Your Genealogy Claim to Fame?

[jaybelnz]

I have a couple!

Ann (Dawn) Paulson, an Artist in Mansfield in Victorian times, and later in her career went to Australia. She had paintings exhibited in The Great Exhibition London, in Paris and in Melbourne.  She was the niece of my paternal great grandmother. She was also a teacher of art when living in England, and some of her pupils when on to become well noted!   When reading a book about her, I discovered that my great grandmother, the little woman on my avatar, had left home, and eloped to marry my great grandfather!  Hence the signature line on the avatar - My Runaway Bride!

Bill & Boyd, - A popular 1960's duo in New Zealand, who later also went on to become successful in Australia.  Friends from College days, their cover versions of hits of the Everly Brothers made them very popular. Then later composed their own, always topping the charts. Both their real names were William, one Bill Robertson and one Bill Cate.  Bill Robertson used the name Boyd, obviously they couldn't be Bill and Bill!  The name Boyd that he chose, was the ancestral name of our maternal great great grandmother - our ancestor in common, Elizabeth Boyd. We lived in the same area, and the families were all friends. 

James Alexander Jamieson, Engineer of Canada, responsible for designing the Wheat Grain Elevators in Montreal, Canada, and other engineering feats.  He was my paternal great aunt's Husband.

A few other marry'ins who have been quite prominent in the Anglican Church in Ireland and Australia - and just today found another, who is living in Wales.

[smudwhisk]

My great grandmother's first cousin was the New Zealand photographer Robert Dick Hutchins (otherwise known as Tom Hutchins).  Mind you he was younger than her daughter because of the 22 year gap between their father's respective births.

My 12x Great Grandmother was the aunt of Sir Edward Coke, the Law Chief Justice under James IV and I, who presided over, among others, the trials of Walter Raleigh and the Gunpowder Plot conspirators.  While his descendants went on to be aristocracy, my line ended up in the East End of London.   They weren't aristocracy in those days, minor gentry at most.   One of her sons actually left one of Sir Edward's sons some land around Holkham in Norfolk (rather than leaving it to his siblings) which may well make up part of the current estate of Holkham Hall.   Probably didn't help that her daughter, my ancestor, ended up with a shotgun wedding to the local butcher a few months before their son was born.  My 12x Great Grandfather refused to name his son in law in his Will or for that matter his daughter's married name.  I suspect it caused a bit of a scandal in local circles.   She did, though, get left a property to reside in for life under her brother's Will and some money under her father's.

[coombs]

8th cousin is sometimes seem as "very well removed" but not necessarily. 30th cousin is but if you share ancestors from the late 1700s then that is quite recent compared to how long we have been around as humans. Nan was 8th cousin to the Kray Twins, they share 2 ancestors born in the 1750s.

[Trishanne]

My grandmother was Margaret Waller who was related through many generations to Edmund Waller who in turn through many generations was related to Alured de Valer  [Valer later became Waller] who came over from France for the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
Edmund Waller was a member of Parliament at the age of 17 and was also a Poet Laureate. During the English Civil War [1642-1651] he betrayed his colleagues and his 'Wallers Plot', a plan to seize London for the King, was unmasked. Oliver Cromwell had him sent to the Tower of London but he was eventually released after he paid a fine of £10,000, several £millions in todays money. He was then banished to France for 7 years and then made his peace with Oliver Cromwell.  He was restored to favour after the Reformation and eventually served two more terms as an MP in Parliament.

[pinefamily]

I guess it is a rather remote connection (from the early 1600's), but I can claim kinship with Alfred Nobel, most famous for the invention of dynamite and for bequeathing his fortune for the Nobel Prize.

[jaybelnz]

I'm still trying to locate documentation to verify that I was first child in NZ to receive a Vitamin K Injection.  I was haemorrhaging at birth, had blood transfusions from my Dad, but the drug was still under research at that time, and not yet passed for general use.

Vitamin K is now given to most, if not all new born babies in NZ.

My Mum told me that the Dr needed Parliamentary approval signature from an MP, and fortunately my grandparents were good friends with the local member. So apparently he got cracking and authorised it. 

I just recently put this out on the NZ Board, and have a few references to work with now.

So I just might be a wee bit famous myself 🤔🤔🤔

[pharmaT]

My daughter's 6th grt grandfather's obituary claims he was the second cousin of Thomas Carlyle. They share s surname and we're baptised in the same village but as yet I've been unable to prove or disprove a connection.

Another of her so many grt grandfather's is quoted in a book from the 1800s claiming to habe been the Plough boy who was with Rabbie Burns when he overturned the mouse nest that inspired To a Mouse. He was from the right area, was of the right age based on his later career could well have been a plough boy. I'm really confident he made the claims himself but will never know how true they were I have my doubts. However it gives insight to how well known Burns was known locally in the years immediately after his death.

My grt grandfather's first cousin ( my first cousin twice removed) managed McVitie's biscuits, was involved in establishing the National Library of Scotland and the McVitie's prize for literature. His Grt grt grandson is in Made in Chelsea  .

One of my 3x grt uncles was Lt Gov of Bengal.

I have other ancestors who are labourers, miners and die in slums or the Poor House.

[jaybelnz]

Indeed Pharma, as do a lot of us!  They certainly have a claim, as each one of them in our individual families has it's moments of glory, and I am so proud of my miners and their very hardworking wives,
Lived on a pittance, worked in dangerous places, went hungry, had loads of children, lost loads of babies, and yet a lot more than a few survived it all, and some prospered.

 I think that hard working ethics must also pass down through generations - but I guess also, that there are always one or two in every generation who would "go off the rails"!  Our black sheep!  I'm equally sure we have probably all found one of more of those!

[marcie dean]

my claim to fame is that one of my laird ancestors born on th shetland islandscalled george the farmer,  was third cousin to william of orange, but seeing this person being portrayed in sharp, I think I want to keep this quiet because silly billy ensured that the french won a battle by making sure all his soldiers were in the wrong place at the wrong time so they were slaughtered.