Something interesting about you and/or your family

[Alaric]

This topic was done on another forum I go on, but feel free to not say something too personal if you wish.

Anyway, for me: in this (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038520/) film starring Sir Michael Redgrave, my great-grandfather plays the character Dai (scroll down the cast list) in a rare film role. He was apparently a fairly well known theatre actor in the 20s, 30s and 40s, doing loads of plays in the west end. He was also a raging communist!

[Divia]

I'm afraid my family isnt that impressive. I might have to be the first mover and shaker :p

I had a cousin who was almost pope...

And that would be about it.....


Oh a sad story..my grandmother's sister was making pasta (over in Italy) and I dunno how but the pot spilled on her scarring her horribly. I guess she was quite pretty but after that the men stopped coming :( she lived with her parents and the rest of her brothers/sisters moved to America.

[MLE]

On my father's side, they are inordinately proud of being descended from the Revolutionary war General John Sullivan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sullivan). I had great aunts who tried to enlist me in the DAR. But they were quite embarrassed by the grandmother who was half plains-Indian. In their day, it was an shameful family secret, and I never even found out what tribe she was from.

[Susan]

I'm descended from a brother of Daniel D. Tompkins who was a Member of the House of Representatives, Governor of New York and Vice President under James Monroe. The Tompkins family was prominent in early New York history. I've been able to trace this line of descent back to the 1200s in England.

[donroc]

Sorry, no royalty or even petty nobility. Most must remain anonymous.

Because my family came from Eastern Europe and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, my four grandparents were generally anal retentive about their experiences in places from which they were glad to escape, I know very little about my ancestors except my paternal grandmother, the youngest of nine, had an older brother (the eldest) who was head forester for a Polish prince. That branch of the family after emigrating to the USA mostly went into the furniture business. Another member who went to England married the son of the Chief Rabbi of Manchester.

My mother's family escaped the world of the Russian Shtetl, not as pretty as portrayed in Fiddler on the Roof.

Staying with the arts, the descendants on my paternal side gave birth to a Mousketeer, another very minor actress (one of the three women reacting to Heston parting the Red Sea), and a third, a minor opera singer, who married the late excellent character actor Harold J. Stone.

On my mother's side, I have a cousin who is a left wing polemicist published author, and major player on the Huffington site.

My father said his father said they were descended from refugees who escaped Spain during the Inquisition, but I have yet to confirm that -- and most likely never shall.

The paternal name was Platt, my grandmother's maiden last name was Spiegelman and her grandmother's was Wilk, and on the maternal side my grandfather's last name was Sosnovsky (Pine courtesy of Volgadon) and grandmother's was Gold. That is as far as I have been able to trace.

Two world wars wiped out family who never emigrated, memories, and paper documents.

[Leyland]

I’m distant cousins with some noted authors which is pretty cool due to my bibliomania!

Jimmy Carter (former US President), is a fifth cousin through our direct descent from Thomas Ansley, the Revolutionary patriot who inspired Carter’s novel The Hornet’s Nest. http://www.amazon.com/Hornets-Nest-Novel-Revolutionary-War/dp/0681290811/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221929965&sr=1-5

James Dickey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dickey, author of Deliverance and former Poet-in-Residence at University of SC, is related to me through a Georgia Talbot connection. I have a Talbot gg-grandmother named Mary Elizabeth. Dickey has a gg-grandmother Elizabeth Smith Talbot who was descended from the same Matthew Talbot born in 1699 as my Talbot ancestress.

The very interesting Laniers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Lanier_the_Elder were generations of court musicians for Henri II of France, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and on through the Stuarts. They became very well off serving Tudors and Stuarts, lost it all during the Cromwell years, and then regained wealth during the Restoration. My ggg-grandmother Sabra Lanier is directly descended from these musical Laniers through the immigrant John who died in VA in 1683. Sidney Lanier, the poet, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Lanier and the playwright Tennessee Williams, born Thomas Lanier Williams III http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_williams are also distantly related to me through this immigrant ancestor.

