Oh, it isn’t cranky. I am just personally amused by the number of epically mediocre, yet historically important peeps I am related to. It gives me more cocktail yarns to tell.
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virtual fist bump
I just like talking history. My SO thought about archaeology, I collect old instruments and books.
My great aunts were Daughters of the American Revolution, and also members of the General Society of Mayflower Descendents, so we have a pretty good family tree on that side back to, well, the Mayflower. I find it personally interesting to know about the previous four or five generations because of all the things that had to happen in a particular way in order for me to be here. And, being a family therapist, I’m interested in the relational patterns that I can spot.
In any case, this is my famous ancestor: George Wythe, signer of the Declaration of Independence:
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I used to think I was from that line as well, until my sister did some digging. For most of my life I thought all we had was some distant cousinly relationship to this guy:
I was inordinately proud of him when I saw his “don’t wait for the translation” speech in Thirteen Days. Anyway, I’d always thought ours was an historically irrelevant family of villagers, townsfolk, peasants, and occasional mobsters until my sister unearthed a direct connection to General John Burrows, who was kind of a big deal in Montoursville, PA, and served as a courier to General George Washington in his younger days, though he doesn’t quite warrant a wikipedia entry of his own.
Then again, my brother and I married well. His late father-in-law had a movie made about him last year:
And my wife’s grandfather (great-granddad to my kids) will be played by Bryan Cranston in a biopic of his own this year:
I guess he was both famous and infamous.
Oh, and it belatedly occurs to me, I guess my brother has a wikipedia page of his own:
For what it’s worth, the Donald Petersen on wikipedia is not me.
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Great. Must be awesome.
My “family” research would be short and a pretty brutal scene. Which frankly is a PITA when it comes to medical histories and actually important stuff, but some questions are better off not asked.
So a nobody from a line of them. Yay me. 
ETA: Yeah, not meaning to come across as an asshole here. Really. Tricksy subject though. Imma check out of this thread, I reckon. You crazy kids enjoy. 
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squee
I love history.
My dad’s father emigrated from Denmark when he was fifteen, and we don’t know much about anything that may have happened to him before then, nor even if he might have changed his name at the time. My mom’s mother ran a bar… the kind where she once accepted a fella’s glass eye as collateral for his bar tab (he didn’t pay up, and I still have the eye). There was a fair amount of skulduggery and squalor wherever we looked in our family tree, and I honestly didn’t think we’d ever find records to prove otherwise.
Still, my siblings and I were quite lucky in our immediate ancestors. Both our parents turned around some pretty craptastic upbringings and raised us healthily and happily.
We were damned lucky.
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My g.g.g. grandfather was a prominent Baptist minister in the 1840s (who married the daughter of another prominent Baptist minister) and had three sons who did well in maths in Cambridge. While the others came in the top ten, W S won the annual tripos test and became Seinor Wrangler in 1861 - which put pressure on the university to abolish the religious tests necessary to become a fellow. In 1880, he and his wife (who was also a scientist) started a petition to allow women to take degrees in Cambridge, although this was unsuccessful. Following this, he went on to become the first professor at Auckland University College (now the University of Auckland). When Philippa Fawcett came 13% higher than any of the men in the tripos test in 1890, he called for her to be given an honorary degree in the University of NZ, as “it will take … Cambridge 40 years to get the idea of women’s graduation through their thick skulls”. His wife Mary also published a few books on science and astronomy and is mentioned in a couple of books on female scientists.
Another notable person in my family was my g. grandfather, who was Second Wrangler and worked in optics and invented (or possibly designed early versions of) the Aldis signalling lamp and the slide projector. The last time I ever saw my grandfather, he had one of the lenses that his father had built and was taking it apart to show me how it worked.
I agree to an extent, but it is interesting to see history from a human perspective. On my mother’s side of the family, a very large proportion were Baptists, mathematicians, engineers and missionaries (and a couple of my ancestors were all of those). It’s interesting to see how these people and their beliefs interacted with their world. While W S Aldis made himself unpoular (and was eventually removed from his position at Auckland) because of his strong beliefs on morality (he and his wife spoke strongly against alcohol and prostitution), his family seems to have been had quite close contacts with suffragettes.
I think people often use these famous characters in their past to give them some form of identity, much as they do with famous people from the same country or religious group. I suppose the main issue is when people ignore the fact that the DNA connection is pretty small as your relationship gets more remote (even with direct ancestors) and it’s not particularly deterministic in any case. I feel sorry for people who have more infamous direct ancestors; I’ve read a few accounts where this has been a significant psychological issue for them.
