Have you found that you are related to someone famous as you have researched your family?

Everyone always wants to find that they are related to someone famous. If you watch TV you will notice that the first thing they do when someone is elected to an office or becomes well-known is show that somebody has researched their family and they are kin to someone famous or infamous! Makes for good reading and viewing. Everyone can be traced back many generations to a famous president, singer or star.
I didn't want to do that and I never started out to see if I had a famous relative. Then in November of 2006, Jim and I went to Nashville for our 45th wedding anniversary. When we arrived in Nashville we had a hard time finding a room. Everything was booked because they were having the TV show for the annual inductees for the Country Music Hall of Fame. I picked up a brochure and was reading the names and a short bio of each one.
When I read about Sonny James, his last name shocked me. His name is really James Loden. I had heard my mother talk of the Loden family all my life. When I returned home I started to search and found that Sonny James was born in Hackleburg, Alabama and his birth name was James Loden. He had been called Sonny as a boy and when he started his singing career he had changed his name to Sonny James. I remembered listening to his music when I was a teen and he was considered to be a rock star. As I searched further I found that his great grandmother, Mary A. Frederick Burleson was a sister to my great grandfather, Green Jackson Frederick.
I will possibly never meet Sonny James, and he may never know that we are kin but I am proud to have such a fine singer and gentleman as a cousin.

JAMES LODEN AKA SONNY JAMES
Born: May 1, 1929
Hackleburg, Alabama
Country Music Hall of fame 2006
Alabama Music Hall of Fame 1987