Celebrities?

@J. Ashley Odell, I usually start with someone who was born before 1950, because then their parents were usually born before 1930 and their census is probably available. However, with lots of research, like looking up heavy metal singer Sebastian Bach's (who was born in the 1960s) family, I just had to read lots of stuff by him and biographies and interviews about or by him. Sometimes, you can find obituaries and it will list peoples' names, who preceded them in death or whom is survived by them...then it all starts connecting together. It may even list where they were born to give you a starting point on what to look for in census. That's how I did his...then, I work my way back and if I come across a surname that is unusual, that usually gets me really looking harder...but if I get a surname that is familiar (like I KNOW I have seen it in the big tree), then I try and build up that line till I find a match. Once I find a positive match, then I merge it in.

Ashley, if you meant the Geni-tech side of it, this is one way:

• add a child somewhere in your existing tree,
• save the URL/PID to the child,
• cut the parent relationship.

Now you have a standalone profile.

Good one, Olav. I forgot to mention that is exactly what I do when I start from "scratch."

Thanks to you both, Private User and http://www.geni.com/people/Olav-Linno-Po%C3%ABll/6000000000700358965. Yes, I meant the technical way of doing it. :)

Private User - I added Ibn Khaldun as my son, scaring my cousin out of her mind. Then I disinherited him :-) I watched Erica do this many times in my news feed, and as far as I know, as Olav Linno Poëll said so concisely, there is no other way to add a celebrity or a standalone profile.

Hatte Rubenstein Blejer: I admit that one of the first thoughts I had was how much fun it would be to freak my sister out by adding children for myself. ;)

Considering Arnold Schwarzenegger is in the news lately...zoom in on his family tree:
Arnold Aloïs Schwarzenegger

Sweet little angel, JonBenét Ramsey she was a young pageant contestant and lived to be only 6 years old when her life was taken from her on Christmas 1996. May she be remembered...her murder is still a mystery.

Randy "Macho Man" Savage
Rest In Peace, Macho Man Randy Savage...loved you on the WWF! :)

Do you like or remember "THE DOORS?"

See how you're related to Jim Morrison. :D

Jim Morrison

Jim Morrison is Hatte Blejer's 11th cousin. Through the Greenes who I didn't even know where my ancestors :) I saw him perform on Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County in 1966 or so.

There is a Swinging 60s project for Britain, why don't we start a Swinging 60s US project?

"Son," she said, "have I got a little story for you..."

Eddie Vedder Eddie Vedder may be your cousin. :) If you like the grunge rock group Pearl Jam, this is the lead singer, Eddie Vedder's tree. His tree was started by Gene, but I didn't know it was already started. I had worked downward down the Vedder tree, while Gene had worked from Eddie up. So, we ended up with a merged duplicate. I've also worked through some of the bad merges further up the tree.

H.H. Holmes
He was supposedly America's first documented Serial Killer, also one of the forgotten ones. He created a "Hotel" that had peepholes, gas chambers, doors that lead to brickwalls, shoots that he could throw bodies down that lead the bodies to the cellar where there was a vat of acid. He was one of the gnarly ones.

Don Knotts
He played Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show and Mr. Furley on Three's Company. :)

Is he your cousin?

I was on a roll today...
Fred Gwynne You would remember him as Herman Munster! :)

I actually met Fred Gwynne in NYC in the 1980s. He was a very personable man.

What about "the Odd Couple"? Tony Randall and Jack Klugman.