I may have mentioned this, but I am a direct male descendent of king/prince john. You know, the bloke that was so mediocre they were forced to write the magna carta. I saw an ‘original’ (there are like 13) in 2009, and exclaimed at Salisbury, “DADDY!!”.
This isn’t the photo (I really need to dig them up again) but my paternal… Err… Grandfather (??it is complicated) pulled something remarkably similar to this.
I am directly descendant from someone more recently (relatively) notable, famous rather than infamous:
One original early-model car is still in the family (and has been in race reenactments including in England, driven by someone I see every Christmas) but it’s in storage in Rhode Island (where I don’t live) and I haven’t ever seen it myself (my mom went to the race in England, I was pretty young at the time, if/when they do it again I’m definitely going) although I’ve seen others in museums.
I never got the fascination with ancestry. I don’t care one iota who my great great great grandparents were. I barely had any connection with my actual grandparents, anything beyond that is just random people in the world from my perspective.
Maybe that sounds kind of cranky, but immediate family, I am a huge fan of. To be clear.
Beyond that critical single degree of immediate family connection, it’s just a bunch of people you randomly share DNA with, like every other human ever born.
I got ancestors that go back to colony times in the USA so I am distantly related to a crap ton of people sadly someteen something related to the Bush family, ewww.
These guys
are more directly related on my dad’s mother’s side of things.
I’m pretty sure the amount of ancestors you have means that just about everyone white is related to most European historical figure from about a thousand years back.
But WTF do I know. I’m from a long line of nobodies, who never did anything.
Meh I kinda feel the same, but it can also be an interesting history lesson into everyday life of the past as well. My wife is a bit interested in it and we have learned a few neat things.