[Ariadne]

There are a few notorious troublemakers and rabble-rousers among my direct ancestors on my father's side, including Samuel Gorton (founder of Warwick, RI, who settled there after being thrown out of Boston, Portsmouth, and other New England cities after offending the Puritan founding fathers with his freethinking religious beliefs) and Alice Bishop (hanged in Plymouth, MA, in 1648 for killing her 4-year-old daughter). I'm also a 4th cousin many times removed of Benedict Arnold.

On my mother's side, my great-grandfather was born in Bolechow, Ukraine, the same small Jewish village profiled in Daniel Mendelsohn's family Holocaust memoir The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million. He made it over to the US several decades earlier; we never learned what happened to the rest of his family.

[Rowan]

I am related to the actress Sandra Bullock about 4 maybe 5 generations back. Each of our branches of the family stemmed from a pair of brothers who came from England.

[donroc]

Several decades ago, I read that 27,000,000 Americans are descended from English royalty. According to Manchester's bio of General MacArthur, American Caesar, Winston Churchill, FDR, and MacArthur were descended from a Mrs. Bullock. Perhaps some here are as well.

Should this be another thread or perhaps answered here: Have any on this site had their DNA tested to learn how far back it goes and to which of the"Seven Daughters of Eve?" I have been tempted but the cost is dear and I knowof no one who has done it.

[MLS859]

My great-great grandmother was a "Morton" -- a branch of that family is the Morton Salt people.

Some family names are Morton, Bazemore, Waters, Barfield, Hensley

Lynn

[Volgadon]

My father's side comes from Eastern Europe, mostly from Czernowitz (Chernovtzy), an old town in Ukraine, not far from Moldavia. Used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. My ancestors, part of the Chasidic movement, left Galicia during the early 1800s because of the restrictions placed on Jews by the governor. Czernowitz was a lot more open. We know very little about them but my grandmother's great-grandmother used to earn some extra money by cleaning for the Polish troops billeted in their street. She would sweep all the dust and rubbish into the fireplace, but one day she failed to notice a cartridge that one of the soldiers had dropped, and it exploded in the heat, killing her.
A few years later, my great-grandfather, sick of the crowded ghetto-atmosphere and of chasidism, left to homestead in Montana. He came back in 1914, only to discover that his fiancee had married his best friend. My great-grandfather and one of his brothers joined the Austrian army. After the war he married his elder brother's daughter, something quite acceptable in Judaism at the time. They left for Montana as the Civil War broke out. He was an atheist, as well as being sick of the close-mindedness of Chasidism. In the 1940s, hearing a very strong old-country accent, people would ask them accusingly if they were German or not. My great-grandparents would reply. 'No, we're Hungarian.'
His elder brother (and father-in-law!!) and son were medical orderlies, and were sent by the Germans to work in one of the camps. Nothing is known of their fate.

[Mara]

I'm not quite sure about the history of my American relatives, only that they're decended from Sweden (grandmother's branch) and Irish/Scots (grandfather's branch). My aunt is still trying to trace their lines but has some difficulty especially with the Scots line.

On my German grandfather's side I'm descended from a French noble family of Huguenots, who had to flee to Germany, changing their original name (unknown) in the process. My German surname literally means 'high noble'. At some point later, they turned Catholic, though. Not sure whether out of conviction, marriage or convenience. Some of the men were gamblers, though, and my great-grandfather apparently lost the family's fortune. He also left his family to their own devices, with no money. I'd love to trace the line back to the French origins. Who knows, I might have a title... :p ;)

[ellenjane]

Nothing terribly interesting on my side - I'm descended from Theophilius Eaton, the first governor of Connecticut, and can trace another line back to some minor lords in Scotland.

My husband's great-great-great grandfather, though, was the first person to file under the U.S. Homestead Act. There's a national monument in Nebraska on his land. He had quite an interesting life - he was a Civil War spy, brought one of the first court cases for separation of church and state, and appears to have been quite the character - Daniel Freeman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Freeman). Maybe a good source if I ever decide to try my hand at writing my own HF!

