Kingdom Hearts II: Voice Actress Trivia

[Pogue-Mahone]

The voice actress for Vivi Orunitia, Melissa Disney, is a distant relative to Walt Disney.

They are fourth cousins, which means there are about 4 generations between Melissa and Walt Disney. According to the Cousins Chart on Boris Brooks shown below, Walt Disney is Melissa Disney's Great-Great-Great Grandparent.



Of course the trivia I'm getting at is "The actress in a Disney game is related to the namesake of the Disney company." Hopefully this is interesting enough to make it on the site.

SOURCES
IMDB for Melissa Disney's Kingdom Hearts II Credit: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0228396/

Interview with Melissa Disney stating her relationship to Walt Disney (first question): http://blog.benztown.com/voiceover/we-ar...sa-disney/

Cousins Table: http://www.borisbrooks.com/genealogy/cousins.htm

[Dazz]

No, if Walt Disney was her great, great, great grandparent, he would be her great, great, great grandparent.

Can anybody explain the relation for me? I'm crap when it comes to calculating cousin relations. I don't believe it would be possible for them to be 4th cousins, even though she says it as such... That would be some weird age gaps that I don't believe would be possible.

[Spherix*]

It's possible that she isn't any better at determining the correct term. However, it's still possible that they're 4th cousins, but several times removed, which she neglected to mention. I think you need a degree in genealogy or something to be able to calculate those from memory. Here's a simplified explanation from someone who doesn't have such a degree, and also doesn't get enough sleep, so it's not guaranteed to be accurate:

Cousins simply have a common ancestor, and the degree is the number of generations between them and the common ancestor. For example, the children of one sibling are "first cousins" to the children of another sibling, because there is one generation (the siblings) between them and their common ancestors: their grandparents, which are the sibling's parents. The children of cousins are second cousins to each other, because there are two generations in between them and their common ancestors.

Cousins are considered "removed" when they are not of the same generation. Your children would be first cousins to your own first cousins, but once removed. Successive generations of your children would always be first cousins to your own first cousins, but the number of times removed would increase with each generation. However, your children would be second cousins to your first cousins' children.

It's all way easier to calculate if you have a family chart. To find out the term for your relation to someone else, you first count the number of generations from each of you to a common ancestor. The shorter path is the degree, the difference between the paths is the number of times removed.

So one of Melissa Disney's ancestors had the same great-great-great grandparent as Walt Disney. He is not her great-great-great grandparent himself. I suppose it's possible for them to actually be 4th cousins with no removals, if his side of the family had children at a (significantly) younger age for several of those generations. Seems unlikely though.