Ancestral brushes with the rich or famous

[Erato]

I have found two ancestral contacts with famous persons.

1)  When my gg grandfather arrived in Wisconsin, he purchased the farm of Daniel Muir, father of John Muir, naturalist, conservationist, and inspirer of the National Park System.  According to family lore, as passed down by my grandfather, the Muirs were a bunch of "shiftless Scots" who ruined the land and then moved on.  Maybe he only said this to irritate my grandmother who was very proud of her Scots heritage.

2)  Another relative was a math teacher in Dixon, Illinois at the time that Ronald Reagan was a high school boy there.  I havn't been able to prove that she had him in a class but, given the size of Dixon, it  is very likely.  If she did, she seems to have had little positive impact.

[mnmilt]

Hi,
Here a few of my "brushes with fame" from my family tree.

1.  My wife's gg grandmother was a neighbor of Abe Lincoln's stepmother and served Abe his last meal before he left Farmington, IL to go to Washington DC for his inauguration.

2.  A first cousin seven times removed married into the Mynn family that includes Alfred Mynn - the mighty man of rustic Kent who is listed in some circles as being the fourth best cricketer ever (the Ian Botham of his era, c 1830).

3.  Another of my wife's ancestors knew Johnny Appleseed

4.  Another of my wife's relatives sold land to Percy Bysse Shelley.

As you can see, my wife's family is more interesting than mine.

Except for my uncle who had one of the great train robbers as a lodger at around the time of the robbery and thought that he was a good guy.

Mark

[Llwyd]

According to my mother, the estate of the Gladstone family used to supply the family occasionally with food----- my Grandfather used to make use of the odd passing pheasant!!!!!!!!!. 

[jinks]

My Grandfather helped George Formby
move house, From Broughton.

My Grandfathers cousin was Belle Chrystall
actress who starred in 'The edge of the World'
directed by Michael Powell.

Jinks

[animet]

My Great Uncle was in the Household Guard (I think that's what they were called) and used to guard the queen when she was little.

Apparently she used to try and distract him when he was standing guard. In his words, she was a litle madam

[Quinn]

my father had an uncle Germain who ran away when very young and joined the circus.

When great uncle Germain was older, he became an actor for a period of time, before he stepped off the stage to become a stagehand for the remainder of his life.

Germain worked with The Four Cohans, as they were known at the time.  He also worked with George M. Cohan.

Among others were Edwin Booth, actor, who was the brother of John Wilkes Booth, Sarah Bernhardt, Enrico Caruso and Lawrence Barrett, among others.

Germain wrote a book about his life on stage and behind it, titled "Fifty Years Back Stage."  It is no longer in print, but I am lucky  enough to own a copy.

Patty

[Erato]

I managed to track down another ancestor's brief moment with the  famous.  A distant cousin was an early inspiation for Glenn Seaborg who received the Nobel Prize for chemistry (discovery of plutonium).

Seaborg said, "Up until the time I entered high school, I had no exposure to science and, therefore, little knowledge of its possibilities. I chose literature as my major subject, and I took no science until my junior year when, in order to meet the college requirement, I took a chemistry course.  Largely due to the enthusiasm and obvious love of the subject displayed by my teacher, Dwight Logan Reid of Jordan High School in Los Angeles, chemistry captured my imagination almost immediately. I had the feeling, 'Why hasn't someone told me about this before?'  Dwight Logan Reid didn't just teach chemistry. He preached chemistry."

There is a "Dwight Logan Reid Scholarship Fund" at the Univ. California at Berkeley.

[wheeldon]

One of my family names is Stewart and I apologise if I offend anyone, but I am fed up of trawling through all the Stewart messages from people doing DNA tests to find out if they are related to royalty.  I just want to find my family and I'm quite sure my blood is red not blue

[Quinn]

Reading wheeldon's message made me want to mention this concerning the DNA testing.

I am researching Quinn.  DNA people claim we are ALL descended from King Niall, and we need to send XX dollars to prove it.  My problem with this is - if they KNOW that  ALL the Quinns are descended from Niall, then why do we need to prove it?

Second - according to Irish history, they don't know WHERE Niall was buried.  There is even speculation that he may have been cremated.  With these two things to consider, how can they test, say...MY DNA against King Niall's to see if I am descended from him?  Or my male cousins, or brother, or ANYONE in my family?  No body, no DNA.

Along with all of this, you have the Earl of Dunraven and his family who claim they have THE documentation to prove they are directly descended from Niall.  If they have this line of descendancy, and they are so interested in genealogy, then why don't they release it for all of us lost Quinn's to check against to find OUR ancestors?  If they honestly have it, then they are holding one of the few remaining paperwork and document collections to survive the fire.

I've been in touch with several people who have fallen for the scam and have sent hundreds of dollars to test their Quinn DNA.  NONE of them have had satisfactory results.  They get mostly the same information they already had, and they have ALL been told that while "it looks very promising, we cannot as yet confirm your decendancy and lineage."

Wait a minute!  Didn't these same people just state emphatically that we ARE all descendants of Niall?  And now they can't back up their claim? What a surprise.

Okay, I'll be quiet now.  (Yes, I do feel better after saying this.)

Patty