[michellemoran]

I am a large mix of races, from Serbian to French, and a large mix of religions, from Jewish to Catholic. As a very young child I went to a Christian church on Friday, Temple on Saturday and Mass once in a great while on Sundays. On one side of the family was an Eastern Orthodox bishop, on the other side were devout Austrian Jews who founded the Koret Foundation (http://www.koretfoundation.org/about/index.html) in the Bay Area (an amazing organization that deals in grants).

I shudder at the thought of doing a family tree. It would probably cost a fortune.

[michellemoran]

I love reading these! Great post Alaric!

[Telynor]

Well, lessee, on both sides of my parents' families, I'm descendant of early settlers, have both conferderate and Union troops among my ancestors. My mother was an aeronautical engineer before women were accepted in that sort of thing. So I grew up in a lot of different places as she did her time in the military.

When I moved to NY, I started digging back into my genealogy and discovered that many of my ancestors came from this area before heading off west. It's pretty spooky to see your many-time great-grandparents graves. I've managed to trace several lines back to England, including an interesting pack of marcher barons by the name of Giffard.

I read a lot, worked my years in newspapers as a graphic designer, try to paint, do an awful lot of handwork, and lately, been sleeping far too much.

[pat]

For me, my history is mainly on mums side. Dad dis-owned his side but that is another story..!

My grandfather was stranded in Egypt as the R101 Airship blew up on the trip that was due to collect him and others.

My nan was in service as a young lady and saved her mistress from burning. Nan was cleaning when the Lady went to the fireplace and her skirts caught fire.

My aunt dated a famous singer in the 50's! Cant remember who he was, I think it was a Frankie but not sure!

Would you believe it, I have a very large extended family and we have no one famous in it!

[donroc]

For got to add, while doing research in grad school on Leon Trotsky, I saw a photograph of him with his supporters who were named in the caption, and confirmed one of them, Sosnovsky, was a cousin sevral times removed. He was executed by the Stalinists in 1929.

[Leyland]

Lt Col William B Travis, a heroic defender of the Alamo, was the older brother by a year of my ancestor, Nicholas S Travis.

Another ancestor, Rev James Fontaine, the Fighting Chaplain, was a Huguenot who led an adventurous life after he escaped to England during the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and and wrote a fascinating memior. At one point he and his family took up arms against an attack from a French privateer on his holdings at Bear Haven, Ireland. My ancestor, his son Francis, graduated from Trinity College in 1716 and became Professor of Oriental Languages at the College of William and Mary in 1729, as well was rector of York Hampton Parish. His brother, Rev Peter Fontaine, another of James' sons, was well known to William Byrd in Virginia and is mentioned a bit in Anya Seton's Devil Water.

[sweetpotatoboy]

Nothing particularly exciting. On my father's mother's side, we are descended from very prestigious rabbinical stock, into which a lot of genealogical research has been carried out. But on all sides, large parts of the family were wiped out in the Holocaust, so, as with others, a lot is lost and the stories that have survived are sad beyond belief.

Because of marriage breakups, my father was estranged from his paternal family since he was a child. However, many decades later, he has met up a large group of first cousins who are all in their seventies or eighties and who haven't seen each other in 60 to 70 years, after their respective parents (all long dead now) cut off contact. They are all very close now and are constantly phoning or emailing each other.

Not family, but my only claim to fame is that I went to school with Sacha Baron-Cohen (aka Borat etc.) and Matt Lucas (of Little Britain). Both were a year or two younger than me but I remember them both distinctly and they were already incredibly charismatic.

[Amanda]

I have an ancestor from The First Fleet. He was a sailor on the flag ship, the Sirius, which was shipwrecked on Norfolk Island. He elected to stay there (it was a very young colony), and married a convict woman from the second Fleet. Prior to Norfolk, he was part of the first exploration from the new colony of Sydney, up the Hawkesbury River. He spied a bit of land there, which he was much later granted. He was also part of the Matthew Flinders sailing adventure around Tasmania, and there are a couple of points named after him (Hibbs) - but they are in the most rugged inhospitable area!
He also did a supply run between Norfolk Island and Sydney. He was once shipwrecked on the run, and he and the few survivors turned up in Newcastle with no clothes - and thus he turned his back on the sea and settled to farming his land on the Hawkesbury. They didn't do to well on the land though, getting flooded out, living in a cave for a period of time, and selling off most of the land.
There is an old family legend, that he was also on the Endeavour with Captain Cook, as a cabin boy, but it is not proven.
If he had written an account it would have been some story! When he died in his late 80's, he was the oldest First Fleeter left.

