I am related straight down the line to the German mystic painter, Caspar David Friedrich, (mother's side) and my Great, Great Uncle was Lev Ivanov, Tchaikovsky's favourite choreographer. We were an odd bunch.
My great grandfather on my father's side is from Barbados and was a Cumberbach pronounced Cumberbatch. Barbados had a sugar plantation during enslavement owned by Benedict Cumberbatch's ancestors.
My Great Grandad was a private in the same regiment as JRR Tolkien at the Somme. Tolkien said that he based his hobbits on the privates he met at the Somme so I like to think of myself as part Hobbit. 😏
My neighbor's near death experience in WWII in the Philippines: He was resting under a coconut tree. He put his helmet down right next to him and a coconut fell from above and cracked his helmet in two, just inches from his head.
My great great grandfather Horace W Hunt of the 7th NH was wounded in the 2nd assault on Fort Wagner July 18, 1863 fighting alongside the 54th MA regiment who were the first black regiment to fight in the Civil War.
We had a family member abducted by Barbary pirates from a raid on the Cornish coast in 1625 and sold in Morocco. I based my first book on the story, and met my Moroccan husband of now 20 years while researching it.
I'm adopted. My last name is Stuart. My birth father's last name: MacDonald. Someone in his family did the genealogy thing, turns out an actual MacDonald female ancestor of mine hid "Bonnie Prince Charlie"(Stuart) from the Brits when he was in Scotland.
My maternal side ancestor was owner of a major shipbuilding company in England and an innovator in ship construction. He helped revolutionize naval engineering.
My great aunt & papa were "security" on lookout when my great grandparents sold booze during Prohibition in Windsor, Canada. And, they also scrubbed mold off hot dogs used to sell when the family were carnies.
My great grandfather’s family were all shot during the Spanish Civil War but one of them survived and was taken in and raised by a family as their own daughter.
Although not known for her basketball or even athletic prowess, the only existing video of my allegedly very short great-grandmother consists of her sinking the only basket she ever made in her life. We have no way of proving she didn't have a 100% lifetime basketball success rate.
My mom was adopted and hired a PI to help her uncover her bio parents. Her bio dad is still a mystery, but bio mom (unfortunately had passed-away years prior and never had more children) was fairly closely related to the founders of Barnard College.
My grandmother survived a Nazi work camp as a young girl. Our family has the dress she wore the entire time she was there. When American troops liberated the camp, it was a platoon of all black soldiers. It was the first time my grandmother saw anyone of a different race.
Don't think I know any Hatch but my great grandfather's side of the family was large (French Canadian) and I'm very unfamiliar with that side, so possibly? Could confirm if you knew which mob family he worked for.
I've been working on genealogy for over 20 years now, and one branch I keep doing work on are my Quaker abolitionist ancestors in Indiana. A lot converted after the Salem Witch trials, lived in North Carolina for a century, then moved to Indiana.
In the early sixties, my great-grandfather Roy helped found the (then) brand new New College of Florida and left it all his money. If he weren't cremated, he'd be rolling over in his grave now, because Ron De Santis decided to fire all the trustees and turn New College into a right wing playground.
He was a complicated guy, from what I understand. Economically conservative, aggressively atheist, environmentally progressive. Would have been disgusted by the religious right.
My maternal Grandfather fought in Ireland's war of independence in flying squad who didn't have guns. They had to steal the guns they had from British living in Ireland and barracks that they attacked. He was in a crew that dug trenches across roadways to ambush the army patrolling the roads.
My uncle by marriage was Colonel Archibald Christie first husband of Agatha Christie. So I am not related to her at all but have like three degrees of separation!
One more: My grandfather was sent to live with a cousin who was married to a Cuban man in Harlem at the age of 4. As a result he spoke fluent Spanish and never left NYC, where he later met/married my grandmother.
My grandfathers both worked for the N&W railroad, one doing upholstery work on passenger cars, the other doing decorative iron work. My paternal granddaddy occasionally carried a pistol and brass knuckles to work because the strike breakers were violent bastards
My British aunt, whom I never met, had a fake husband for 40 yrs. She actually lived with her female partner from 1951-1993, and he lived with his male partner, and they got together when needed. Apparently, no one ever knew except my mother, who had migrated to Canada in 52.
