Tales of your ancestors.

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Interesting Ancestors/Relatives

Postby IamNotCreepy » Sat Oct 29, 2016 4:21 pm

My mother has extensively researched our genealogy, and a bulk of her time has focused on one particular relative: my Great-great-great-grandfather, Joe Howard Jr.

He was a fascinating character, and semi-famous in his time. He was a Civil War-era journalist heavily involved in the politics and goings-on of the day, including some scandals and jail time.

I'm going to blatantly steal most of my material from his Wikipedia page, 90% of which was written by my mother.

His entry into the world of journalism was an interesting one:

Shortly after returning from a pleasure trip in California in February 1860, he visited Lynn, Massachusetts to witness a shoemakers strike "to see the fun". According to the popular story, Howard entered a local hotel and saw the name of a reporter from the New York Herald in the registry. He then signed his name in a similar fashion claiming to be a reporter from the New York Times. That night, he sent a report on the strike to The Times which so impressed the editors that Henry J. Raymond personally telegraphed Howard to offer him a full-time position on the paper.


His long career in journalism wasn't without controversy, though. During the Baltimore Plot, he made up a story about Lincoln traveling in disguise in "a Scotch cap and long military cloak" while on his way to Washington, D.C. for his official inauguration.

He also played a series of practical jokes such as holding open the paper's lines to telegraph the genealogy of Jesus and, in September 1862, he violated an order prohibiting journalists from attending the funeral of Brigadier General Philip Kearny by sneaking in dressed in clerical robes.

An inflammatory story of his partially led to the New York Draft Riots (as seen in Gangs of New York).

The most famous of his controversies was the so-called "Civil War Gold Hoax". He invested heavily in gold and used his knowledge of the press to forge a convincing proclamation from Lincoln calling for more troops. The price of gold soared and he made a huge profit. Of course, he was caught and held as a prisoner of war for 14 weeks before being pardoned by Lincoln. The irony is that at the time Lincoln was about to send out an actual proclamation calling for more troops.

Despite the controversies, he was a well-regarded journalist in his day and covered a lot of famous events. He was the go-to reporter for the infamous Lizzie Borden trial. He also wrote prolifically on the events of the day. He had a regular column just dedicated to all of the famous people he would bump into while riding a particular elevator.

My mother is planning on writing a book about him one day. I think his story would make a fantastic movie. It would be like Forrest Gump, where you see him being involved with all these famous events of the times.

TL;DR: Anyone else have any famous/interesting ancestors or relatives?
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Last edited by IamNotCreepy on Sat Oct 29, 2016 4:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Interesting Ancestors/Relatives

Postby Tesseracts » Sat Oct 29, 2016 4:33 pm

I'm related to William Callahan. He built some of the first highways in America.

I've always wanted to do some research into my ancestors but I never have, so that's all I can say.
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Re: Interesting Ancestors/Relatives

Postby reallifegirl » Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:50 pm

According to my maternal grandmother, we are distantly related to Elizabeth of Hungary through the small amount of German lineage we have. She gave me a book about her that mentioned the relative who is our ancestor, which may still be in my parents' house somewhere.

Also, according to at least one of my aunts, we are veeeeeeeeeery distantly related to Barack Obama via Irish ancestors in his mother's family. This part of his heritage was immortalized in a mildly popular song right after his first election:

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Re: Interesting Ancestors/Relatives

Postby FaceTheCitizen » Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:58 pm

...
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Re: Interesting Ancestors/Relatives

Postby JamishT » Tue Nov 01, 2016 5:45 am

I'm supposedly related to the first Amish bishop (top leader dude of an Amish community) in America. And pretty much all the Amish everywhere.
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Re: Interesting Ancestors/Relatives

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Tue Nov 01, 2016 6:32 am

My Maternal grandmother by adoption was the artist Hedda Schiatzi, AKA Hedo Oppenhiem. My paternal Grandfather, Edley Silver, used to work as a talent manager in LA back in the day. He was at one point the talent manager of famed movie poster designer Stephen Frankfurt and the musical group "The Turtles".
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Re: Interesting Ancestors/Relatives