[Vanessa]

My husband went to school with Marco Pierre White (famous chef in the UK) and Damien Hirst (Formula 1 racing driver). Diana Rigg went to my school (not at the same time, I might add, but her drama teacher, Mrs Greenwood, was still teaching when I was there) and Dame Judi Dench went to my daughter's school, as did A S Byatt and Margaret Drabble.

My mother in law is a white witch!!! Or so she believes.

[donroc]

If we are shifting to schools, I shall brag about my high school, Lowell in San Francisco, the oldest public HS west of the Mississippi and 100% academic --no shops or Home Ec courses

My graduating class included Dian Fossey (Gorillas in the Mist) two prima ballerinas, Nancy Johnson and Janet Sassoon, Ron Vogel, early Playboy photographer, John Traina, Danielle Steele's 4th husband, and Ken Flower all-American basketball at USC.

What follows is an abbreviated list of famous alums and attendees in the arts:

Diebenkorn and Calder

Cartoonists Rube Goldberg and Marty Links (Emmy Lou and Bobby Sox)

Author Irving Stone and the screenwriter of Tugboat Annie and Shirley Temple Films.

Composer of California Here I Come and If You Knew Susie.

Showbiz: Frank Fay, Bill Gaxton, Wayne Morris, Carol Channing (donated $100,000 for a new school theater), Bill Bixby, Benjamin Bratt.

[Madeleine]

Not much exciting in my family, except that a Governor/ Senator Taft is apparently one of our ancestors (somehow) and we're also distantly related to the actress Angela Lansbury! That's on my mum's side, I know very little about my dad's side. Like several of you on here, my great-grandparents fled from Eastern Europe and settled in the UK around the turn of the last century, and most of the records have been lost. I'm quite envious of one of my friends who traced her family back to the 1600s, and found a long-lost cousin, whose daughter goes to the same school that we both did.

Sweetpotatoboy, that's lovely to hear that your cousins are all in touch with each other now, after all that time.

[Alaric]

About the only famous alum that went to my high school is an Olympic swimmer and a couple of AFL players. The school is only twenty years old though.

[Leyland]

Through my Alabama Travis ancestors, I'm descended from a trader of Scottish descent named Edward Vann and his Chickasaw wife, Mary King. She was a daughter of Squirrel King, a Chickasaw leader of the New Windsor (SC) Settlement until 1758. Edward Vann's brother Clement married into the Cherokee nation and his son's family did very well in 18th/early 19th century Georgia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Vann

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Vann_House_Historic_Site

I'm planning a Vann/King personal research project in the next year or so by visiting SC and GA local libraries and SC native historical sites pertaining the Chickasaw Nation (if I can find any). The Vanns, et al, really intrigue me as adventurers, heroes, rogues and outlaws.

[Ludmilla]

My life is about as non-eventful and boring as it gets. I came from a blue-collar, lower working class family in middle of po-dunk nowhere mid-Americana. I was the youngest of five children and by the time I came along my parents had stopped taking vacations. I don't remember going anywhere as a kid other than to the major cities a few hours away.

The only famous person I almost know is actor Brad Pitt who is my age and attended same university I did. (Back then, we didn't think he was very good looking, but I do remember him having a roving eye for the hot sorority girls).

My great aunt and uncle (who are now deceased) loved genealogy and worked on creating a book about our family history. I don't know what happened to all of their research, but they had some interesting stories about 18th and 19th century American life (the period they had the most info on). I do know they traced my father's paternal line back to 11th or 12th century England. My mother's family was Irish and Welsh, I think, but I'm really not sure.

