People of interest in your family history

[Wernazuma III]

A grand grand uncle of mine, Eduard Wagnes, was a composer and Reichskapellmeister in the monarchy. His most famous composition was the "Bosniakenmarsch". Don't know it? Don't mind, nobody does. Yet the tantiemes were so high that his direct heirs could live pretty well from that.

Others, yet not related through blood:
Toni Schruf: Skiing pioneer
? (Forgot the name): A Nazi who took part in the assasination of Austrian facist leader Dollfuß. The Nazi coup d'etat failed at that time though. Not really someone to be proud of I lament

[Footie Mad]

My uncle did som research and apparently my blood line can be traced back to some scottish nobles, McDonalds, that hade to flee from Scotland after losing a war.

[Bas]

AFAIK, I don't have someone even remotely famous in my family. My ancestors are mostly peasants, fishermen, etc., from rural places in the Netherlands. My name suggests that sometime in the past my father's family immigrated from Flanders, and I've got some Hungarian blood about seven generations away, but god knows how he ended up over here.

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by Oerdin
We also know that Josph was a Protestant convert who listed his occupation on the French census as a "land owner and wine maker"; in the early 1670's Joseph's grandson Gerard was accused of Heresy & disloyalty to the crown because he wouldn't convert to Catholicism and so he and his family were sentenced to trasportation to New France. So I know I have relatives in North America by the 1670's.

A protestant being sent to New France in these days probably had a really hard time when he got there. AFAIK it was pretty close to 100% roman catholic.

I've been able to trace back my mother's side back to France in the 1600's too, our first ancester moving to New France in 1654.

[Sten Sture]

Originally posted by AnnC

Which of Jefferson's children is your wife descended from (if I may ask)?

Martha Jefferson Randolph and then Anne Cary Randolph Bankhead iirc.


AH - my mother was born in Africa, but I am actually fairly white. It may be of interest to you that Sally Hemmings was Martha Wayles Jefferson's half sister, and was approx 3/4 white. Ole Thom could have saved us all a lot of racial trouble if he would have just married Sally. For a great thinker, he certainly left a few things undone.

[redbaron]

The only thing I know about my father's side of the family is that my great-great-grandfather was a doctor in Germany and was part of a fairly nasty little feud among the British and German medical fraternities that developed when Kaiser Frederick developed throat cancer. We got a title out of that (unfortunately no money).

My maternal grandmother, on the other hand, put together a fairly impressive family tree which yields:

A cousin who was an SOE agent in WWII, caught by the Gestapo and put in Colditz as a VIP prisoner because his surname was Churchill and his courier (Odette Sansom) managed to persuade the Germans he was related to Winston. She was sent to Ravensbruck and gave evidence at the Nuremberg trials. They married after the war. The film Odette is a somewhat romanticised version of the story. (Actually it's a heavily romanticised version).

Maternal grandfather was at Gallipoli in WWI and went on to run an inn in Abingdon which used to get the likes of Noel Coward, Marlene Dietrich, Douglas Fairbanks staying. He emigrated to South Africa just before WWII and got a job as an actor/announcer with the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

Maternal great-grandfather was a Colonel in the British Army and was in charge of one of the columns which invaded Matebeleland at the instigation of Rhodes. He still has a road named after him in Harare. He was also used as a Colonel Blimp type character in one of Wilbur Smith's books.

Also a great-great-grandfather who was a doctor to the Shah of Persia.

Family legend also has it that there is a saint somewhere down the line who is apparently buried in Barcelona Cathedral.

With ancestors like that, is it any wonder I suffer from feelings of inadequacy?

[Bosh]

hmmmmm, I think the most famous thing anyone in my family has ever done is make really really nice cabinets and violins and then there was the idiot who came from a rich family (my grandmother tracked them down, they're all doctors and lawyers and whatnot) near Rome and ended up as an impoverished cobbler in New York...

[Ozz]

My dad held the record for most times promoted to Flight Sergerent (and demoted from) for the year 1940.

He learned this while being demoted for machine gunning the Kings geese in early 1941.

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by Boshko
hmmmmm, I think the most famous thing anyone in my family has ever done is make really really nice cabinets and violins and then there was the idiot who came from a rich family (my grandmother tracked them down, they're all doctors and lawyers and whatnot) near Rome and ended up as an impoverished cobbler in New York...

Same here, except part of my father's side were of wealthy semi-noblility living outside of Naples. They lived very well, but moved to the US around 1910. Their lives became much harder, that is, until they formed mob connections in the 20s . Then their lives became quite comfortable again... probably at the expense of others That is until the depression, when they lost most everything. Relative to most tho, they still were comfortable...

Now my mom's side has Polish and Itallian/sicillian peasants all the way Go poor people!

[Provost Harrison]

Nothing whatsoever to my knowledge...although you seem to have a lot better knowledge of your ancestry than I do.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Richelieu
I've been able to trace back my mother's side back to France in the 1600's too, our first ancester moving to New France in 1654.

Richelieu: What part of New France did your family go to? Mine ended up in Trois Rivers, PQ and then crossed the border into Illinois in the 1830's after a failed French Uprising against the British.

My Dad's side of the family is was just a bunch of Scottish free holding farmers as far back as the 1780's. His side of the family does have a coat of arms though so maybe if I could go far enough back there would be somebody interesting. I do know my father's maternal Grandfather served as a quartermaster for the British Army during the Boer war.

[chairmanmeow]

My mom's side of the family came from Ireland during the Potato Famine. My dad's side of the family is a little more complicated. Most of his ancestors arrived in Virginia in the 1600s. The rest were wondering what took them so long.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Ozz
My dad held the record for most times promoted to Flight Sergerent (and demoted from) for the year 1940.

He learned this while being demoted for machine gunning the Kings geese in early 1941.

OMG, he's not Ex-Sargeant Wintergreen, is he?

[Darsnan]

one of my anscestoral uncles is Ethan Allen, the American Revolutionary War hero who captured the British Fort Ticonderoga without the Brits being able to fire a single shot, the attack was so successfull!
A very close second would be my father, as he was involved in the western allies invasion of Europe in June of 1944: my father was in an aircraft (C47) that flew supplies to allied airbourne assault forces on June 7th, 1944, and he was also involved in the material relief of the Bastogne position in December of '44.

D

[Velociryx]

James Michener, who I'm proud to be related to (gotta love those author's genes!), and Gary Hart, who I'm not-so-proud to be related to.

Otherwise, a remarkable collection of scoundrels and horse thieves, booted out of England a long time ago....

-=Vel=-