Tell us some cool stories about your ancestors (1 Viewer)

The OSU death effecting one of own member's sons got me thinking about the stuff my ancestors went through.  

So ... let's hear some interesting stories about your parents, grandparents, etc.

1)  My granddad on my mothers side grew up in rural SC.  His father drank heavily and beat the family all the time.  His mother eventually poisoned the father and committed suicide herself.  Leaving my grandad and his younger brother to fend for themselves.  They were ages 12 and 9.  So at the ridiculously young ages of 12 and 9 they set out alone and rode the train tracks of America stealing food and foraging for whatever they could to live.  Tough stuff.  Then at the age of 16 he lied about his age and enlisted in Army for WW2 simply because he could get a meal that way.  he ended up fighting in the Philippine area, and was captured by the Japanese and lived in a POW camp.  He would never say what happened other than he didn't want to re-live it...so I assume really bad stuff.  At the end of the war he was freed, at the time weighing in at about 90 pounds.  The VA found him a job as a mechanic for a county in the rural south, where he created a family of 6 that lived in a welfare provided 1 bedroom home, living off minimum wage at his job plus food stamps.  He died about 20 years ago.  Tough dude.  Never once complained either.

2)  My family landed in Jamestown in the early 1600s.  Only one person came, and he's in the record books at Wiliamsburg.   He was not on the first boat over, but was on the second or third.  He was escaping religious persecution and seeing if the family could come to the colonies.  So he was among the first 500 colonists to arrive in the "New World'.   Eventually the whole family came over.   After several years, he was given 2,000 acres of land for the unfortunate line of "service against the savages".  At approximately 50 years old, he was hanged on his farm in an area now called Lightfoot for reasons unknown.

Maternal side came over from Wales in the 1760s, settled in New York. Colonial Blair raised a regiment for the Continental army by closing his store, selling most of his possessions to buy rifles and accouterments. After the Revolution he migrated to Pennsylvania. Two generations later my directe line moved to the Michigan territory shortly before statehood.

Several distant relatives fought in the ACW, I have a few artifacts of my GGG grandfather (2nd Michigan Volunteer Cavalry Regiment.) I also have an 1884 copy of the regimental history, which has the longest title I’ve ever seen: A Hundred Battles in the West: St. Louis to Atlanta, 1861-65. The Second Michigan Cavalry, with the Armies of the Mississippi, Ohio, Kentucky and Cumberland ... with Mention of a Few of the Famous Regiments and Brigades of the West.

I’ve researched their exploits a little bit, have a ton of stories.

Paternal side came over in the 1830s, settling in the mid-Michigan area I grew up in. Of my father’s five siblings, all of them (including four sisters) and their spouses served in WWII. One was a B-17 tailgunner, four fought in the Pacific theater, the five ladies all served stateside.

My father was in grade school and thus did not serve. Also too young for Korea, married with four children during the Vietnam era. He achieved a lucrative patent at age 20 and used the proceeds to start a wood manufacturing business. He semi-retired when he was 44 and fully retired when he was 52.

Grandpappy Hoard quite ironically left me nothing.

One of my great-great-great-keep going Aunts was a famous opera singer in Germany.  That's all I got.

They successfully procreated.

my tail-male ancestor John landed in Dover NH in 1636 as a surveyor for the Crown. me Ma came over on the boat from Dun Laoghaire, Ireland in 1938. distinguished relatives:

Olaf G Pissah - stowaway on Leif Erickson's Vinland expedition, taught the Skrælings how to make tundra tea & distill mukluk sweat. Made his way as far south as Freeport, Maine, becoming the first European in America, and sold flannel shirts to lesbian Abenakis in the spot which later became the worldwide HQ of LLBean.

Harriet Pissah - abolitionist heroine, rescued hundreds of slaves from plantations using a hot-air balloon in operations which came to be known as the Aboveground Railroad

The German side of my family started coming over in the late 1800s. I have postcards of buildings that were later destroyed in the world wars. I have a ring with Nazi insignia that was worn to help escape from Germany. They got permission to leave Germany on a vacation and never came back. I lost some Catholic family members during the Holocaust. My great grandfather on that side lied about his age to get into both world wars. He was too young for the first and too old for the second. He was a cook in the Navy both times. After the first war he went to France and graduated from their famous cooking school. He worked in Chicago between the wars. He was kept stateside in the second world war to cook for the naval bigwigs.  

