Famous Relatives [Archive]

Lemur

05-14-2006, 18:03

Three that I'm aware of.

Alice Baber (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Baber)

Asa Baber (http://www.playboy.com/features/features/asababer/)

Mary Todd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Todd)

Fame is a relative concept, however.

Duke Malcolm

05-14-2006, 18:15

my grandmother would have been Countess of Donegal, which goes back yon to the High Kings of Ireland, until she found out she had an uncle, according to my mother...

Geoffrey S

05-14-2006, 19:07

New: Gretta Duisenberg, you probably don't know her but she is quite well known here.
:laugh4: Brilliant!

Zalmoxis

05-14-2006, 19:28

My cousin is a pretty well known news anchor on the TVR channel in Romania.

Bar Kochba

05-14-2006, 19:42

eh i have a great great grand father who was called the Bal Shem Tov hes very famous among jews

Rodion Romanovich

05-14-2006, 19:59

Here's another question: anyone got INFAMOUS relatives? :laugh4:

Kääpäkorven Konsuli

05-14-2006, 20:06

Kalevi Oikarainen, world champion skier.
And of course me, Home Run champion.

Evil_Maniac From Mars

05-14-2006, 21:14

Tobias Thurley-Had a book written about him, Google it. I'm in direct descent from him.

Artur Mueller-Bundesliga prospect (cousin), I can't actually remember if he's been taken by a team yet. I don't think he has. :embarassed:

And there is a small chance I am distantly related to the House of Hohenzollern. But then, all the nobility of the world is, no? :laugh4:

BDC

05-14-2006, 21:15

Loads of minor (now forgotten) celebs from the 19th century.

I bet most the people in this forum are related to a lot of famous people from long enough ago. Probably everyone from Europe is a direct descendant from Charlemagne many times over...

Avicenna

05-14-2006, 21:28

I'm proud to say on my parents' behalf that they worked their way to success even though starting off with a poor background with relatively few oppurtunities. Of course, this means that their parents worked to survive, and didn't have time to go on about trying to find out who they're descended from. So, as far as I know, I'm not related to anyone famous.

Somebody Else

05-14-2006, 21:30

I know my children are going to have a famous father...

Tribesman

05-14-2006, 22:02

Loads of them on the wifes side of the family , physician to the sultan , only Physician at major British defeats , senior physician at major British victories , designer of railways throughout the British Empire , innovator of Narrow gauge Railways , Founders of the methodist church in Wales, bridge builders of the Csar , lifeboats (manx) , queens choristors , composers , conductors ,opera singers , Famous(decorated) British generals , famous (decorated )British/Indian colonels , famous civil servants and not so famous intelligence operatives.
Oympiads ,gold ,silver ,bronze medals, plus world ,olympic ,national and commonwealth titles.
Blimey it can go on and on ...

My side of the family........apart from the yanks and the scholars (hello Norway) best keep quiet , unless you want to talk infamous~;)

Beirut

05-15-2006, 00:30

Ulysses S. Grant.

Redleg

05-15-2006, 00:34

Kit Carson - a brother to one of my distant relatives.

There are a few others - but he is the only one of major note.

Alexander the Pretty Good

05-15-2006, 00:41

Not much - someone on my grandmother's side (maybe an aunt?) worked for Dick Cheney. I think. :oops:

Justiciar

05-15-2006, 01:19

I know I'm of some relation to William Booth. My mother claims that her maiden name, Samnell, is somehow linked to Lambert Simnel. Not much of a claim, but if it were true I can only be glad that whole thing in his childhood ended as it did.. otherwise I might not exist!

LeftEyeNine

05-15-2006, 01:22

Kit Carson - a brother to one of my distant relatives.

There are a few others - but he is the only one of major note.

Well, I know one Kit Carson that is an excellent football scout.

Samurai Waki

05-15-2006, 03:02

I'm ashamed to say that my 7th Cousin is Pat Buchanan. Uggggggghhhhhhhhhh that fills me with so much dread saying that.

Alexanderofmacedon

05-15-2006, 03:10

Oh yeah, someone else I got. James Denton is a cousin of mine. He plays Mike Delfino on "Desperate Housewives".

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0219835/

sweet!:2thumbsup:

Strike For The South

05-15-2006, 03:14

John Proctor

Divinus Arma

05-15-2006, 06:27

Red Ryder

Reverend Joe

05-15-2006, 06:32

My paternal grandfather, Willard Kelly, was the deputy head of the Immigration and Naturalization service, having started in the Border Patrol. He quite literally wrote the manual for the Border Patrol, as well as making many important changes to the Border Patrol; for example, pushing a program to teach basic foreign language communication to Border Patrol officers. He also briefly locked horns with Jay Edgar Hoover, after Willard kept telling everyone about how the FBI would "announce the arrest and deportation" of someone that the INS had arrested and deported (failing to mention, of course, who had done the arresting and deporting.)

Avicenna

05-15-2006, 07:51

I have a classmate called Pat Buchanan :rolleyes: He's known as 'Paddy' though.

Red Peasant

05-15-2006, 11:29

Wow, some people actually know who their Seventh cousins are!! I don't know some of my first cousins.

Me, Peasant by name, Peasant by nature.

The American footballer, Bobby Convey, is a very distant relative. So congrats to him on achieving promotion to the Premier League with Reading FC.

Redleg

05-15-2006, 12:53

Well, I know one Kit Carson that is an excellent football scout.

