There Is No Cat - How many?

As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

How many?

I've seen a number of mentions of a new site, How Many of Me, on various blogs today. The site says it will tell you how many people in the U.S. have the same name as you. Interesting stuff. It says that there are two people in the U.S. named Ralph Brandi. But I know that's wrong. Me and my dad make two. But then there's this guy in California who is a vice president at a semiconductor company. Switchboard says there's a Ralph Brandi living on Staten Island, so that's four. Switchboard also lists a distant cousin of mine in Michigan named Ralph Brandi (I've concluded in my genealogical research that I'm related to everyone in Michigan born with the Brandi surname, all descendants of either my great-grandfather or two of his cousins). We're up to five. Intellius lists 26 people named Ralph Brandi, but their algorithms are kind of stupid, because seven of them are me or my dad (and sometimes they conflate the two of us), and three of them are my late grandfather, who has been dead for more than six years. I couldn't find any of the other Ralph Brandis they list in other states, either; many of them were shown as being over 80 years old, so maybe they're with my grandfather. I'll discount the 26 there. So there are still at least five people in the U.S. named Ralph Brandi.

So How Many of Me is off by three, if you want to be generous. Or, they're off by 150%, if you want to be less generous. Take their results with a grain of salt.

My wife is a wonderful person, and nothing she does could ever annoy me. That's what she told me to write here as she tries to keep me from finishing this entry. I think I'll go buy her some expensive presents now.

Tags: how many of me genealogy

Posted at 9:16 PM

Comments

Note: I’m tired of clearing the spam from my comments, so comments are no longer accepted.

It says there are 3 of me. I know of myself, a skateboarder from Florida, and a bass player from Massachusetts. So, since they came up with a number that I could have come up with by Googling my name, then my experience says they are exactly right. How's that for scientific method and inductive logic?

Posted by lilbro at 1:13 PM, October 18, 2006 [Link]

Intellius is not perfect -- You happen not to live in St. Augustine although you sometimes visit there. The confusion never stops does it? If there is a next life, I will have learned my lesson.

Posted by Mamacita at 1:40 PM, October 18, 2006 [Link]

420 of me, which doesn't come as much of a surprise, really. I figured there were lots. (I doubt I'm related to any of them, though. My last name in its current incarnation is of relatively recent vintage.)

Posted by Elaine at 4:27 PM, October 18, 2006 [Link]

I have a pretty unusual name and I know that the site you mentioned got me wrong, too. There are more of me than they said!

Posted by Rhea at 1:42 PM, October 23, 2006 [Link]

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What do you mean there is no cat?

"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

- Albert Einstein, explaining radio