Who's Your Coolest Ancestor?

[Cheesus333]

Apparently, McCoull (my last name) comes from the Scottish clan MacDougal[footnote]Not McCowell, as you might expect, and I don't really get it either.[/footnote]. Their motto was 'victory or death', which I think is pretty badass.

God, this feels like being in primary school XD

 

[CasioCoal]

my grand dad's dad was an Aussie digger in world war 1. He ended up getting put in a German POW camp later in the war. He was an orphan who had been brought up by two german settlers in Australia and thus knew German, allowing him to become mates with one of the German guards. He used this closeness to kill this guy with a broken bottle to escape (something that he apparently had to do given the situation, but was very sad about).

Apparently one of my Scottish ancestors was a convict sent to Australia for saboutaging farming equipment.

 

[Smokej]

Well in my case, I have the ruins of a castle in my family's name, as well as a few Mausoleums that bear the family name in the surrounding area as well, so I have some pretty strong evidence of my lineage.

i don't want to be iterating or the bearer of bad news, but a lot of you seem to have a wrong perception of how this works. If you're really intrested in your family history try to go to an archive when they have an open day to get some first impressions.

I don't know if this is the case in the US but here in Germany you can also visit a church archive (of course your ancestors should have lived somewhere there in the community) when you fill out an application. This is a good place to start a research because the sources there cover a wide range of biographical data. You should bring some help with you if you don't have knowlegde in old languages and in deciphering handwriting. But if you have a trail there you can follow it to more specific archives (court archives, municipal archives, party archives and so on...) Takes some time, but this is the best way to do it if you're not affiliated with a scientific institution that can help you

 

[Reed Spacer]

Tim Horton.

That's right; that Tim Horton.

 

[Prof. Monkeypox]

Well in my case, I have the ruins of a castle in my family's name, as well as a few Mausoleums that bear the family name in the surrounding area as well, so I have some pretty strong evidence of my lineage.

i don't want to be iterating or the bearer of bad news, but a lot of you seem to have a wrong perception of how this works. If you're really intrested in your family history try to go an archive when they have an open day to get some first impressions.

I don't know if this is the case in the US but here in Germany you can also visit a church archive (of course your ancestors should have lived somewhere there in the community) when you fill out an application. This is a good place to start a research because the sources there cover a wide range of biographical data. You should bring some help with you if you don't have knowlegde in old languages and in deciphering handwriting. But if you have a trail there you can follow it to more specific archives (court archives, municipal archives, party archives and so on...) Takes some time, but this is the best way to do it if you're not affiliated with a scientific institution that can help you

Yeah, yeah we did all that too. That's how I first found out about it. I mean, I didn't personally do the research or anything, but family did, and through the proper channels.

Also: did my post make me sound like a dick? Reading it makes me think I did. If so, sorry. Didn't mean to accuse you or anything.

 

[tahrey]

I don't know of any really significant ones, but I can say that one of my still-surviving ancestors - my grandmother - worked in a factory bolting Spitfires and troop-carrier gliders together during WW2 (amongst plenty of other pretty hardcore stories she can tell of her youth), and my grandad was a union leader who helped get immigrant workers in his factory on an equal footing.

I doubt anything I'll ever do will match up that kind of epic behaviour.

Oh and there's a castle in Wales that bears my family name, but apparently we have no claim to it as it's probably just a case of convergent surname evolution, never mind that it's such a goddamn rare one I know of about FIVE PEOPLE IN THE WHOLE WORLD with it outside of my family. So there's a chance that someone deep in my ancestry built an ACTUAL GODDAMN CASTLE (none of this Minecraft bullshit )... or maybe they didn't.

Meh, I'm happy to say "at least one of them had a hand in us winning the war, and another was a very minor civil rights campaigner".
Oh and that's not forgetting the great grandfather who was one of the many millions on the "good" side of the trenches in WW1...

 

[Avarith]

http://www.google.co.uk/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=gene+chip+tatum

My great uncle

 

[Merlin Marston]

One of my ancestors was William Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman and is credited as the creator of the Lie Detector (He also had 2 wives)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Moulton_Marston

 

[Palademon]

Grandfather on my mum's side.
He was a very intresting man who my mum often says I'm a lot like he used to be, but sadly he's too old to even properly have a conversation with.

For example of interestingness. Stories from my mum. He took a year off before going to university, but once the war started he joined university in the middle of the year to avoid it, then worked in the ministry of defense in the section for some kind of emergency situations, so he wouldn't have to do any paperwork. He was an engineer that invented a component used to make radar, that he accidently left in a phonebooth once, and it's now used it car smelting processes for a specific car company.

 

[MoeTheMonk]

Well, my great great grandfather was an Austrian army officer, who somehow wound up fighting in the French resistance in WWII. I always found that pretty cool.

