Who has a surprise connection to an historical figure?

[pinefamily]

Recent finds have given me links to Alfred Nobel, Max von Sydow, John Gay, and a more tenuous link to Joshua Reynolds. A real mixed bag there.

[Erato]

Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1951 for discovering plutonium.  He said, "Two people inspired me.  One was Dwight Logan Reid, my chemistry and physics teacher at David Starr Jordan High School in Los Angeles." 

This was my grandfather's cousin.

[coombs]

I found out recently that I descend from John Hastings, 1st baron Hastings who married a 2nd cousin and both descend from Aoife (Eve) McMurrough of Leinster who wed Richard De Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. Their ancestry was mainly French and Irish.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  That is odd. I was trying this morning to think of any connections my very boring family might have, and all I came up with was my great grandfather's spell as admiral's cox'n to a not very well known admiral. He was Sir Hastings Reginald Yelverton, whose wife was Barbara Rawdon-Hastings, 20th Baroness Grey de Ruthyn, Marchioness of Hastings. I think there may be an extremely tenuous connection with coombs' 1st Baron Hastings.

[lydiaann]

Me:  A Napoleonic hero (earned a medal from Nelson himself "for valour") but whose name remains unknown to the vast majority of people.
Himself:  a distant twig on the tree of the Haigs (Field Marshall Douglas Haig of WWI).
No kings, presidents, pirates or adventurers...mainly farm labourers, cottage weavers and spinners, fishermen, carters and cattle dealers; the odd publican or two; a 'transportee' or two; but real people nonetheless!

[Mimble]

My ancestor David Midgley owned the farm 'Top Withens' that Emily Bronte used as inspiration for her novel 'Withering Heights'. The ruins of the farmhouse can still be seen on the moors. The Midgleys of Haworth are buried next to the Brontes in the local church.

[helxx]

I've enjoyed reading everyone's connections 

Here's mine -

Mary Howitt (nee Botham) an English Poet and translator was my 1st cousin x6 removed. My x6 great grandmother Rebecca was Mary's grandmother. If my x6 great grandfather hadn't of died, Rebecca probably wouldn't of gone on to marry John Botham and therefore Mary would never have existed!

She led an interesting life and I would of loved to have met her....but I'm certainly no poet!   

[pinefamily]

I'm ashamed to say I had to google Mary Howitt. 
At least now I know who wrote The Spider and the Fly.
Being an avid reader, I take great delight in finding connections to literary figures. A distant relation married Ianthe Shelley, daughter of Percy Shelley the poet.

[DianaCanada]

My grandfather’s first cousin, Joseph Ford, was listed as a butler on the 1939 register for Windsor castle to Clive Wigram, Former Private Secretary to George V.
  Baron Wigram also served in some capacity to Edward VIII but apparently quit due to the abdication crisis.  On the 1939 he is “lieutenant-governor, Windsor Castle”.
On the maternal side, my grandmother’s half first cousin’s young husband was killed in a hit and run near Windsor (coincidentally) in 1927 and the driver that killed him was the heir to the American  Reynolds Tobacco fortune.  That young man spent a year in jail but no mention of that in his Wikipedia entry! The 19 year old widow got a nice settlement, equal to what her husband would have likely earned had he lived a normal lifespan. The amount was not disclosed in the papers.  Mary Jeff Graham remarried soon afterward.

The young widow mentioned above was the grand daughter of Thomas Jeff (my 2x great-grandmother’s  husband; I have never found a marriage but they were together for about 40 years)
who was a groom in the household of Frederick Doulton in 1861 in Lambeth, he was still in the family pottery business then but became an MP the following year.  Thomas was listed as a potter’s lad in 1841, age 13, Lambeth, so likely worked for the Doulton’s.