JCC Interesting family history

My maternal grandmother's family claims descent from Kenneth MacAlpin, an early king of Scotland, via the MacGregor family. My maternal grandfather's family claims some sort of relation to Michelangelo. And my paternal grandfather's family claims to be related to Leif Ericson's navigator.

 

my father lived inside the blade of an ancient king's sword. my father died inside the blade of an ancient king's sword.

 

My grandparents have been doing genealogy as a hobby for about 30 years, which for most of that time necessitated driving around to courthouses, cemeteries, records offices, etc. before the internet was really a thing. So they have literally an entire room with shelves full of giant binders for each branch of the family. Family trees, newspaper clippings, written reports, audio recordings, you name it. My mother's side of the family is so well documented we eventually got all the way back to our first Scottish ancestor who came over in the 1680s, which of course linked us to Clan records going back to around 1000. (My dad's side is super Dutch, came to Iowa in the 1880s, stayed in super Dutch places until my grandpa moved to Missouri in the 50s, so there's not a lot to tell other than they're cheap and gave me a hilarious last name.)

So there are tons of interesting stories. Guy shot in the head in the Civil War who had a metal plate inserted and lived another 10 years. Somethingth great grandfather who was the documented tallest man in the world in the late 1800s (with some photos to prove they weren't exaggerating about that: guy was super huge).

Let me think about the most fun one...

 

Speaking of which...

 

speaking of shameful relics hohoho

 

Yeah, phase two should start next week. I had to redecorate part of the attic first.

 

My great-grandmother was kidnapped when she was a baby. I have no more details than that, so use your imagination. I assume they got her back for obvious reasons.

Amazing.

 

AmazingLindbergh?

 

I suspected as much. I see you via via on Facebook sometimes, and your last name is very Dutch. And you look Dutch, of course.

 

Okay, this has got to be the best. My great-great grandmother, my grandfather's grandma, was a Younger. As in the James-Younger gang. Obviously she wasn't one of the gang members, but Cole and his brothers Jim and Bob were cousins of hers. My family's been in Missouri a long time, and my home town was their home town as well.

Growing up, my home town used to have what was called "Cole Younger Days", an annual city fair to... uh... celebrate a notorious robber and murderer? I knew he was a distant cousin of mine and never quite knew what to feel about that. I guess ostensibly they thought it paid homage to his reformed later years as a minister and apparently well-liked guy around town. Regardless, around when I was in high school somebody realized it still might not be a great idea to have a fair celebrating one of the country's most notorious bandits, so they changed the name to Old Tyme Days (the y makes it authentic!)

Here's where it gets weird.

When my parents first got married, they moved to Minnesota for 8 years for my dad's job. That's where my brother and I were born, though I only lived there a year. I visit my birth town at least once a year. And it happens to be the town where the James-Younger gang was famously overpowered and arrested by the townspeople who were finally fed up with having their banks robbed and realized, hey, we have more guns and people than they do and they're inside a small building.

My birth town has an annual fair as well, which commemorates this event. It's called the Defeat of Jesse James Days. Which is kind of a weird name for it, because they didn't capture James. He may not have even been there. It was, however, where my cousins Cole, Jim, and Bob Younger were captured. Cole was eventually paroled and came back to our home town to live out the rest of his life and have a fair named after him. While my birth town still re-enacts his capture at their fair every year.

So if I ever get a random urge to ride a horse up to a train, jump aboard, and rob it, I'm blaming genetic memory.

 

I have some relatives from my father's side that are related to the Qajar family, the family of the penultimate dynasty of Iran (overthrown in 1925 by the first Pahlavi monarch). However, considering the massive harems the Qajar monarchs are known for having had, I suppose it isn't that rare to be related to that family in one way or another, as long as you're from the vicinity of the capital.

 

My great-grandfather was a composer and taught at the Royal Academy in London. My grandfather didn't fight in the second world war because he was Vicar.

 

Yeah, in English it's pronounced exactly how it looks and is fun to say so I get called by my last name a lot. But whenever I'm in Europe or the UK people see it and automatically (correctly) presume it's Dutch and pronounce it the proper way. I don't correct them. And yeah, I got the most stereotypical Dutch look of anyone in my family. I guess I wouldn't have got the blonde hair, though, if there hadn't been some recessive blonde Scottish and German genes hiding on my mom's side. Basically this combination made me tall and translucent

 

Wow. So many people on here's ancestry links them back to WW II.

My Maternal Great-Great Granddad was supposed to be in some Russian War or whatever but he escaped from Poland (where he was living) escaped with my Great-Great Grandmother. He also had eleven brothers.

 

Links to WWII really should be commonplace considering we're almost all from the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, NZ, or Europe. And then if people are from the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia... well, pretty much anywhere but Spain, central Africa, or South America. I mean, it was called a World War for a reason

I think a lot of people in my generation still had/have grandparents who are WWII vets, but I suppose some are more Korea age for Americans. My grandpa whom I'm very close to is a WWII vet of the Philippines campaign.

Yeah, such claims aren't always apocryphal, it turns out. A fairly recent study showed that as many as 350 million people are currently descended from Genghis Khan because of how many harems he had and how frequently he raped women over the vast areas of land he conquered (as well as how his sons and grandsons continued this fine tradition). That's 10% of Mongolia, 8% of Asia, and .5% of all people in the world. Yikes.

 

I had a grandfather at Pearl Harber and the other in Korea. Abe Lincoln is in my family tree. Michael Jordan is my real father.

 

What are you to Abe Lincoln?

 

A distant cousin

 

Interesting. I've talked to a girl on tumblr once who told me she was Abe's 3rd Cousin, 8 times removed.

 

So is Tom Hanks.

 

Maternal grandfather was in the Navy during WWI - his paternal line is Scots and we have a tartan, paternal grandfather emigrated from Sweden.

Maternal great grandmother came out west, alone, mid or late teens via wagon train and was something like a 1st or 2nd, maybe once removed, cousin to Wild Bill Hickok - she called him the "black sheep of the family" details unknown. She died when my mother was too young to remember all the stories.

 

They were 3rd Cousin, 4 times removed.

 

My father's family were turn of the century Irish immigrants that were very wealthy...there's an odd one for ya.
My hubby's great grandfather was like some Boardwalk Empire booze lord. An Uncle was some nazi people still worship.
The one that interests me the most, which I know the least about, was my mom's
grandparents. Great grandma was a cherokee girl who was sent to one of those 'career schools' in Pennsylvania where she met my Irish immigrant grandpa and they drank a lot. Hilarity ensued...

 

My maternal great-great-grandfather and his siblings were French Mercs who fought for the Maharaj of India in exhange for a ton of land.

My paternal great-grandfather was an IRA member who fought the dirty Brits.