My mom recently traced one of her Portuguese ancestors back to Bruges in Brussels by way of the Azores. She learned the starting point for this while meeting a distant cousin she had never met before on Flores.
My great-great-great-great-great grandfather was a famous violin maker named Vincenzo Panormo (1734-1813) born in Sicily but eventually moved to London. Without knowing this family history, my first cousin also made violins.
Went out to Jamaica to research my book, which fictionalises the history of the Maroon wars, and only when I got back did my grandad tell me that my great-grandad was from a maroon town 😑
My great-great-great-great-great-uncle was known to be a criminal associate of Ikey Solomons, the real inspiration behind Dickens' Fagin in Oliver Twist.
I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for a courageous black man who saved my white great grandmother when she was a child. She was on a wagon when the horses bolted, taking her with them. She nearly died, but this man saved her life. 💪🏾🥰
What to pick? My grandmother once danced with Lord Hindenburg, and my grandfather helped design the V1 cruise missile. The same weapon that was targeting London where grand-ant Margot was a daredevil photo journalist. Dang, 300 characters just won't suffice.
And no, Margot wasn't an ant, but for some reason I forgot how to type "aunt". But now I imagine her as having a subplot in a upcoming time-travel Antman movie, and that seems very befitting.
Napoleon marched through my Great-Great Grandfather's village in Poland--both going to and retreating from Moscow--infesting the population with lice, which led to typhus, which likely contributed to two (and possibly four) infant deaths in our family.
Was adopted at 3 weeks. Took DNA test 62 years later. Found birth parents+ Mormon genealogy going back to a Jamestown 1604 boy who was exchanged with a Pequot boy, to be raised as an interpreter.
About a year after my dad had a stroke and lost most of his speech, he tried to tell me about a restaurant my grandparents ran for a while, either in the Bronx or mt Vernon. He couldn’t really give me details except a lot of baseball players came in.
I’m related to Barack Obama via his mom’s side. His 3x ggma and my 4X ggma are the same person. Getting to tell my conservative, republican auntie this info remains one of the funniest moments of my life. “Y’all have to call him COUSIN Obama now!” 🤣
Every last one of my ancestoral lines arrived from Ireland in NYC. They either became orphaned en route, had to keep their child in a boarding house while they cooked for another family, lost multiple children in infancy or died very young.
We’re all the children of survivors.
We're descended from the last person in England to be burned at the stake for heresy, and when my eldest sister discovered this the unanimous reaction from relatives of all ages was "this fucking rules" http://www.burton-on-trent.org.uk/1612-last-heretic
Cousins of some sort ran the Farnell Bear Company, which made the toy bear sold to AA Milne that he gave to his son, who named it Pooh. Winnie the Pooh was a Farnell Bear.
A few years ago I came across some pictures of my paternal grandfather with John Wayne. Turns out they were friends & met at The Lions Club in Tanga (where my Dad was born & raised) while Wayne was filming Hatari! in Tanzania.
My Sikh Grandmother was in hiding in Amritsar during India’s Partition. As the daughter of a Western educated Dr, her family mixed w/Brit colonialists & Muslim families but was looked down upon by religious Hindus. I learned this last yr & it explained a lot in her relationship w/my Hindu Dad.
My great grandmother attended a hell-hole run by this asshole in St. Albert (Canada) where he had 100 “Indian and halfbreed children” but was asking for a 1,000 more.
My Dad and Aunt were sent to separate residential schools and found each other when they were teenagers, getting off of a streetcar at the same stop in Toronto. They recognized each other because they looked so much alike. (This was going to be my amazing family story!)
I’m so glad they found each other. The cruelty of separating siblings like that. My great grandma had 5 other siblings. I’m unsure at this point what happened in their lives.
My great-great grandfather, when he heard his son was going to America, took him to a whorehouse and had him pick out an Italian wife so he wouldn't marry in America. That woman became my great-Nonna and she was a wonderful person.
My g.g. GF had survived smallpox. So had one of his daughters. When the U.S. government spread smallpox to the tribes he took his daughter and went to live with them to try and treat their illness. He was a horse and buggy doctor. They ended up living there for two years with the Sac and Fox tribe.