Wrong one I am afraid. It would be the infamous indian scout...or famous depending upon your view point of the movement west.

drone

05-15-2006, 16:13

Here's another question: anyone got INFAMOUS relatives? :laugh4:
http://www.njhm.com/eastorange1.htm
Historical inspiration for the Three Women in Black book.

The first 2 names on this little document :oops:
http://www.researchonline.net/sccw/hist0004.htm

I think that's my family's quota, we've been under the radar ever since.

Kaiser of Arabia

05-16-2006, 01:40

Robert E. Lee, Colonel Theodoric Bland, Myself.

GeneralHankerchief

05-16-2006, 02:33

Eh, I got nobody.

But my grandfather was mayor of some town back in the day...

Strike For The South

05-16-2006, 02:35

http://www.njhm.com/eastorange1.htm
Historical inspiration for the Three Women in Black book.

The first 2 names on this little document :oops:
http://www.researchonline.net/sccw/hist0004.htm

I think that's my family's quota, we've been under the radar ever since.

Drone YOU SHOULD BE PROUD. Your family had balls to throw off yankee oppresion

Alexanderofmacedon

05-16-2006, 02:37

Drone YOU SHOULD BE PROUD. Your family had balls to throw off yankee oppresion

Pfft, yankee oppresion. You have the guts to talk about oppresion? Give me a break...

Evil_Maniac From Mars

05-16-2006, 02:46

Oh, and one more, who isn't really famous, but he won a highly esteemed Russian medal in WWI. My great-grandfather, St. George's Cross, 2nd Class (meaning it was the third act of bravery, or a major single act).

spmetla

05-16-2006, 10:45

Well I can trace my family tree back to the Putnam family of Salem MA, the same one involved in the Salem witch trail. And according to the the 'Book of Putnam' the Putnam lineage goes back to Pippin the Short so I guess I can add Charlemagne and supposedly Godfrey de Boulion (first latin ruler of Jerusaleum during the crusades) although according to my own research I haven't found any evidence of his have any children. Perhaps he left his heir back in Lorraine.

With the Putnam family though, General Israel Putnam was a cousin of my ancestor of the period (Bunker Hill, "don't fire till you see the whites of the eyes").

drone

05-16-2006, 15:15

Drone YOU SHOULD BE PROUD. Your family had balls to throw off yankee oppresion
The fact that they signed it probably meant that they were involved in their own type of oppression, so I can't really agree with you there. :shame: We will just leave it at that, this is the Frontroom, after all.

Evil_Maniac From Mars

05-16-2006, 20:58

Oh, wait, got another one that I forgot. My (paternal) opa designed and worked on navigational systems for German aircraft in WWII.

A.Saturnus

05-16-2006, 21:49

My great-uncle was mayor of the German city Bayreuth for 30 years, the urban stadion is named after him. His brother, my grandfather Kurt Wild was an artist, who had some fame in his city Würzburg but who's nowadays probably not known by anyone younger than 60.

Viking

05-16-2006, 22:01

One distant relative is leading TV-shows (I actually share his last name as well); another one with the same last name that was a relatively famous discuss thrower. The guy's still alive. He was caught and admitted that he had used drugs, that bastard.

thrashaholic

05-17-2006, 09:26

I'm distantly related to Clare Balding, of BBC Grandstand Racing Fame, on my mother's side. On my father's side, some members of the family were quite successful businessmen in South Wales, one of whom provided the stone for the Ebw Vale steel works I believe. Also, my maternal grandfather worked on very important telecommunications technology (for the Instiute of Physics I think) and was well known in mountaineering circles, writing for the Alpine Journal and numerous other books on the subject.

There are probably some nobles way back in the dusty corners of my family tree, but I'm not aware of them; Owain Glyndwr would be nice, or Llewllyn ap Gruffydd... The rest aren't terribly famous unfortunately...

Drisos

05-17-2006, 09:33

Cool thread ~:)

Don't have any well-known relatives at all... the most well known is probably my oncle he's been in dutch politics. but there won't be many to know his name either.

Rodion Romanovich

05-17-2006, 12:10

I don't know about any famous relatives of mine but I hope I'm related to someone who bravely took part in a rebellion against some oppressive ruler who ruled in or conquered some place where that forefather of mine lived, no matter where that was (not sure where my ancestors come from)

Freedom! :charge:

Puzz3D

05-17-2006, 18:06

Direct decendant of Francis Cooke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Cooke) (1583 - 1663) one of the original English separatists and passenger on the Mayflower (1620), and related to John Bradshaw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bradshaw_%28Judge%29) (1602 - 1659) the judge who passed the death sentence on Charles I of England.

Tachikaze

05-17-2006, 18:19

Possibly Ezra Pound.

Whether famous or infamous is up to you.

Actually being related to someone famous is not much of a distinction, especially if you go back a few generations. The number of descendents from one pair of parents can go into the millions in a few generations.

Csargo

05-18-2006, 01:50

I'm somehow related to Edgar Allan Poe but I dont remember how.

Evil_Maniac From Mars

05-18-2006, 03:44

Actually being related to someone famous is not much of a distinction, especially if you go back a few generations. The number of descendents from one pair of parents can go into the millions in a few generations.

That's why I only named people who are cousins or otherwise closely related, or those I am the heir of, as in their direct descendant.

JimBob

05-18-2006, 04:04

My great-grandfather opened the first furniture store in Chicago. That money sorta disappeared.

Teleklos Archelaou

05-18-2006, 06:16

I've done very extensive research on my almost entirely poor-farmer ancestors, and there's virtually no famous relatives anywhere near me in the tree. But one of my fifth cousins did marry Rafael Palmeiro.