Ancestry of
Harry Chapin
Singer and Songwriter
Who was Harry Chapin?
Harry Chapin was a singer and songwriter who is probably best remembered for his hit song Cat’s in the Cradle which hit number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1974. The song was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance in 1975, and it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011.
Harry Chapin died tragically in 1981 when he had a heart attack while driving on the Long Island Expressway. Harry Chapin was very dedicated to fighting world hunger and helped in the creation of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger for which he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
Famous Kin
Harry Chapin is a direct descendant of Mayflower passengers John Howland and John Tilley. He also has kinship to a number of signers of both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. These include, but are not limited to, Robert Treat Paine, Nathaniel Gorham and Josiah Bartlett. Other historical figures in Harry Chapin’s family tree include Boston Tea Party participant Edmund Sears, cotton gin inventor Eli Whitney, stained glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany, cowboy hat inventor John Batterson Stetson, American Red Cross founder Clara Barton, aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, abolitionist John Brown, and Revolutionary War heroes Ethan Allen and Nathan Hale.
Harry Chapin has a number of Presidential kin including Grover Cleveland, Franklin Pierce, Franklin D. Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon, and both Presidents Bush. Royal kin include King Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth II, and Princess Diana. Fellow celebrities in Harry Chapin’s family tree include Bill Nye “The Science Guy,” actor John Lithgow, actor Humphrey Bogart, actor Christopher Lloyd, TV personality Kim Kardashian, actress Lucille Ball, actor Kevin Bacon and many others.
Some of the most recently added connections of famous kin for Harry Chapin
George Albert Smith
8th President of the Mormon Church
18th cousin 1 time removed
via Alice Plumpton
Benjamin Silliman
Founder, American Journal of Science
4th cousin 7 times removed
via Rev. John Jones
Benjamin Silliman
Founder, American Journal of Science
6th cousin 6 times removed
via Richard Tilden
Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz
1st President of Radcliff College
15th cousin 4 times removed
via Alice Plumpton
Gerard Way
Singer, Songwriter and Comic Book Writer
Co-creator of "The Umbrella Academy"
9th cousin 2 times removed
via John Gorham
Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears
Author, "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear"
6th cousin 5 times removed
via Richard Willard
Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears
Author, "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear"
6th cousin 4 times removed
via George Jones of Dinder, Somerset
Brig. Gen. Henry Clay Wood
Medal of Honor Recipient
U.S. Civil War
6th cousin 4 times removed
via John Howland
View entire list of famous kin for Harry Chapin
Please note: The ancestor reports on this website have been compiled from thousands of different sources, many over 100 years old. These sources are attached to each ancestor so that you can personally judge their reliability. As with any good genealogical research, if you discover a link to your own family tree, consider it a starting point for further research. It is always preferable to locate primary records where possible. FamousKin.com cannot and does not guarantee the accuracy and reliability of these sources.
Harry Chapin image by Larry D. Moore (CC BY-SA 3.0)