[diamondlil]

About the only famous alum that went to my high school is an Olympic swimmer and a couple of AFL players. The school is only twenty years old though.

The only famous person I can think of that went to any of my schools is cyclist Stuart O'Grady.

[EC2]

What a fun post - I've been enjoying everyone's contributions!

Nothing in my family. We were all blue collar Lancashire mill workers in the past, although one kleptomaniac Victorian rellie pinched a Tudor chair out of a church when it was being refurbished. It stood in my great aunt's hall for decades, and when she died in her 90's in the 1990's, it came to me... so I have a misappropriated piece of glorious historic furniture!
My husband is related to UK 50's and 60's pop star Tommy Steel (real name Tommy Hicks) and star of the film Half a Sixpence. I think he also stared in Barnum for a while. My younger son Simon has a similar look about him. Dh's family also have Jewish roots and escaped some holocaust or other in the 19thC and settled in London's East end. They dumped their roots though and several generations down the line are of atheist persuasion and very intermingled.

[diamondlil]

I don't know anything all that interesting about my family really either.

[Grasshopper]

My sister does a lot of geneology in our family.

My maternal grandmother's maiden name was Raglan...as in the Raglan castle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raglan_Castle) in Wales. It'd be neat to see the castle but I'm just a redneck from Oklahoma who has blood from England and Ireland.

Just a tidbit...don't know how earth-shattering...

[Volgadon]

Oh, we have a Brudenell, which makes me a very distant cousin of he of Balaclava fame, or infamy, rather.

[MLE]

The half of my family I know most about is actually my mother's side. I have and aunt who is very into the genealogy thing. Truth to tell, I've heard so much of that side, it's a little tedious, but here goes:
My maternal grandfather was born on the boat coming over to the US from Northern Italy. The family was an old Waldensian one (early sect of proto-protestants, beliefs similar to the Hugenots, much-persecuted.) When he got into his nineties, he insisted on speaking the language of his childhood, which surprisingly was not Italian, but French.
We still have cousins in the area above Turin, and my sisters and daughter have gone visiting. The Waldensians were actually rather admirable, and I'd appreciate them more if I hadn't had to gag on tales of their long martyrdom all my childhood.
On the other side of my mother's family We have a circuit-riding preacher (My grandmother's father) from the Ozark mountains. He got run out of the area for interfering with a gang of moonshiners. My Mom claims that he was one of the models for the old book 'Shepherd of the Hills' by Harold Bell Wright (a 1907 bestseller as treacly as the stuff Gene Stratton Porter wrote), which may well be true as the two men were friends and farmed ranches next to each other for years in California's Imperial valley. That side is Pennsylvania Dutch (as in Deutch, German.)
And somewhere in there is some Scotch, surname Dunn. I looked up their plaid once, and it was so hideous I decided that if I ever had to wear one I'd go with the Sullivan plaid from my father's side. Don't ask me how an Irish surname got a plaid, but they do, and it is a very pretty forest green, cranberry and black.
My high school graduated Gene Roddenberry (Star Trek originator) and the rival school Ray Bradbury. Both came and did a guest lecture annually for old time's sake.

[princess garnet]

Clothes designer Betsey Johnson went to the same high school as my dad and his siblings. She graduated a few years earlier than he did.

[Volgadon]

Then luckily for you, the whole clan plaid thing is a myth.

And somewhere in there is some Scotch, surname Dunn. I looked up their plaid once, and it was so hideous I decided that if I ever had to wear one I'd go with the Sullivan plaid from my father's side. Don't ask me how an Irish surname got a plaid, but they do, and it is a very pretty forest green, cranberry and black.

[Madeleine]

the Irish do have plaid as well.

[sweetpotatoboy]

My maternal grandmother's maiden name was Raglan...as in the Raglan castle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raglan_Castle) in Wales.

I've been there recently. Very attractive castle.

[Volgadon]

the Irish do have plaid as well.
As do the French, Spaniards, italians, Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Caucaisan tribes, and Arabs...