Ummm, this may not be historically significant, but I was directly involved in the invasion of Haiti. This isn’t much compared to the veterans of Korea, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, etc. that are out there, but it’s something.
Supposedly, I/we are related to Buffalo Bill Cody. One of his sisters married one of my great grandmothers brothers. I’ve tried to research it, but have come up empty. I’ve always suspected it was a ploy by the elders of the family to get us kids in the library to read and research.
We are, however, somehow related to the woman who was Miss America 1968 or 1969. Don’t recall her name, but she is about 900 times removed, but in our little family history tree.
My brother was interviewed by the police when Jimmy Hoffa disappeared. He worked at the restaurant that Hoffa was last seen at.
General George Pickett is supposedly a great[sup]x[/sup] uncle of mine. You remember him – got his ass kicked in that charge.
My dad was on the U.S.S Diamondhead, one of the ships that came to the aid of the Forrestal when it burned in July, 1967. GregAtlanta, a SDMBer who hasn’t posted here for quite a while, interviewed my dad for a book he’s writing about the Forrestal disaster.
I have a great great something uncle who, some claim, was partially responsible for the Great Depression. He sponsered a bill that led to it. Smoot-Hawley Act
Now there’s a claim to fame.
-Katy
Great something was supposed to be Commodore MacDonough, The Hero of the Battle of Lake Champlain (always capitalized in my family) in the War of 1812. Great uncle was Gen Mark Clark’s (voted most overrated by American Heritage!) driver in WW2.
Wife-being is more interesting, though. She’s an Adams and thus related to just about every president, not just the obvious two. Saw a photo of John Quincy Adams and recognized the nose as the same as her mother’s and sister’s. A diagnostic nose–glad Wife doesn’t have it. Her great aunt was married to Prominent Pilgrim V (name left out to maintain air of mystery) and whelped VI who sired VII. Although the numbers might be off unless these dudes all reproduced at about age fifty or sixty.
Are you a Smoot or a Hawley? I hope a Hawley just because the name is not funny.
Neither, just related.
I’m a Campbell… And of course EVERYONE knows of the Massacre of Glencoe win 1692 when King William (knowingly or not, nobody knows) signed a decree ordering the destruction of the MacDonald clan… And who carried out the order??
The Campbells… There’s a lovely song called “The Massacre of Glencoe”… Can’t remember who I last heard sing it:
“Oh cruel is the snow that sweeps glencoe,
And covers the grave of Donald.
And cruel was the foe that raped Glencoe
and murdered the house of MacDonald.”
For the full lyrics (which more or less tell the tale as it was… with a few minor pieces of misinformation), check out:
http://home.kiski.net/~njking/glencoemassacre.htm
To this day, many MacDonalds despise us Campbells… My grandfather worked with a guy named MacDonald for years and was good friends with him, but the day the guy found out he was a Campbell, he wouldn’t speak to my Papa anymore… Papa had no idea why, and when he asked him one day, MacDonald simply yelled “You damn near killed us all!”
We put up with quite a bit… 
However-many-greats grandmother on my own grandmother’s side of the family was Henry Tudor’s sister (Henry the VIIIth)…
O
Sutra Self!
I’m him, I am, I am… Speaking of which, check out http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=36665
I’m quite proud of this story.
My grandfather worked on the Manhattan Project, building the radio controls for the atom bomb. He had no idea what it was for at the time.
Unconfirmed family rumors: Great-great-etc uncle who was a member of the Donner party (mmm, meatloaf anyone?)
Confirmed: dad was a navy photographer who took a lot of pix of Cuban missle complexes back in the early '60’s. He has a fat CIA file.
Hey Farris, check this one out!
I’m a Hatfield!
When I worked as a phone survey person I had one person who hung up on me. Of course his last name was McCoy.
Hatfields and McCoys just had a reunion a few months ago. Made it to the newspaper here in Iowa. Pretty funny because my aunt went and took pictures of the wall that they built (which is pretty cool) and the cemetary named after one the Hatfields.
Anyway, they made such a big deal about them having the reunion TOGETHER, and if you look at the banner in the pictures that I have they are on two different dates in two different counties.
I went to school with a girl with the last name McCoy, and her father was my grandparents insurance agent. They used to joke about it all the time.
Our family has been a Jeopardy question, and had a history channel show.
But, my kids are more interested in the fact that their dad is related to Roosevelt. Go figure!
Cool!!! Family feuds intrigue the hell out of me… It’s so amzing that Hatfields/McCoys and Campbells/Donalds still think they have a reason to hate each other sometimes.
My uncle was the look out at Pearl Harbor.
My father was one of 241 men killed in the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut Lebanon, on October 23, 1983. I was nine years old at the time.
On a lighter note my grandfather swears that we are related to Johnny Applesead too. I always thought that he was just making it up though. Maybe we are related THespos!
My paternal grandpa was on a ship bound from New York to Hamburg, passed an ice berg… (see this coming?) signaled the Titanic to warn them… (don’t know that he personally signaled them, but he was there) they were too far away when the distress call came out to help out when it crashed.
Can’t figure that one out myself.
Maybe with us it doesn’t help that in the end they are saying that the McCoys wronged the Hatfields and started the whole darn thing.
Something to do with land that they wanted and we had. I do know that a lot of people are under the impression that it started over a hog at a county fair. That is when it really got public.
I really have to get all my info scanned onto disk before my mom wises up and realizes that I have it all! 
If it weren’t for sheer stupidity we could all be pretty well off land owners. But it’s in the past and nothing we can do now will change that.
William Wallace, not Mel Gibson. Way back on my dads mothers side. i think it’s kinda cool.
I’ve mentioned some of this before, but . . .
My grandfather was, for a short time, a friend of Albert Einstein. When Leo Szillard showed up on Einstein’s porch to ask him to write the letter urging Roosevelt to develop the atomic bomb, my grandfather was there (though he excused himself).
Benjamin Britten, the composer, once announced he was going to give up music and go to work in my grandfather’s store. My grandfather refused to let him and urged him to continue with his music. Years later, we discovered that the reason Britten made the offer was that he had fallen madly in love with my father.