My connection to the Playboy Mansion

While I’ll admit that my connection the Playboy Mansion is a bit, uh, weak… I can include Hugh Hefner as one of cousins. Mr. Hefner was the son of Glenn Hefner and his wife Grace Swanson. Since Wikipedia takes the fun out of research, I’ll save myself the trouble of repeating it. See Hugh Hefner on Wikipedia.

The one thing I will say is that Hugh is a direct descendant of Plymouth Governor William Bradford (about 1690 to 1657) through his son William Bradford, Jr. who married my 10th great grandaunt Alice Richards. The senior Bradford was one of the original English Separatists who sailed aboard the Mayflower in 1620 so Hugh is a Mayflower descendant.

My ancestry is through Alice’s sister Mary. Their parents, Thomas Richards and Welthean Loring, arrived to Plymouth about 1633. Mary married Thomas Richards. He would later become the last Governor of of the Plymouth Colony between 1680 and 1692. Their mother Welthean, as I wrote about in my blog post titled Black Sheep, was accused of witchcraft in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1653.

Relationship Chart: John R. Cole to Hugh Hefner

You can read more about my relationships to famous cousins by buying a copy of my book 50 Kinfolk through Lulu.com.

A top seller… not!