I was doing a few quick lookups on Bernard Goldenstein for an upcoming Casefile Clues article at Ancestry.com and decided to try the "famous relative" link that came up.
Imagine my surprise when it actually pulled up someone--president Tyler's third wife.
A quick look at her ancestry did not indicate where the connection was made and the link to show relationship was not working.
Mrs. Tyler had an ancestor born in the Netherlands which is close to Ostfriesland where Goldenstein's ancestry originated. However looking at her available pedigree chart did not reveal any connection.
Being 5th cousins 5 times removed to Mrs. Tyler means that Ben Goldenstein's 3rd great-grandfather/mother was a fifth cousin to Mrs. Tyler. My guess is that the program is "grabbing" one of Mrs. Tyler's Dutch ancestors and assuming it is the same person as one of Goldenstein's Ostfriesen ancestors.
Without seeing the way Ancestry.com is connecting them, it is difficult to tell. I'm pretty skeptical that there is any relationship.
When it indicated a relationship between Goldenstein and a famous person, a more realistic possibility (and I said POSSIBILITY) is the late Senator Everett Dirksen. He was from Illinois (where Goldenstein's family actually settled) and was also of Ostfriesen extraction. Perhaps senators don't qualify as "famous."
I'll update on this if the "connection" ever shows at Ancestry. I got error messages when I tried it again just now.