My aunt on my mother’s side did the family lineage research and tracked as high as my 4th great grandfather. He was a cabin boy on a ship from England that sailed to Canada in the late 1800’s, which is how our family ended up planting roots in Ontario Canada (and many still live today)
My great aunt owned a hotel in Atlantic City, and was shot in the lobby of that same hotel by her lover, whom she had stolen money from, with the gun she gave him for "if you ever see me with another man other than you or my husband"
When my grandpa died,his brother told us when he was a 12 year old a white farmer said he would pay my grandfather to clean his chicken coop. My grandfather did and the white farmer reneged. My grandfather snuck back in and killed all the chickens. Had to go to DC that night to live with his sister
My great grandfather wrote a book of recipes for Williams College in the 50’s with specific sections geared towards their collegiate athletes nutrition.
I'm a distant cousin of Rihanna. I can name two of her songs, and I like them, but otherwise was never a fan. But her mother is from the branch of the family that stayed on 🇧🇧, while my grandmother emigrated to NYC, where she eventually met and married another immigrant from another island.
My great grandfather came from Mexico to the US to build the railroads and during that time my grandfather was born so when they went back to Mexico my grandpa was a US citizen. This came into play when i immigrated to the US in the early 80s! Thanks great great grandpa!
My fifth great grandfather was a Hessian soldier sent to America to fight the colonists during the Revolution. He was captured at the Battle of Saratoga. He never returned to Europe, married and raised a family here in America.
My wife is the descendant of two women accused of witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials, one of whom *accused the other*. Her mother is descended from the one and her father from the other. She is the first generation where those two bloodlines have mixed.
In 1942 or so, my grandfather walked into the FBI building, talked his way past a secretary, into the hiring office and into a job. Only when the paperwork was on the table did they find out he was 17. He joined the Navy the following fall.
I found out one of my ancestors was a mercenary soldier for the Brits during the Am. Revolution. He was Irish so one assumes he was just hard up for cash and not a Royalist lol
In 1882 my grandfather was 12, living in Loughrea Galway. There was a "famine fear" that year so his mother lied about his age and signed him up with the Royal Irish Fusiliers. He was posted to Sumatra, then Burma (1896), Egypt (1897) and then South Africa (1899) just before the Boer War started.
Born on 10th April 1870, he was 12 in Oct 1882 when he was enlisted into the British Army (initially the Connaught Rangers, later the Royal Fusiliers). He weighed less than 6 stone and was all of 4ft 8ins tall. At his Army medical, he was declared "Fit for the Army" and posted to Aceh, East Indies.
We were similarly baffled. Why would a mother allow her 12 yr old son to be sent off to the other side of the world? The answer was the "famine fear" that happened every so often after the great famine (1845-52). If you thought the famine had returned, it made sense to have your son join the army.
Two of my elders, both tiny women under 5 feet tall, homesteaded alone across the American West, eventually settling in Colorado and opening a, um, pleasure palace? A happy house? House of ill repute?😂😂
An annual report of the City of Boston lists my partner's great-grandfather (a blueblood from Beacon Hill) as a member of the city council and my grandfather (from Russia/Poland) as a sports coach at a settlement house for immigrants. I'm sure they never met!
My grandfather was in the army during WWII. His battalion was set to ship to Northern Africa, but the station in the US needed a typist. He was the only one with typing skills and had to stay behind. His entire platoon was killed in North Africa. We all learned to type as kids.
Lol Ancestry warns you about this potential outcome: My sister is only my half-sister. Our mom had a fling when I was 8. Not the news we were expecting now that we're both old ladies & everybody's dead
Sir Edmund Fuchs scuppered my mother's research career as a botanist by denying her the right to go on the Antarctic expedition because she was (gasp) an unmarried woman. The doctor's wife was going, but that was OK, because marriage is magic. So fuch him and the iceboat he sailed here on.
My grandparents were secretly married for a year after she was forbidden to marry him because she was Catholic and he was Baptist.
It was only discovered when she became so ill a priest was called in for Last Rites and she confessed.
My grandfather was in the 101st Airborne Div. during WWII and he never discussed his time of action. After he passed we discovered a box full of trophies from Nazis he capped.