The English side fought in the American revolution and both sides of the civil war. 1838 is earliest records of them being in Texas.

zip, zero, none.

County courthouse and all the records burned down so both sides of my family's records went with it.

rural Central KY, one dirt poor - the other side didn't have much but grandfather ran a poultry house in town

my mom has a really old picture of my dad's grandparents ...

scary ugly - truly very, very ugly people.  

I had always been curious about tracing my family history and given our name, thought that it would be fairly easy to trace back...until I had a talk with Pops one day.

Both sets of my grandparents came over on the boat in the early 1900's from then Serbia and Croatia. Dad's parents were particularly poor but his father was a good carpenter so always had work. He got all his wood from Carter Jones Lumber in Akron and the guy he dealt with got tired of trying to pronounce his name so he suggested he change it to something more "American". At the time, being an immigrant was looked down upon so taking an American name, even if you couldn't speak a lick of English, helped to get jobs. So the name I was going to attempt to dig into really wasn't our name. Dad told me our real name but then dropped another bomb. Back in Serbia when grandpa was born, his family was so poor they couldn't afford to keep grandpa and feed the rest of the family. A fairly common occurrence in rural Serbia in the 1800's so they gave him to a family that took him in as an extra hand on their farm rather than see him starve to death. To honor his adoptive family, grandpa took their last name so I really have no clue what the family name is and no hope of ever finding it as Serbia was ravaged times over in all the wars fought there and the small villages my family came from where wiped off the map long ago.

on wife's side, their is a polygamist from the late 1800's from Utah. He was a busy man. 

Mother's side of the family settled in Virginia sometime in the 1700's, father's side seems to have been about 100 years after that and got as far as Missouri when my grandparents moved East during the Depression. Same with my mother's parents. Nothing too juicy, though I did learn recently that my paternal grandfather's brother had courted my grandmother first but she ended up with my grandfather instead. Not sure if that had caused any strife but based on pictures I've seen of her back then, she was quite a looker.

My maternal grandfather was a police officer in DC during the 30's-60's, and was beaten to within an inch of his life on at least one occasion.  Plus, if it wasn't for him, my mom would have gotten into the burgeoning hot rod scene in the early 50's.

Most interesting piece of family history I have is that until I was 4, we lived 3 houses down from the house where the story The Exorcist was based on actually happened.  

When my Grandma Seat died (paternal Grandmother’s mother) at age 103, we found her mother’s journal which she kept for more than 30 years. The entries were sparse, mostly recording life events, farm life, occasional brief notes about politics. One winter a cholera outbreak claimed 4 of her 6 children. She recorded the dates and summed it up:

It was a hard winter.

My mom started researching both sides of our family in the late 60s and was a contributor to multiple books. Still has a letter from William F. Buckley, when they were barking up some of the same trees.

I had  a direct ancestor who landed in Jamestown in 1636. There was some movement into the Carolinas; one branch in South Carolina owned 35 slaves, which is a lot.

My branch stems from a Confederate sniper who, along with his uncle, walked from North Carolina to Texas after the war. This, according to my father, is the 'respectable' side. My mom's side is the miscreants, including John Wesley Hardin, Mickey Gilley and the writer J. Frank Dobie.

Every male on my father's side of the family had a son. The streak goes back, oh, about 2 billion years. 

-Supposedly one side of the family traced our lineage back through Roger Williams (founder of Rhode Island) and then to a passenger on the Mayflower.

-My Grandfather at one time was a lawyer for Ike and Tina Turner.  My Grandmother was backstage at a concert in SF with Tina Turner, when 2 people walked in to the room.  My Grandmother wondered who these two women were, so Tina introduced her to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.  From what I understand, security at the concert was handled by the Hell's Angels....

