Famous/Semi-Famous people in your family tree. And geneology

[Jargo]

So Anarky saying he was somehow related to Billy Graham gave me this idea for another crappy Jargo thread. There are three notables in my family tree and one nobody who ought to be remembered just for the way he died. I don't have time right now to go into details as it's way past my bed time at quarter past four in the morning, however I wanted to chuck this thread up because I'd have forgotten about it by tomorrow.

All I will say is this - A famous royal bride, a famous murderer, a Nobel prize winner and a miller with astounding bad luck.

Feel free to chip in. I'll drop in a proper post once I've had some sleep and rooted out the details.

[Ran]

I don't think I'm related to anyone famous.

My cousin got married back in August, which obviously meant a gathering of relatives. I don't see most of my extended family very often because I live on the opposite end of the country. Anyway, I was chatting with one of my aunts. She was telling me about some show she saw on tv where they trace family trees and how interesting it was. A that point, I realized no one in my family knows anything about our ancestors prior to my great-grandparents. As far as I know, they all immigrated to the US in the 1920s from Poland and Italy. My wife's grandmother traced her side of the family back to the 1500s. I don't believe there was anyone famous in that lineage either.

[anarky]

Woah, dude, you're related to Jack the Ripper? That's kinda cool!

(Actually, a friend of mine in London is really into genealogy, and has become a Ripper enthusiast. Why? He learned that a relative from that time was a prostitute who was murdered, and was speculated by some at the time, and by some experts today, to have been an early Ripper victim.)

Trying to think if there's anyone other than Billy Graham in my family (he's something like a second or third cousin of my grandpa, but getting the straight answer is tough since it's always a rambling discussion that includes the words "No, he was ____, because I remember him coming to ___ when he was ___ years old").

I've got one cousin who was some sort of low-level official in the Bush administration (needless to say, we see not eye-to-eye), and another from the same branch who's a sax player for one of those insanely talented female soul singers who probably will never hit Adele levels of stardom. (The iTunes single of the week is about the pinnacle of their career thus far, not that I'm saying that's nothing.)

My brother-in-law fancies himself a rapper and is actually pretty good and could probably be a one-hit wonder if he had more discipline and wasn't a hanger-on. He appeared in one incredibly shitty, but somewhat successful because people are stupid, movie (Two Can Play That Game). Nice guy, but he can't act to save his damn life.

My wife's dad claims they're related to some or all members of the folk group, The Weavers.

My mom's told me before that there were minor members of the British aristocracy in our lineage about 100 years or so ago. (Not sure if they lost touch with the rich folks when they came here or what; my entire extended family's been dirt poor for ages.)

Two that I think are the coolest are two I've not confirmed, and one isn't technically my family tree unless you're branching out quite a bit. My uncle and cousins in one branch (my mom's sister's husband) claim(ed) to be descended from the last survivor of Custer's men at Little Big Horn. I have confirmed his name, and it matches theirs, though historians seem to pronounce it differently. (Granted, people pronounce their name like his a lot.)

Second, my grandmother was part Indian from the Lumberton area of North Carolina. I always assumed Cherokee, since everyone in North Carolina claims to be exactly 1/16th Cherokee, from generation to generation. But it was more likely the Lumbee tribe, which was sort of a hodgepodge of smaller tribes (and some Cherokees and other larger tribes) sort of thrown together by white assholes. Immediately following the Civil War, there was a fairly famous group of (mostly) Lumbee vigilantes who fought the Confederate Home Guard (the sort of intermediary step between the Confederate officers and the KKK), called the Lowery Band. (If you've watched the History Channel, they've told their story, though completely incorrectly, by claiming they fought during the Civil War and possibly were allied with Sherman, none of which seems to have any basis in reality or anything that was ever said prior to that program airing, and would certainly not jive with the age of the leader.) Anywho, the second-in-command of this group shared my grandma's surname, which isn't particularly common. I suck pretty badly at genealogy myself and haven't been able to confirm the connection, if any.

[vynsane]

according to a book my gram has about famous germans, my great-great-grandfather on her side basically single-handedly created flatbush avenue in brooklyn (well, single-handedly financed the creation of it), though i can't find anything other than that book naming him.

[Jargo]

William Herbert Wallace:
William was a not too distant member of the family who was the first man in Britain acquitted on appeal after the case evidence was re-examined. The case of his wife's murder has formed the basis of many murder mystery films and books because the real murderer has never been identified. I won't go on about him too much as I don't want to simply quote the Wikipedia page. Do have a read as it's fascinating. The police in the UK, by the way, are still as incompetent.

The Miller.
My family has a long tradition of solid professions such as butchery and innkeeping and farming. It turns out that perfumery is also in there but back then it wasn't such a fey business. And then there was flour milling. Now, I live on a peninsula across the river from Liverpool on one side and Wales on the other. The peninsula is pretty much a ridge of land with narrow flood plains either side. The ridge consists of various hills, one being an alleged viking settlement site and another, Bidston hill, is the site of an astrological observatory/weather station and a windmill that's been out of service for decades. In researching the family tree my sister discovered that one of our forefathers on my Maternal grandfathers side was the last ever miller at the windmill. He probably spent most of his life working there milling the wheat grown by other family members who farmed. It seems that as with most windmills there was a doorway high up with a pulley winch for taking in the sacks of wheat. Our relative in his old age took a step backwards into thin air and fell to his death on the sandstone plateau below. I say old age, he was probably about forty. I dunno, perhaps the mill was full of flour dust and he didn't see the edge, or he got something in his eyes, or maybe the strain of lifting heavy sacks gave him a coronary. It was definitely an accidental death. One of his predecessors walked out of the wrong door and was hit by the sails (turning at about 60 miles per hour) and killed. The windmill is preserved by order. And stands as one of the highest points of the peninsula.