My great-grandfather was murdered, along with another young man, while the two of them were chasing down a robber. Killer was executed. We have scrapbooks of all the media stories. It was “sensational.”
My 2nd great-grandmother took the OT from Missouri to Oregon when she was 70. She went back to Missouri for a few years (I believe by boat and train) only to head back to CA in her early 90s to live her final days with her daughter in LA. Wow.
My family had a reputation in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee for being insane. There were rumors my great grandfather howled at the moon. My grandfather was a manic depressive alcoholic, so I’d say it’s not entirely implausible.
My paternal grandfather was born in Costanza in 19th century, the city in present day Romania by the Black Sea. When Ottoman Empire was disintegrating, his family sought refuge in present day Turkiye when he was 4yo. He survived multiple wars, lived until 98yo. But he passed away before I was born.
The stories I heard about him, mostly from my mother,all attest that he was a “survivor” but didn’t like to talk a lot abt what he had been through.There’s a story that his family came from Crimea region, a few generations before him.I’d love to discover more abt all shades of this history one day!
Two of my grand uncles, Dan and Joseph Canny, were part of the 1916 Easter Uprising in Ireland and Dan was also at the Croke Park Massacre (aka Bloody Sunday)
My family initially emigrated from England to London Ontario, then moved to settle Winnipeg, right after Louis Riel had been defeated to help establish the imperial Canadian presence on the prairies.
I am named after Diana Oughton, the radical Weatherman who in 1970 brought down an NYC brownstone while making bombs in the basement. She was my mom’s childhood best friend, and Bill Ayers girlfriend.
After WW2 my great-uncles were members of anti-communist underground. When their father was arrested for not reporting them to authorities he told the investigators that he had more pressing matters because his wife, my great-grandma, tried to order his murder. It didn't work as a defence strategy.
My maternal grandmother went to get my grandfather, her husband, out from the local brothel. She was 16.
He was not a very nice person. He later cheated with her brother's wife, the uproar meant that he had to go into hiding and his family had to leave the village for Mexico City.
My grandad was in the RAF in WW2 but discovered he was colour blind and was therefore not allowed to fly. None of the men he trained with came back. Colour blindness saved his life ( and without it my mum and later me, wouldn’t have existed)
Doing a deep ancestry dive during COVID lockdown in early '20 I discovered I'm a direct descendant of Robert The Bruce and my wife is a direct descendant of one of the women executed in the Salem Witch Trials, Susannah North Martin.
Quite a few happy families in the previous generation “had” to get married. Also, a grandmother many generations back (1740s) was taken by Native Americans and raised as their own for many years.
I volunteer a few hours a month at the library helping people track down their family history. Solving little puzzles and mysteries is so addictive. You never know what you’ll find!
My great-grandfather who emigrated here from Italy when he was 12 years old died of a heart attack while playing poker in Kentucky. I had no idea he'd even left the Bronx, much less the rest of it!
Two ancestors of mine in a very understanding (for the times) open political marriage were having affairs with the commanding officers in two competing armies (separately) and one saved the other’s affair partner from being arrested for treason, unintentionally helping to bring down the government…
One of my ancestors was a Hessian mercenary (actually an auxilliary) who fought with the British Army in the American Revolution. He was captured and spent the war as a POW. Upon release, he refused repatriation and settled in Pennsylvania.
My grandfather, Leo Burgess, was part of the crew of the train that young Clark Kent/Superman raced in Superman: The Movie. He was thrilled to have gotten to meet Glenn Ford.
My grandmother & grandfather immigrated from Italy in the 1920s. She had a fiery affair with a union-organizing boarder staying in their home in the 30s, and as a result, she had my grandfather deported back to the old country. Lesson: do not mess with Italian women if you know what's good for you.
My maternal grandfather's mother was half Native American and her husband's family very pointedly did not approve. Apparently she was... removed? missing?... from family photos at her husband's family's house.
Didn't learn about this till visiting my grandfather's aunt when I was in highschool. 🙃
My 3x great grandfather was a Union soldier at 16 ish. His troop was involved in a battle they would not win. The captain understood this & surrendered the entire troop. They were all then part of a prisoner swap with the Confederacy. That one man’s decision made it possible for me to be here.