- One of my grandmothers lived to be 109.  The other to 106.  I expect my sister to live forever....

my maternal grandmas side of the family is fairly interesting.  My great grandma was into genealogy back in the day and actually traced roots back to the Doomsday book in 1066.  Apparently it's pretty easy to do if you can find a little bit of royalty - the line for this case was Agnew (ala Spiro Agnew), and her maiden name was Frazer.

The Frazers settled in the frontier lands of Pittsburgh in the 1700s.   Someone was invested in the coal mines and the family had some money.  One of my great great grandfathers was personal friends with Andrew Carnegie.  Because of the pollution and coal mines, someone developed emphysema or asthma or something so they moved out west to Laramie, Wyoming.  My grandma grew up in Pittsburgh but used to travel to visit her uncles in Wyoming - they originally started a livery business out there, which eventually turned into a car dealership.  My grandma used to accompany her uncles as they drive cars from Pittsburgh to Wyoming back in the 30's.  One of her uncles ended up becoming sheriff of Albany County, was friends with Wyatt Earp, and testified in the Tom Horn trial.  

Meanwhile, back in Pittsburgh, my great grandpa was alternately very wealthy or very poor, depending on the price of coal.  Unfortunately, he died during a very poor cycle, so no generational wealth was passed down .  All that is left is a few pieces of furniture from the manor (of which my mom was the 7th generation born into).  I personally have a couch  from that  era (which my wife hates).  

My Great-Great-Great-Great + several other greats I guess grandfather was one of the original 18 Marshals in Napoleon's army.

So that's pretty awesome, I guess

my dads side is less interesting.  both grandparents were children of immigrant homesteaders in South Dakota.  They got married in the '40's, decided South Dakota sucked, packed up everything they own and moved to California.  Their car broke down in Wyoming.  My grandpa had to get a job to fix the car, my grandma got pregnant (with my dad), and they never got around to making it to Cali. 

Mom's side has deep roots in Iowa.   During the civil war one of my ancestors who owned a large farm purchased a commission from Iowa's governor, granting him the rank of Captain in the Union Army and allowing him to stay home and run his farm in exchange for providing his services coordinating shipments of food and supplies, and donating part of his harvests.   Apparently this was fairly common for midwestern landowners.    

My uncle went to Canada at 16 years old to join WW II.  Became a flight officer in the Canadian RAF, stationed in England.  When the US joined the war, he transferred to the Army Air Force and flew B-17's for the 457th Bomb Group.  He had the option of coming home, but the war was turning in the Allies' favor and he wanted to stay and keep flying.   Ended up getting shot down on a mission to Weimar Germany by a Nazi ace who was flying an experimental rocket plane, the Messerschmitt ME 163 Komet.  That pilot was killed when his plane exploded on takeoff the next day.

There is video of my uncle's plane being shot down at 1:53 of this link.

I've done quite a bit of research into my family tree, creating a file containing ~5000 names. And that's mostly on my mom's side, as my dad's side has several "dead ends" from grandparents who arrived from Germany in the 1890s. Can't find anything on them before that.

Anyway, I come from a long line of farmers on both sides of the tree. Get married, work the land, have 5-10 kids. Over and over and over again.

Earlier this year I created a separate file for all direct ancestors, uncles and 1st cousins who fought in the Civil War. I've found 130 so far, including a couple Medal Of Honor winners and one guy who died at Gettysburg. I also found one example of the anecdotal "brother against brother" phenomenon -- although they never fought against each other, they did each join separate sides.

My dad had a cousin who did some research back to a knight in France (1200's IIRC). Otherwise mostly farmers.

Dad was in Korea and Vietnam.

When he was young dad worked as a lumberjack. Spent his 1st winter in the woods when he was 14. The next year he had a tree fall on him and was in a coma for 2 weeks.

Mom said that one of her grandmothers, or maybe a great grandmother, was an indigenous person (Happy Holiday!)

Mom started working as a live-in maid when she was 16 or 17. Yep, uniform and everything.

Both parents came from large, unimaginative, catholic families. All the boys were named Joseph and the girls Mary. Everyone was called by their middle name.