# Interesting/famous branches in your family tree? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 9, 2003, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-famous-branches-in-your-family-tree/174232 "2003-05-09T23:50:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Calliope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Calliope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calliope)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-famous-branches-in-your-family-tree/174232/81 "2003-05-27T21:43:46Z")
Natalie Wood on my mom’s side and some notorious horse thief by the name of Samuel Fleishmann on my father’s side. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-famous-branches-in-your-family-tree/174232/82 "2003-05-27T22:04:23Z")
My cousin did some intense genealogy and proved we were related (distantly) to King John and Charlemagne. ---
**Author:** ![Vixenation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/278dde/32.png) [@Vixenation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vixenation)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-famous-branches-in-your-family-tree/174232/83 "2003-05-27T22:37:13Z")
Britney Spears and Eliza Dushku, how distantly, I’m not sure. ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-famous-branches-in-your-family-tree/174232/84 "2003-05-28T00:10:35Z")
I’m distantly related to John Canon, the guy who founded Canonsburg, PA. From what I can recall he was a judge and once hired some thugs to burn down a town in Virginia because its citizens didn’t want to be in his jurisdiction. (He did have the decency to warn the townsfolk to leave before he burnt the place.) Another ancestor let George Washington stay at his cabin one night when Washington was working as a land surveyor. His grandson was with the underground railroad and his great grandson shook hands with Abe Lincoln during Lincoln’s first presidential campaign. ---
**Author:** ![catnoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@catnoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catnoe)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-famous-branches-in-your-family-tree/174232/85 "2003-05-28T12:58:57Z")
I want to play, I want to play!!! I’ve been working on my family history off and on for almost 30 years, some branches are easier to research than others. Luckily for me, two cousins on my Moms side of the family also researched the family and wrote it down in two different books. Most of my Dad’s side of the family are originally from Germany; Wurttemburg, Oberbonn, Mainz. The came to America in the early-mid 1700’s to Maine and Pennsylvania and travelled to North Carolina leaving family along the way. My claim to fame is being descended from the families that founded the North Carolina peidmont towns of Salem (aka Wachovia later Winston-Salem), Bethabara, Bethania, Friedberg, and Friedland. These family lines also settled several towns in Indiana and Ohio (Broadbay, Salem, Hope). And somewhat lucky for me (research-wise) Mom’s side of the family and most of Dad’s side of the family intermarried as both are from the founding families. Bad for me researchwise is that Dad has branches that seem to come from nowhere in parts of his tree. (Anyone heard of the name Kovis/Covis or some variation thereof?) Mom’s side of the family also came from Germany from Colmar. The Hausers had a few people of note. Samuel Thomas Hauser, seventh terrritorial govenor of Montana (1885-1887). Organized the First National Bank of Helena. George Hauser (Houser)- elected eight times to the North Carolina House of Representatives. - Lieutinent of the Militia in the American Revolution. - Held prisoner by and home occupied by General Cornwallis in 1781 when Cornwallis occupied the area of Bethania, NC. I have a gg grandmother on Dad’s side that is suppose to be Cherokee but no one remembers her name. ---
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-famous-branches-in-your-family-tree/174232/86 "2003-05-28T14:19:51Z")
My grandfather did some research and he is pretty sure one of my ancestors came over on the Mayflower. ---
**Author:** ![booklover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@booklover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/booklover)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-famous-branches-in-your-family-tree/174232/87 "2003-05-28T15:33:21Z")
My family’s related to the Duchess of Windsor (cousin of my maternal grandmother); also to the guy who slipped the noose around John Brown’s neck, and to one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence (I can never remember which one). ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-famous-branches-in-your-family-tree/174232/88 "2003-05-28T15:36:13Z")
When I was 10 years old I asked my grandmother about our family tree. She said my great great grandfather was a horse thief. So were his brothers. And cousins. She said his father was also a horse thief. So the only thing I know is that my family is full of horse thieves… :eek: ---
**Author:** ![mfbjork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@mfbjork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mfbjork)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-famous-branches-in-your-family-tree/174232/89 "2003-05-28T17:11:41Z")
My dad is Mr. Online-Ancestry lately, and has learned quite a bit about a Jacque Remy who was a French Huguenot and had to flee France due to religious persecution. He was an indentured servant in one of the original 13 colonies and, after working his 7 years, evidently established quite a successful plantation. Here’s where my dad gets weird – he claims that Remy is a name with ancient roots. It may be distantly related to various men named Ramah in the Hebrew Bible, or (in the most far-fetched claim of all) the somewhat infamous Egyptian name Rameses. With more certainty, I know that I am a descendant of the Scottish clan MacGregor, of which the (also infamous) Robb Roy is descended. Numerous members of my famous, for the past few hundred years, are named Robb Roy in remembrance of this fact - the most recent being my first cousin. I’m also distantly related to Eleanor Roosevelt, and therefore to her husband Franklin, as they were cousins. ---
**Author:** ![mfbjork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@mfbjork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mfbjork)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-famous-branches-in-your-family-tree/174232/90 "2003-05-28T17:17:24Z")
Also – my Great Aunt Alice was a stenographer for the Nuremburg Trials. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-famous-branches-in-your-family-tree/174232/91 "2003-05-28T19:09:18Z")
**Rico–** my great, great, great-grandfather, Charles Willden, was a good friend of Brigham Young. He travelled from Sheffield, England to Utah with his wife and kids as a bunch of covered-wagon pioneers. There was a Fort Willden in Cove Creek, Utah. His daughter, Anne (my g-g-grandmother) was the first white English-speaking woman in the San Fernando valley, and the first white schoolteacher (she needed to teach her own five kids, and taught everybody else’s as well). My grandfather ran the first telephone line into Yosemite Valley. ---
**Author:** ![Another\_Clone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e9a140/32.png) [@Another\_Clone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Another_Clone)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-famous-branches-in-your-family-tree/174232/92 "2003-05-28T19:14:38Z")
Lord Byron on one side (several steps removed); a doorstep foundling on another. ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-famous-branches-in-your-family-tree/174232/93 "2003-05-28T20:02:46Z")
For better or worse (mostly worse, although it sure made interesting conversation back in the late 1980s when they were on the covers of every news magazine in the country), I am _very_ closely related to [Jim Bakker](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0785274251.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg) and [Tammy Bakker (now Messner)](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1585422428.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg). At the height of publicity, when a checkout clerk would see my name on a check or credit card they’d off-handedly say “you’re not related to Jimmy and Tammy are you?” Dead pan, I’d say “as a matter of fact I am.” They’d invariably blush profusely. I’d love to be closely related to [Robert Bakker](http://www.dinohunters.com/Hunters/Bakker/Bakker.htm) the famous paleontologist. But no, I’m related to Jimmy. Sigh. For those too young, or who have forgotten… > [@](#): > > _from [www.80s.com](http://www.80s.com)_ > Televangelist Jim Bakker was an Assemblies of God minister, whose program (“The PTL Club” or “The Jim Bakker Show”) aired on hundreds of stations worldwide. > On March 19, 1987, Bakker resigned from his ministry. His resignation was prompted by disclosure of a December 6, 1980 extramarital affair with Jessicah Hahn, his secretary. In wake of the sudden publicity on his ministry, a grand jury found evidence that Bakker had skimmed millions of dollars donated by his follwers. On December 5, 1988, Bakker was indicted, and was convicted of conspiracy and fraud in early 1989. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison, this sentence was later commuted. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-famous-branches-in-your-family-tree/174232.md?page=4)