only 10 short months. What's even more amazing is that we have just 27 deceased state governors left to connect! In addition, we have 13 territorial governors who also remain unconnected.

Once we get the remaining deceased governors connected, it will be time to place our full focus on our still-living governors, including many current office holders. Right now we have 127 living state governors who need to be connected to the tree. We also have 21 unconnected living governors from the U.S. Territories. In all, that's 232 unconnected profiles, which isn't bad considering more that 2,000 individuals have held U.S. governorships.

If you'd like to help with this project, head over to our unconnected governors list to see which governors still need connecting. Or head over to an already connected governor and see what you can to do to improve their profile. Many have little or no profile, while others lack links to parents, siblings, spouses, and children. Remember, every contribution helps make WikiTree that much stronger.   

Answer 1

Former U.S. Representative and current Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has just been elected his state's next governor, to assume office in January 2024. Kentucky and Mississippi will also be holding gubernatorial elections this year. Both Governor Beshear and Governor Reeves are running for re-election.

In order to get a jumpstart on the profiles of any new governors, I have added a "Governor-elect" table below the "Current Governors" table on the main U.S. Governors Free Space Page. I'll update it as each state's next governor is selected.

Answer 2

That's extraordinary, David. I didn't think I'd live to see all the deceased governors connected, but now there are only 40 left. I applaud everybody who has helped with this project.

Comments

This wouldn't have happened had you not set up the basic framework in the first place. So congratulations go out to you as well. I also never expected to have such great success in such a short time (only ten months so far!).It's been a very rewarding project to participate in.

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it has been an amazing project! I didn't realize how much I enjoyed connecting more than sourcing.. although let's be honest.. sourcing is fun too!

I have been working on the Michigan Govns... I moved to Georgia, with a stopover in between in Tennessee.. after Michigan.. any suggestions which to move to next?

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One cool thing about Wikitree is that we have a place for everyone. If you don't like connecting or sourcing, there's always bio-building, categorizing, proofreading, and what I like to call beautification (i.e. formatting, adding headers, stickers, succession boxes, etc.)

Thanks to everyone who's participated.

Answer 3

John Garland Pollard #51 Virginia is connected

Comments

Elbert Trinkle #49 Virginia is connected

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Double congratulations! This puts us down to only 17 remaining deceased governors from just five states. We also have 13 territorial governors remaining for a grand total of thirty!

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Virginia #53 James Hubert Price connected

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#44 virginia is showing as connected- looks like someone has recently connected it.

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# 48 Westmoreland Davis is connected

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Virginia #36, 39, 41 are all showing as connected already

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South Dakota #22 and #25 connected. Someone else did all the work. Found existing profiles to make the connections.

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Wisconsin #25 Zimmerman is connected

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Wisconsin #23 is connected.Philipp

Wisconsin #31 is showing as connected Goodland

Answer 4

J. Joseph Garrahy, 69th Governor of Rhode Island, is now connected:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Garrahy-1

Comments

Connecting Governor Garrahy was easy. The hard work began later when I noticed that the name on his parents' marriage certificate for the Governor's paternal grandfather was different from the name here on WikiTree.  I hope that I have now successfully unconflated the Governor's father and the namesake with whom he has long been confused here on WikiTree and in countless user-donated trees at ancestry.com!

Can anyone confirm the precise date of death of the Governor's father?  There is only a year on his tombstone inscription, and the birth date in the Social Security record previously cited as the source for his death date does not match any of the three different birth dates which appear in other sources!

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Garahy-2

Answer 5

We are on a roll...just ten more state governors left to go! Then we have our 13 remaining territorial governors, which can be a bit more challenging. And of course, we still have about 185 living governors to connect, but that's not too shabby considering there have been more than 2300 governors in our nation's history.

By the way, I'm still working on attaching the parents of the living governors and am updating the table as I do. Some of the younger governors (born in the 1970s and even the 1980s) are going to be a challenge as they still have living parents, and in a few cases, grandparents.