# Any interesting historical events in your family tree? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 25, 2007, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991 "2007-10-25T17:27:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Stilicho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stilicho/32/7239_2.png) [@Stilicho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stilicho)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2008, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/121 "2008-10-14T01:26:56Z")
My grandfather’s great grandfather, was governor of Tucuman in the turbulent years after the argentinian independence. He rebelled against the dictatorship of Juan Manuel de Rosas, was defetead in battle, captured and beheaded. His family had to flee to Bolivia, he was only 27. One of his sons - but no a direct ancestor -, became one of Argentina´s best presidents. Among my ancestors are: an Inca princes, a Danish Ship captain and a British soldier captured during the “English Invations”. The father of one of my great grandfather was, at the time, Argentina´s richest person. His father was a poor french inmigrant who came to Argentina to make his fortune, and succedeed. He then decided to go back to France, in the way he was assaulted and had to start all over again… and he made another fortune. Unfortunately, there’s little left of all that money ---
**Author:** ![tetranz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@tetranz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tetranz)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2008, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/122 "2008-10-14T02:03:27Z")
I have an aunt who is into genealogy in a big way. She says that a relative of ours was Nathan Rothschild’s messenger at the battle of Waterloo. He raced back to London when he could see that Wellington was going to win. Everyone else thought Napoleon would win. Rothschild sold all his stocks on the London stock exchange. Others followed and the market crashed. Then Rothschild secretly bought the stocks back at the last minute at rock bottom prices. The weird thing is that the day before she told me I watched a video about the history of the world money system which told this exact story. ---
**Author:** ![PaperBlob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/58956e/32.png) [@PaperBlob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaperBlob)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2008, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/123 "2008-10-14T02:35:20Z")
[Colonel Timothy Matlack](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Matlack) was my great-great-great-great-great grandfather. He’s not well-known, but he was apparently right in the thick of things during the Revolution. According to the National Archives website, he was probably the engrosser of the copy of the Declaration of Independence that was signed by the Continental Congress. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2008, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/124 "2008-10-14T03:15:28Z")
My father’s paternal great uncle developed the original US and Canadian patent on pay toilets, kind of boring but interesting to me at least. He was a successful business man at the turn of the 20th century. My mother is Canadian, but she has ancestors that fought for the rebels in the revolutionary war. My father’s ancestors (mostly American) were loyalists. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2008, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/125 "2008-10-14T03:40:51Z")
> [@Wargamer](#): > > Me? Ummmm…I’m descended from Charlemagne? Shoot, if you go back that far, we’re probably all descended from Charlemagne. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2008, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/126 "2008-10-14T04:25:06Z")
I’m descended from one of the original settlers of Hartford, CT and am consequentially related to half the people in CT, western Massachusetts, and Vermont. Slightly more seriously, I’m more directly descended from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha\_K.\_Root](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_K._Root) a guy who did a lot of inventing for Sam Colt. ---
**Author:** ![phil417](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6bbea6/32.png) [@phil417](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phil417)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2008, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/127 "2008-10-14T06:21:50Z")
> [@Wile\_E](#): > > This came up in the slave owners thread and I didn’t want to continue hijacking and wondered if other people here may have any interesting tidbits like this in their family history. > > On my paternal grandfather’s side I am related to the Killough/Kellough/Kalloch’s. The spelling changes from family to family, with even some members of the same immediate family spelling it differently. There are other versions of the name as well, it originally started out in Scotland as MacKelloch, then some dropped the Mac and when they migrated to Ireland it became Killough and other variations. > > Anyway, the interesting historical tidbit is that a branch of the Killough family became famous for being massacred in a supposed Indian uprising which led to the expulsion of the Cherokee Nation from East Texas. It was known as one the largest single Indian massacres as well as the last in East Texas. [Here’s](http://www.texasescapes.com/TexasHistory/The-Killough-Massacre.htm) an article about it. > > The other interesting tidbit is that the Cherokee may have been set up to take the fall for this. By all accounts the “renegades” consisted of some Indians from a few different tribes and did include some Cherokee but there were also Mexicans and some runaway slaves in the group. There may have also been a white man known to the settlers in the group. [Some accounts](http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/KK/btk1.html) blame a fellow named Cordova who wasn’t happy about Mexico losing Texas and may have incited the uprising. > > It seems like the Cherokee got the short end of the stick and both them and the settlers got screwed over by the government once again playing fast and loose with the land. > > It sounds like it would have made a good movie but I can’t find any references to a movie unless the names were changed. > > So any interesting stories in your family histories? My grandfather Ralph (on my mother’s side) was a member of the Mayflower Society. According to family legend, our ancestor, Stephen Hopkins, was a tanner-merchant who worked his way to the new world on the Mayflower as a jack-of-all-trades aboard ship. My grandfather was proud of the fact that his ancestor had worked his way to America. Another grandfather. James (on my first step-dad’s side) was proud of his American Indian ancestry. So when my grandpa Ralph boasted about his ancestors arriving at Plymouth Rock, my grandpa James spoke up about his meeting them “at the dock.” yuck, yuck. Love, Phil ---