The Nobel prize winner:
From wikipedia - "In 1972, Porter shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology with Gerald M. Edelman for determining the chemical structure of an antibody. Using the enzyme papain, he broke the blood's immunoglobin into fragments, making them easier to study. He also looked into how the blood's immunoglobins react with cellular surfaces. He subsequently worked with colleagues Kenneth BM Reid, Robert Sim and Duncan Campbell on developing understanding of the Complement Proteins associated with defence against infection.

In 1991, Raymond Dwek founded the Oxford Glycobiology Institute at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford and this building was named after Porter as the Rodney Porter building.

He died in a road accident near Winchester, Hampshire and is survived by his wife and five children."

Professor Rodney Porter was my maternal grandmothers cousin. She would visit him and his wife, Julia, in the summer and she often spoke of him so I think she had the hots for him. Thing is, not only is he and his work the building blocks of modern medicine and in particular HIV treatment, but his death was shrouded in mystery. Allegedly he walked into the road and was hit by a car and killed instantly. At that time though there was a spate of top biology scientists who died in mysterious circumstances. One allegedly fell out of a window at the BBC television studios in London. Another allegedly killed himself. We're talking about the period when AIDS was killing so many and AZT was the only drug available to treat it. I postulate that the pharma companies assassinated these scientists. There were too many in such a short space of time for it to be coincidence or accidental death. I mean, I'm not a conspiracy theorist by any stretch of the imagination, but it's never been in the interests of large pharma companies to find a cure for HIV/AIDS so it makes sense that removing those who could have found the cure preserved the hold pharmas had over the sick. And still do. A few old men, who'd miss them, right? Hmmmmmm...

Lastly, Rodney's name was used in 'Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less' a fiction novel by British politician Jeffrey Archer. In it one of the lead characters uses Rodney's name in order to execute a sting operation and get revenge on a conman. My Grandmother read the book and nearly had a heart attack when she read that passage.

The royal bride connection:
I need to check up on. I have a funny feeling my memory fails me and I might have mixed up info. So I'll come back with that. We're talking about the 15/1600's though so it'll be very sketchy.

[Tom Foolery]

I have Porters in my family tree on my Mother's side. We could be related!!

[anarky]

It would be fucking insane if we were all tangentially related.

And awesome.

[Jargo]

There's quite a few American members of my family. I suppose coming from the west coast of the UK where passage to the Americas has always been easy it's unsurprising that some of us made it across the pond. My Granddad travelled to South America in the 1930's as a golf professional teaching golf to the rich and famous in luxury resorts. He had a dalliance with a Jewish millionairess, but turned down her offer of marriage when WWII broke out. He came home to join the war effort in an aircraft factory. Knowing what a ladies man my granddad was there's likely a whole bunch of offspring over there in the South.

These guys are undoubtedly related to me distantly. The Priestman name is quite uncommon. I know there are some in the US and there's a concentration in the far north of England. And then there's my wee family in the north west. Although we came here from the gritty east end of London. which was a major trade port and another easy access point for crossing the Atlantic.

It's weird how you only have to scrape the surface of history to make connections. Tenuous ones maybe but, I'll bet we are all connected in some way historically.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

There's a vast difference between South America and casual reference to 'over here in the South'.

'The South' refers to thems under the Mason-Dixon line what lost the Civil War and hate black people and progress like giving minorities voting rights and gay marriage. They tend to fuck their own cousins and wear white sheets with eyeholes cut out.

South America is where the world's supply of cocaine and Victoria Secret models comes from.

[anarky]

'The South' refers to thems under the Mason-Dixon line what lost the Civil War and hate black people and progress like giving minorities voting rights and gay marriage. They tend to fuck their own cousins and wear white sheets with eyeholes cut out.

No, that's just the rural parts of the South. And all of West Virginia.

We just all are required to respect Robert E. Lee even if we agree he was totally on the wrong side. (He was opposed to slavery and even personally asked by Lincoln to lead the Union army. He just bizarrely held a stronger loyalty to Virginia, even as it was flushing itself down the shitter, than to the US as a whole.)

[Jargo]

Yeah, I do know the difference. I would have referred to the south end of North America as hicksville :p

[Ran]

Yeah, I do know the difference. I would have referred to the south end of North America as hicksville :p

The south end of North America would be Mexico.

Southern Virginia to northern Florida out to Arkansas and Lousiana are southerners. "Hicksville" can be found anywhere. There are hicks from California, New York, or Maine. Well, by my definition at least, which is people from more remote areas.

[Jargo]

Mexico aint North America. It's Mexico. North America ends at Texas. Mexico is just a no-man's land buffer zone between North and South America.

[anarky]

Technically speaking, Mexico and Central America are both part of the North American continent.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Yeah, I do know the difference. I would have referred to the south end of North America as hicksville :p

The south end of North America would be Mexico.

Southern Virginia to northern Florida out to Arkansas and Lousiana are southerners. "Hicksville" can be found anywhere. There are hicks from California, New York, or Maine. Well, by my definition at least, which is people from more remote areas.

Hicksville/being a hick is also subjective. A person in a Pop. 3000 town might think the guy from the Pop. 75 town is a hick. And the Pop. 15,000 guy will think the first guy's a hick. And the person from Omaha will think Mr. 15,000 is a hick. And people from NYC and LA think everybody else in the country is a hick. Subjective. "I'm from NYC, where're you from?" "Houston, TX." "Pfft. Hick."