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

On my father's side, my ancestors were the only one of the Galway Tribes to have a direct link to the old Gaels, back in the 1400s, on my mother's side they're from the Munster plantation, dont know much about anyone specific though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribes_of_Galway

 

[Athol]

My great grandfather (mum's side) was in both world wars, in the british army. He served at Gallipoli during the first war, and was at Dunkirk during the second where he commanded an AAA unit defending the beach while allied forces withdrew. When the order came for him to destroy his guns, he disobeyed and kept them firing until his unit was litterally the next batch to get off the beach (He was awarded a DSC for his actions)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_Campaign
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk_evacuation

I also may be distantly related to William Shakespeare

 

[SoldieroFortune]

On my mother's side, I go back to John Bunyan and at least one Plantagenet king.

On my father's side, we haven't proven anything, but we think that, due to our last name, there might be a connection to the royal line of Wales.

 

[DanielDeFig]

I haven't researched my family tree that far back, but i do have two badass stories from each of my parents families.

My grandfather (on my dad's side) refused to serve as an officer in Portugal's attempt to maintain control over Angola with military might. He was put in prison, but eventually escaped. He then practically walked all the way to Germany to continue his work as a doctor, and eventually ended up in Sweden. My Grandmother eventually followed him there with my aunt in tow (my dad was in boarding school on the UK). And that's how my dad ended up in Sweden, and started to work with the Swedish embassy (where he met my mom, when they were both working in Zambia).

My mother's Grandfather gained fame within the family at the age of 93. It was christmas, and my Mother's dad had arrived to the big family get-together with a christmas tree (I believe he had bought it). My mom's grandfather claimed that it was "too scrawny", and despite it being about -20 degrees Celsius outside (Don't know the Fahrenheit conversion. Water freezes at 0 Celsius, might give you an idea of how cold), he got his clothes, skis, an axe and went outside. He then went skiing into the forest, and when he found a good tree, he cut it down, and skied back with it. The guy was 93 years old! This is the story our mom tells us when we (me and my siblings) ask how long we should expect to live, based on previous family members.

 

[spookydom]

Well, I know for a fact that my ancestor is my ancestor. We have always known. Big family scandel and also a well documented family history in public records. How can you discount everybody elses? Though in my case this leads back over a over only one hundred years. That makes it a lot simpler to check out.

Of course i'm overgeneralizing in some cases

here are the reasons why i'm doubting the validity of the rest:

1. experience on the scienfific matter (although it was only a subdiscipline in my university education, i'm well aware of the strict criteria on objectivity if you're doing genealogical research)

2. experience with people (yeah i'm getting old )

3. closely linked with number 2: It's the internet!

I mean come on, if people claim they are a direct descendant of Captain James Sparrow or whatever, you probably know the outcome. If genealogical research wasn't such a tedious matter, it would be no problem to proof the validity of all the assertions... But as it stands i have to settle myself for a guess...

Lol I liked point 3 the best

As an asside here is a fun fact. Did you guys know 0.5% of the male population of the world are descended from Genghis Khan? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0214_030214_genghis.html

 

[Shadowtek]

Are all of you getting this from just a family record or do you have any online resources? I would love to find out my family heritage, but no one in my family ever kept track. All Ive got is back to my g-grandmother.

(Ancestory.com is not free, its a trial. I tried)

 

[Rekh]

I'm related to Sir William Wallace, and according to what my grandparents have told me/sent me, the clan that my family is a part of is related to a king named Cnut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut

*giggle* Are you sure history didn't make a typo? *giggle*

Well I can't say I wasn't expecting a reply like that

Also, just remembered. This guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Degas
is my great-great-great uncle. If you go to his museum/house/place in New Orleans (I've stayed there before) I believe either my mom or my grandmother is on the big family tree they have on the wall.

So yeah, neat.

 

[Compatriot Block]

My great-great-great-great-great uncle, Charlie Pitts, was a member of Jesse James' gang. During their last robbery attempt(the Northfield, Minnesota raid in the article linked below), the heist went bad and the gang agreed to split up to escape. Charlie went with Jim and Bob Younger, and the three of them were cornered in a swamp. The Younger brothers surrendered after being wounded in the following firefight, but Charlie was shot and killed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James-Younger_Gang

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Apparently I'm related to Sir Joseph Banks, the botanist who was part of Captain Cook's First Fleet that landed in Australia. Then in true Aussie form I have an ancestor who was a notorious bushranger.

My great, great grandfather left Jamaica and immigrated to Australia, but he left his family while here to find gold (literally) so he would have been cool if not for that dick move.

 

[CATB320]

Anne Boleyn and Pocahontas.