Postby Absentia » Tue Nov 01, 2016 2:04 pm

My mom's family, the Coles, were pretty well-to-do in Virginia back in the day. I'm a direct descendant of John Coles, who owned a plantation near Monticello and was apparently a pretty close friend of Thomas Jefferson, and Dolley Madison's mother was also a Coles.
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Re: Interesting Ancestors/Relatives

Postby ghijkmnop » Tue Nov 01, 2016 6:09 pm

Redacted
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Re: Interesting Ancestors/Relatives

Postby Cordslash » Tue Nov 01, 2016 9:47 pm

I'm with sort of with Ghi.

My ancestors didn't flee Europe for Africa because they wanted a vacation from their castles after all. They were peasants desperate for a new life.
Most were dirt poor and eventually, over many generations, managed to form a middle class family into which I was born.

What? You say that poor people working their way up from nothing to achieve moderate success isn't interesting?

Classists and elitists, the lot of you....
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Re: Interesting Ancestors/Relatives

Postby sunglasses » Tue Nov 01, 2016 10:30 pm

I'm related to the Poes (yes, like Edgar Allen) on my mother's side. I think it was either a great or great great grandmother who was the Poe.
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Re: Interesting Ancestors/Relatives

Postby Arkyle » Wed Nov 02, 2016 8:25 am

I'd need to go back and double check names, but most of my interesting stories come from my mom's side of the family:

1) We used to be royalty, but got kicked out of the club because of bad behaviour
2) When my mom's forebears came to South Africa, they had to change the spelling of their surname. There was apparently a real charlatan in the area with the same surname, and they wanted to distance themselves from it.
3) The family farms that my ancestors left to come to South Africa as missionaries are still owned by relatives. In fact, when we went to go visit a couple of years ago, my brother had the same name as the current owner!

Other than that though, nothing that sticks out immediately...
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Re: Interesting Ancestors/Relatives

Postby DoglovingJim » Mon Feb 20, 2017 5:15 am

I can't confirm it but I have a hunch that I am distantly related to me, DoglovingJim.

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Re: Interesting Ancestors/Relatives

Postby Twistappel » Mon Feb 20, 2017 5:24 am

Germaine Greer is a cousin a couple of time removed or some shit. Fortunately we're not close to that side of the family, so I've never had to be in the same room as the wretched woman, but Dad likes to remind me about it when he wants to annoy me.
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Re: Interesting Ancestors/Relatives

Postby Absentia » Mon Feb 20, 2017 5:34 am

Also, my great-great grandfather was bootlegger to Richmond's rich and powerful during Prohibition. He was the guy that the governor called when he wanted some hooch.
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Re: Interesting Ancestors/Relatives

Postby cmsellers » Mon Feb 20, 2017 5:42 am

I don't have any famous relatives, but the stories of how my mother's paternal grandparents came to America from Austria-Hungary is certainly interesting.

Her grandfather had scrimped and saved to buy passage to America, but he told his brother about it. One day, he found both the money and his brother missing, forcing him to do it all over again. There's only one other group of people with my mother's last name in America, and they're not descended from the brother, so we have no idea what his brother did with the money, but "emigrate to America" was evidently not it.

Her grandmother used to sell eggs over the Hungarian border. Though Austria-Hungary had a single monarch, Austria and Hungary had different customs and immigration regulations. When WWI broke out, border controls increase and emigration from Austria was heavily restricted. One day my great-grandmother decided that restrictions or no, she was going to emigrate. So she put on several layers of clothes with valuables in the pockets, put other valuables beneath a layer of eggs in the basket, and crossed the Hungarian border. There she somehow made it to America, though I'm not sure if she left from a Hungarian port or had to go to a neutral country like the Von Trapps.
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