I’m related to the guy they named gerrymandering after.
I also found out completely by accident that my second cousins once removed are Jessica Simpson’s cousins. I was channel surfing and saw one of them talking about her on VH1 20+ years ago. Mind blown!
My dad's company in Vietnam became the USMC unit with the highest KIA rate in history and I believe the highest casualty rate as well. Last he'd heard they still held the record for longest combat deployment.
My grandfather fought in WWI nearby Ieper, Flanders. (Lots of graveyards there with soldiers from all over the world.) He was a scout, the most dangerous position. He was the only one who survived in his division.
In my genealogy research, I found the name of one of my enslaved ancestors, Darby Duncan. I visited the Berry Hill Plantation where he lived. He was the chef for a very rich plantation owner and was famous for his creole style cooking. There is a restaurant still there named after him
My great grandfather took my grandfather to see "How the West was Won" when the traveling movie projector came to town. At one point, Great Grandpa became so excited, he started shooting his own gun in the air while yelling, "that's how it really was!" It embarrased grandpa.
Some were imprisoned in NY for being Loyalists. Some fled to Canada, eventually settling Ojibwe land in Ontario. From among those, some came to Michigan - probably because the increasingly urbanised province was becoming too liberal for their highly conservative, now Baptist sensibilities.
America was a lot more divided during that war then we are taught in school. Many had families that were split some wanted to be Tories and others wanted to fight them.
My 4th ggfather, Joseph Reed was living in KY, & the sheriff of a small town. Thomas Jefferson’s nephews (sisters sons) lived there too. They were typical rich spoiled brats. One day, they sent a male slave to fetch water from a nearby spring. The poor slave accidentally broke the pitcher. 1/3
He went back, apologized but they decided to teach him a lesson. They beat him to death. His body was thrown into a ravine, but someone told Sheriff Reed, he went to check things out, found the body and arrested the sons. They protested “we’re Jeffersons nephews”. Sheriff Reed wasn’t impressed. 2/3
One fled to Louisiana, he was captured and brought back, the other went straight to jail. They both lost everything, I’m pretty proud of Sheriff Reed. Someone wrote a book, titled “Jefferson’s Nephews” that’s how I learned about it. A distant cousin told me the story. 3/3
One of my great-grandfathers was George Washington's aide-de-camp, personal secretary & closest confidante. He was a fierce hunter of loyalists too, and saw to it that many were stripped of their property. Sorry?
my real father was spanish.
i found out while my parents weren't at home.. so i found those famous hidden love letters! his daughter (with another woman) had exactly my 3 names.. (i have 3)asked my mother.. well the rest is history..
Some fascinating stories here. It blows my mind that some of you can trace your ancestry back for generations. I know nothing of my families history pre my grandparents coming to the US in the 1920s. One of these days I’ll do a DNA test out of curiosity
Don’t do a DNA test unless you’re prepared to find surprise relatives. Speaking from personal familial experience, but also for many friends’ families. It’s tooooo common. Haha
My grandparents left Russia in the 1920s to escape the Cossacks and the persecution of Jews and somehow made it to England where they caught a boat to the US. They never spoke about how they made it across Europe and would change the subject if you asked. Must have been horrible
One of my ancestors pulled a "Pocahontas." By which I mean they abducted some young girl from her tribe on the east coast and took her back to the UK and whatever children she got raped into giving birth to became part of my lineage. Don't know if she was murdered like Pocahontas, though.
I didn’t know Pocahontas was murdered. I thought she died of a disease she caught in England and had no immunity for it.
I live here close to Jamestown. We have Matoaka Elementary here-her real name and not her dad’s nickname for her.
I read about it several years ago from several indigenous sources online. Really horrifying stuff. Unfortunately my Twitter account is deleted so I don't know my sources at this point but there are a lot of websites that discuss what's known and what is suspected re: her death.
Based on some old links I posted on FB (around 2017) there was a book that presented the possibility that she was poisoned for political reasons by her husband Argall. I either read an article summarizing the events or the book a few years back.
I doubt there's a way to know for sure if she was poisoned or simply ill, but it's the full reality of what she lived through that I found both eye-opening and infuriating at the time. She was very young when married, and none of what happend to her could really have been her choice. Heartbreaking.
