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 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!
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Something interesting about you and/or your family
I'm afraid my family isnt that impressive. I might have to be the first mover and shaker 
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.

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

News, views, and reviews on books and graphic novels for young adult.
http://yabookmarks.blogspot.com/
http://yabookmarks.blogspot.com/
- MLE (Emily Cotton)
- Bibliomaniac
- Posts: 3562
- Joined: August 2008
- Interest in HF: started in childhood with the classics, which, IMHO are HF even if they were contemporary when written.
- Favourite HF book: Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger
- Preferred HF: Currently prefer 1600 and earlier, but I'll read anything that keeps me turning the page.
- Location: California Bay Area
On my father's side, they are inordinately proud of being descended from the Revolutionary war General 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.
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.
~Susan~
~Unofficial Royalty~
Royal news updated daily, information and discussion about royalty past and present
http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/
~Unofficial Royalty~
Royal news updated daily, information and discussion about royalty past and present
http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/
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.
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.
Last edited by donroc on Sat September 20th, 2008, 6:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Bodo the Apostate, a novel set during the reign of Louis the Pious and end of the Carolingian Empire.
http://www.donaldmichaelplatt.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXZthhY6 ... annel_page
Im 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 Carters novel The Hornets Nest. http://www.amazon.com/Hornets-Nest-Nove ... 965&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.
Jimmy Carter (former US President), is a fifth cousin through our direct descent from Thomas Ansley, the Revolutionary patriot who inspired Carters novel The Hornets Nest. http://www.amazon.com/Hornets-Nest-Nove ... 965&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.
We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams ~ Arthur O'Shaughnessy, Ode
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.
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.
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.
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.

Bodo the Apostate, a novel set during the reign of Louis the Pious and end of the Carolingian Empire.
http://www.donaldmichaelplatt.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXZthhY6 ... annel_page