Crazy Cousins: My Extraordinary Family Tree

According to a rather intriguing genealogy website, I appear to have some decidedly eccentric distant cousins. While researching an ancestor, General Joseph Gardner Swift, I stumbled across a website called Kin of and discovered some unexpected connections in my family tree.

By way of explanation, I should mention that, although my dear wife is American, I may actually have more American ancestry than she does! She had four British grandparents, whereas I had an American grandmother named Elizabeth Shippen Swift Faulkner. Through my family tree, I can trace an ancestral line back to Richard Warren, who sailed aboard the Mayflower to Massachusetts in 1620.

As a ghost story writer, I was delighted to discover that my supposed distant cousins include some rather intriguing characters: Stephen King, the celebrated horror novelist; Lizzie Borden, the infamous woman accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe in 1892; and Jeffrey Dahmer, the notorious American serial killer.

Another alleged distant cousin is Anthony Perkins, who played the unforgettable Norman Bates in one of my favourite films, Psycho. Given my interest in ghosts, horror and the darker side of human nature, this is a family tree with more than a few surprises lurking among its branches!

But does having these people somewhere in my extended family tree mean I have inherited a little of their DNA, their imagination, or perhaps even their darker tendencies?

Gentle Reader, I shall leave that chilling question unanswered. Only time will tell...

Lots of love,

Laurence