If you went through your family tree, who would did you find most fascinating?

One of my ancestors was one of the most feared pirates in the Chinese sea a few hundred years ago, according to my half-aunt.

Anyone who held a job. Seems they tended towards draft dodgers and downright slumber loving,.

On my mother’s side, I traced our roots back to Daniel Boone, then further back to (if the ancestry.com records are accurate) William the Conqueror. On my father’s side, we’re related to Jesse Chisholm.

Oh yea, an aunt on the other side found that our first European ancestor to come to this continent was a French explorer who was accomplished woodsman and trapper. Apparently he was one of the earlier of the French colonists. Married some minor noble.

My mothers father was an Iron Worker, and worked on both the Bay Bridge, and the Golden Gate. He was a baseball player in the Cardinal organization, and knew both Dizzy and Daffy Dean. He was a railroad hobo, and jumped trains for many, many years. He was an alcoholic, who abandoned my mother following her mothers death in childbirth.

No famous ancestors that I know of, although I am a daughter of the american revolution.

My favorite relative was my great grandmother who was quite amazing and a big influence in my life.

She was born a 7 month preemie in a farm house in Indiana in 1885 and weighed 2 lbs. They wrapped her cotton batting and put her in a cigar box!

She was strong and gentle, survived the flu epidemic in the early 1900’s and went back to work in her 70’s after her husband died. She mowed her own lawn with a push mower and walked 2 miles a day until she was 96 years old!

She was mugged at 95 by a 14 year old purse snatcher and she knocked the kid off his bike. haha

She lived independently in her own home until she was almost 97 and lived to be 98 when she died of kidney failure.

I loved my gramma ma!

A distant relative of mine was put on trial in Tennessee for teaching the theory of evolution.

I don’t remember much about the person, but my dad owns a fascinating document. Many of his ancestors were fishermen who worked on fishing trawlers. One of my ancestors (must be a lot of “greats” in there) was the skipper of a boat which was lost at sea in the 1860s. No lives were lost but the boat was sunk. The document is an insurance claim for the loss of the vessel and everything on board. And there is an itemised list of everything that was on board, with the value of each, from the boat itself, all the ropes and nets, right down to the crew’s cups and spoons. It’s an amazing historical document.

I have a relative whose house was torn down to build the Old North Church . . .

I was most fascinating and inspirational to me that my families were comprised of previously very secular groups/cultures/ethnicities of people who gravitated to each other over the common history of sheep herding in “The Old World”. My families were among the pioneers of the American prairie west, there and participating not only in mere survival but also railroads, The Santa Fe Trail and even the creation of a new state.

The relatives on my father’s side fled Germany in the 1880s and established a hotel at the Peace Arch crossing. They lost all their money when the stock market crashed. One of my aunts on that side married a Pantages (from Pantages Theatres) brother, Llyod.

On my mother’s side: her grandfather (who raised her) was a pivotal member of the Vaudeville circuit in British Columbia. He was asked to join Hollywood in the 1920s and he refused as he had a young family.

The figure who has drawn my keenest interest, though, is my grandfather on my mother’s side. He was an extremely intelligent man who thumbed his nose at the world. He dropped out of school at 13, met my grandmother at 15 (she was 20 but he lied about his age), married my grandmother at 16, joined the RCAF at 17 and was killed in action (WWII) at 18. His actions had a profound impact on my life although he had been dead for years by the time I was born.

I apparently had a great uncle who was a transsexual back in the sixties. He Grew up and married and had a family in Chicago, and then he cut ties to everyone, moved to NYC and lived as a woman. Not sure if he took hormones or had any kind of surgery, but he sounds pretty crazy to me. I like that.

My Great Grandfather was sent over here to be the lead Carpenter on the German Exposition Hall of the 1893 Worlds Fair and that is now the Museum of Science and Industry. The pics and documents I have are a snapshot of an amazing time of life.

But my big Sis who is a Lt Colonel in the Air Force has her share of stories that start working down in Missile Silos to Dessert Storm and many years in the Hurricane Hunters will have have you on the edge of your seat for hours.

There is a Duke of Sweden in my blood line but I don’t know much about the dude.

I was told that one of my ancestors on my Mom’s side was a Samurai warrior.

http://www.alleycatscratch.com/exhibit/AMPD_FIDM/2004/LastSam/100_4997_SE_fi04.jpg

I think my direct ancestry is most interesting on my father’s side; the Van Tassel family. I find the whole Legend of Sleepy Hollow thing interesting.
Also, George Van Tassel, a ufologist.
I find the Van Tassels during the Revolutionary War the most interesting. Some were taken as POWs.

My eighth great grandmother was kidnapped by Native Americans. They killed her child in front of her and then brought her to an island where they were keeping other captives. In the night, she scalped her captors and led all the captives on the island to freedom. There is a statue of her standing on the island where she was held, which in modern day is in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

I was and still am attempting to locate information that one my great ancestors designed the first airplane, not the Wright Brothers.

They may have flown the first, but I have a Patent Number attached to the first designed and built aircraft, by a family relative in the late 1800s.

Still searching.

Some Napoleonic soldier leaving his genes and last name in Germany. A very rare name which makes it easy to find distant relatives. For example in the United States.