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My sister in law is Brian Johnson’s niece, so I’m officially related to AC/DC.
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I’m adopted, so my geneology is a little convoluted to say the least. I typically say stuff like “The genetic side of the family is half British, and half Russian Jew, but my mom is 3/4 Norwegian and 1/4 Swede, and my dad is 100% British European”
It’s kinda lame actually. Until I was 16, I had no information whatsoever about the genetic side of my family, so I’d always go into the doctor’s office with something weird going on, and they’d ask my family history and I’d have to just say none, even though my mom and dad and brother were there too.
But now I’m in contact with my genetic mother, and my half-brothers, and can ask them stuff, but they just don’t get the important things.
Just this last week, I asked my genetic mother if hearing loss is common in the family, and she said “nope, no hearing loss at all”. But when I pressed further and asked specifically about deafness it turns out I have about six out of ten cousins who were born totally deaf. Along with one aunt and a genetic grandfather.
It kills me.
I asked my genetic mother years ago if there were any scientists in the family and she said no. But just yesterday she said her brother was an ecological entomologist at the University of Boulder Colorado, and that he’s published a book on invasive insect species and has several papers in Nature.
For fuck sake, I wish I didn’t have to pry this info out of them. It’s like pulling teeth.
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Have you asked if there’s any dentists?
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Heh, no, and I don’t think there are any. It’s very strange, all my genetic relatives on my birth mother’s side, as well as myself, have these weirdly perfectly straight and very strong teeth.
I mean, my teeth are very stained from smoking, they’re practically amber in fact, but I have no cavities (I do go to the dentist regularly and get my x-rays, and I brush twice daily), my teeth are abnormally dense according to the x-rays, and they’re perfectly straight, just like my half-brothers’, my genetic mother’s, and her parents’.
So I guess that’s kind of cool. Although my nocturnal grinding has flattened out my canines and made them useless, but that didn’t happen until I was put on stimulant meds for ADD. Before then, I didn’t grind my teeth at all. And now that they’re ground down there’s really no point in stopping the stimulant meds seeing as I’m chemically dependent on them in order to be a functioning human being.
Sometimes I think “Why didn’t my genetic mom fuck someone better?”
She’s tall for an American woman (5’9") and effortlessly fit. And my half-brothers are both over 6 feet tall, fit without trying, and quite strong guys who had no problems figuring out their lives. They’re beautiful. I’d fuck them, if they weren’t my brothers. But here I am, a guy who’s 5 foot 6 inches, with several spare tires (who am I kidding I’m morbidly obese with a bmi of 49), severe ADD, I battle depression, and quite possibly have autoimmune disorders in the cards because my genetic father is a gross slob with bum genes.
Then I think “Hey, she liked that guy, and condoms break sometimes, and she just couldn’t deal with the pill”
It’s weird, being resentful of the gene donors I have, while also having a few philosophical issues with the parents who raised me… I love them, but I fear their religious practices have scarred me for life.
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My great great grandfather was suspected to be the illegitimate son of the Duke of Buccleuch. Apparently there was a strong enough resemblance to the duke that my great-great-grandfather got a far better education and job than you would expect from someone from a family of Irish labourers.
On the more infamous side, Charles Manson’s adoptive father was a distant cousin.
I will go squee for non historical reasons.
Mick Garris is one of my favorite hosts for Trailers From Hell.
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Exactly. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard someone say that they never cared about history in school, but now that they know their ancestor was there, it’s actually fun to learn.
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Speaking as someone who nearly died of cancer because I’d been given wrong info about my ancestors’ heritage, I would disagree with you.
Autosomal DNA testing can be very helpful in telling you at least some of the more major medical issues to watch out for, and is a lot less expensive than the genetic tests your doctor would use.
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It sees a little unfair that you aren’t mentioned in the Personal Life section of your brother’s wiki entry.
I mean, you have an IMDB page. Perhaps someone should add that?
I’m related to (but not descended from) this guy
but I’m not exactly sure how. (and since his childhood was essentially loveless, it shouldn’t really be a mark of pride,)
Nah. I love my brother and he loves me, but professionally we have very separate careers. He gave me my first industry job and a couple others besides, but we haven’t worked together in fifteen years. Hopefully we’ll have occasion to collaborate again someday.
For no real reason that I can explain, we don’t advertise our relationship when we work together. We don’t go out of our way to hide it or anything, but we generally don’t bring it up. By the end of a typical shoot, a few people know about it and most don’t. (Nor would most care anyway.)