My maternal great gram who raised me had her youngest daughter promise to protect me from gram's oldest son because he was active kkk and wanted me dead. I was in my late forties when she told me 4 months before she died that this was even a thing.
when I was a preteen someone finally told me to stop saying "it fell off the back of a truck", as a lot of kids apparently don't know what that means.
i had no idea that wasn't a thing every family said. on both sides.
Great grandfather's brother was the head engineer of Belgium. He oversaw the construction of infrastructure like bridges and tunnels, a lot of which he ordered destroyed when the Germans invaded in 1940. He was arrested and tortured by the gestapo for this. He died shortly after of a heart attack.
Just found out this year that I have an aunt and cousins we never knew about. My paternal grandfather apparently had an affair while stationed away from home. He passed years ago so we don’t know if he knew about her or not.
I have some pics of the boat post restoration showing the frame when we were getting her ready for the first display at Coniston, let me see if I can find a good one. The frame is still very much as built, very little had to be replaced - clearly excellent work back in the 50s
My relatives couldn't afford to bury a relative in the expensive part of the cemetery so they dug out somebody else in the middle of the night and put our ancestor in the primo spot
I was told decades ago by a family genealogist that one of my distant great-great grandfathers was Henry Hudson. I visited the Hudson River this summer for the first time since childhood and found my Hudson lineage great-grandfather's grave in one of the valley towns where we used to visit my uncle.
Oh also, I knew that my great-grandma was a writer, but I didn't know just how much she'd written until last year, when we got several boxes of her stuff among which were *five* unpublished novels (in addition to the one she did publish)
Another is that we're related to the Wedgwood ceramics family, but we're from the branch of the family that got disowned because my great-great-great-great-grandmother Hannah had my great-great-great grandfather Henry out of wedlock in 1848
The most recent one I learned is that the copper kettle my grandma keeps in her living room was actually made by her grandfather, who was a master blacksmith
My user name is a reference to a family member who, in rural catholic Ireland in the 50’s, got booted out of teacher training for having a relationship with one of the domestic staff. This for a long time was a family secret out of shame.
Comments
uhhhhhhhhhhh....
No word if he also supplied Coca-Cola and limes. 🍋🟩
My father's side was stolen from Ghana & Nigeria and brought to Jamaica by the owners of Bamburg Castle aka this mfer's house.
Powered by CFC's - bye bye ozone layer!
We’re all the children of survivors.
Thank you!
Thank U 4 Asking.🌞 Good 2 C U♥
Have A BLESSED Day🌞
too good to check
It was only discovered when she became so ill a priest was called in for Last Rites and she confessed.
http://www.newsfour.ie/2016/04/double-ties-to-the-rising/
All I have is that my Granny used to tear up the Havana nightclubs pre-Castro lol
It's us. We're the villains.
He was not a very nice person. He later cheated with her brother's wife, the uproar meant that he had to go into hiding and his family had to leave the village for Mexico City.
My aunt taught Stevie wonder
Didn't learn about this till visiting my grandfather's aunt when I was in highschool. 🙃
I also found out completely by accident that my second cousins once removed are Jessica Simpson’s cousins. I was channel surfing and saw one of them talking about her on VH1 20+ years ago. Mind blown!
There's a reddit post about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/ukykzi/til_achille_dev%C3%A9ria_who_was_famous_for_painting/
The true conservative National Anthem of America is "God Save the King".
A Marsh, into whose family some of my ancestors married, complained about not being reimbursed for his property losses.
i found out while my parents weren't at home.. so i found those famous hidden love letters! his daughter (with another woman) had exactly my 3 names.. (i have 3)asked my mother.. well the rest is history..
I live here close to Jamestown. We have Matoaka Elementary here-her real name and not her dad’s nickname for her.
i had no idea that wasn't a thing every family said. on both sides.
my Irish mom once told me my grandmother sheltered two German airmen who had crash-landed near their farm during WWI.
i will never know the truth and that's ok
They were bellhops in the 1st Class Lounge.
My uncle used to fake tears and my father, when asked why the tears but rich Americans, would reply they'd been orphaned during a bombing raid.
1/
My grandmother actually lived to a ripe old age although their house was levelled in the blitz on Southampton.