**Author:** ![meenie7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7993a0/32.png) [@meenie7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/meenie7)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2008, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/128 "2008-10-14T09:05:13Z")
I’m a direct descendent on my father’s side of Dr. Comfort Starr, who had a connection to the beginnings of Harvard University: [QUOTE=An article about Harvard] Dr. Comfort Starr brought his family from Kent, England, to New Towne (now Cambridge), where he reestablished his surgery practice in 1635. According to family history, Dr. Starr’s house became the home of Nathaniel Eaton and served in 1639 as the site where Harvard College instruction began. [/QUOTE] My great-great-grandpa, Rev. Edward Comfort Starr, was the oldest living graduate of Yale from Feb. 1940 to his death in Jan. 1941. He has [some of his papers](http://http://mssa.library.yale.edu/findaids/stream.php?xmlfile=mssa.ms.1166.xml) archived in the Yale University Library, including letters he wrote from China while doing missionary work there. ---
**Author:** ![LVBoPeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/858c86/32.png) [@LVBoPeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LVBoPeep)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2008, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/129 "2008-10-14T12:36:20Z")
> [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](#): > > My wife has both Hatfields and McCoys in her lineage. :eek: My great-grandfather was a McCoy, and directly related to “those” McCoys. My grandmother did some geneology before she passed away, I can’t remember the details but I am related somehow to this man: > **[Charles Goodnight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Goodnight)** > > Charles Goodnight (March 5, 1836 – December 12, 1929), also known as Charlie Goodnight, was a rancher in the American West. In 1955, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. > Goodnight was born in Macoupin County, Illinois, northeast of St. Louis, the fourth child of Charles Goodnight and the former Charlotte Collier. Goodnight's father's grave is located in a pasture south of Bunker Hill, Illinois. Goodnight was descended from immigran... On the other side, I have Scottish family that fought for Bonnie Prince Charlie (and hightailed it to the US shortly thereafter). Part of that family, the Renfroes, settled in Alabama, in Renfroe Valley and became so related that my grandmother believes that anyone with that last name is related to us, including the recently deceased Brad Renfro. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2008, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/130 "2008-10-14T12:55:14Z")
My mum’s convinced we’re somehow related to [Edmund Arrowsmith](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Arrowsmith), one of the forty martyrs of England and Wales, who was hanged, drawn and quartered in Lancashire in the early 1600’s (his trial took place in a village next to mine). His hand lies in a church a couple of miles from our house. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2008, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/131 "2008-10-14T13:03:56Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Shoot, if you go back that far, we’re probably all descended from Charlemagne. Yeah, but he’s \*good \*at it. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/132 "2008-10-15T02:32:00Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > My mum’s convinced we’re somehow related to [Edmund Arrowsmith](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Arrowsmith), one of the forty martyrs of England and Wales, who was hanged, drawn and quartered in Lancashire in the early 1600’s (his trial took place in a village next to mine). His hand lies in a church a couple of miles from our house. Now _that’s_ what I like to see. Everyone’s always talking about the statesmen or heroes they’re descended from, but I’m always wondering about the horse thieves who were hanged and other scoundrels. My uncle traced our name back to 17th-century Switzerland and my grandmother’s maiden name back to the 15th century, but I know details of only a handful of them. I wonder what sort of rascals may have out there whose story got hushed up. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/133 "2008-10-15T03:09:11Z")
“It is claimed of the O’Keeffe family that there were 22 Kings of Munster in direct male line in the family, and 10 other kings who were brothers, and 4 who were first cousins. During the tenure of the members of the dynasty (one of the longest in world history) the Provence of Munster was not subjected by any foe.” From the intro of our family history 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/134 "2008-10-15T03:20:21Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Now _that’s_ what I like to see. Everyone’s always talking about the statesmen or heroes they’re descended from, but I’m always wondering about the horse thieves who were hanged and other scoundrels. My uncle traced our name back to 17th-century Switzerland and my grandmother’s maiden name back to the 15th century, but I know details of only a handful of them. I wonder what sort of rascals may have out there whose story got hushed up. Oops! :smack: I came across as sounding like I was likening Edmund Arrowsmith to a horse thief, and that’s not what I meant. It’s just that if he had not come to such an untoward end, he may have disappeared into obscurity. That sort of thing interests me sometimes, along with horse thieves and such. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/135 "2008-10-15T07:42:53Z")
Out of curiosity, long shot, but does anybody trace ancestry through any of the following surnames? Bybee/Bibby (other spellings), came to Virginia 1620 DeRamus (also spelled Diramas in some writings) 1734 South Carolina Rawlinson, about 1690, Virginia Golson/Gholson- about 1680, Virginia Caton- 18th century South Carolina ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/136 "2008-10-15T08:08:49Z")
I am medium-closely related to [This guy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Gallo). I’m not “connected,” though. Joe ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/137 "2008-10-15T18:08:22Z")
My great+some more greats-grand-uncle on my dad’s side was Christopher Sholes, the inventor of the original typewriter. My mother’s side has a persistent family rumor that we’re descended from the line of Jan Ziska, the founder and greatest general of the Hussite Rebellion. (That branch of the family was transliterated as “Ivoska” and no one knows the original old-country spelling anymore). ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/138 "2008-10-15T18:20:05Z")
A great great grandfather was hanged for horse theft. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/139 "2008-10-15T18:33:10Z")
My great-aunt told me a story about her father, my great grandfather, who lived in SW Virginia in the ~1920’s or 1930’s. He was a member of the KKK and participated in a tar-and-feathering of a man who was living out of wedlock with a woman. Don’t think race had anything to do with it, I’d never heard of the KKK being involved with general “morals.” ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991/140 "2008-10-15T18:45:27Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > …I’d never heard of the KKK being involved with general “morals.” Yeah, they supposedly went after wife-beaters and suspected sneak-thieves as well. I suppose they saw themselves as enforcers of community standards, including _but not limited to_ the racial status quo. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-interesting-historical-events-in-your-family-tree/423991.md?page=8)