Tell me something cool one of your ancestors did

[JustOneLastThing]

Stolen this idea from Twitter, I don't really have anything of my own to share apart from my grandma is pretty bad ass, raising my Mum and Aunty by herself in the 60's, facing a ton of social stigma and hardship. She is a hard act to follow.

Emigrated to Australia in the early days (and not for free either!)

Not sure about cool - a hangman. That was a surprise for the family tree.

My great, great, great, great grandad was rescued by Grace darling.

Wouldn't say it was cool as.such. But it was historical. And he does have a monument and a few odds and sods that were passed down through generations.

Very slight distant connection to the train driver who died along with all the passengers when the Tay Bridge collapsed. His name was David Mitchell

My grandad died in the 1950s- he was a French polisher for a funeral director
He and my Nan had 14 children and my dad was the youngest and was known as ‘boy’ and is still called this by some of his siblings

One of my ancestors burned three women heretics in the time of Bloody Mary. One of the women gave birth and he ordered the child be thrown back into the flames. So not cool, definitely not cool, but interesting I suppose

Here's the Wiki entry

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernsey_Martyrs

My family lived in the USSR so there was a lot of covert meetings, bribery. love affairs, dodging KGB, running across boarders in the middle of the night, escaping tour groups on international holidays, passing around everything from meat to Austrian wallpapers that someone somewhere had stolen from their job etc. Like something out of a Cold War novel.

One died in suspicious circumstances, one was sent to a local ‘gulag’ for allegedly making anti-Stalinist jokes at a party but talked the guards into letting him go home on the weekends, one was sleeping with every other woman in a position of power, one was harassed by the KGB for years because they wanted to recruit him, one used to take cheap tins of caviar on holiday which he sold and bought jeans etc to sell on the black market when he got back.

Before that they were mostly business people with an interest collection of business trading everything from cotton to horses, some more distant relatives were at court (I don’t descend directly from them for obvious reasons!).

Stood up to Henry VIII on dissolution of monasteries/ break from Rome and lost his head and is buried in the crypt of the chapel in the Tower of London. He had been Henry's tutor when he was a young man.
Well I am a direct descendant of his only brother as he was a catholic bishop.

Carved their names into Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.

Tbf, they were stonemasons and as is tradition, they left their trademark on all buildings / items they worked on. One worked on Buck palace for years and had weekly meetings with the King. Another is the real life person behind the character of Old Jolyon in the Forsyte Saga. He was also written about in one of Thomas Hardy's novels.

Murdered a bishop. It was some disagreement about the sale of indulgences. Allegedly it was at the alter but hum not sure I believe it.

My husband’s great aunt was a Tiller Girl and married an American circus performer who toured with the big shows in the early 20th century. She moved to Ohio with him, he was called Conn Baker aka Diavolo.

Maybe not as exciting as some of the above, but still pretty cool ..... my grandma was from the gentry. Her first husband was lost at sea in the war. It had been a marriage for money / title. When he died she ran away with my grandad. He was the family's chauffeur!

Her dad gave her a house, but disowned her and refused to ever see her again. Her mum visited her in secret.

They were happily married and had a further 5 children ( she already had 2).
My dad was her last. Born when she was 48!

Irish here. Plenty of gun running and certain family members had to emigrate um fairly quickly as they were on the wrong side of the civil war

Family legend has it that my great great grandfather used to sneak into the back garden of the local inn, for assignations with the neice of the landlord who lodged there. Uncle got wind of it and one dark night carefully deposited a load of manure on the garden side of the wall. When great great gramps climbed over and dropped down to the ground, he found himself knee deep in cacky. Whereupon Uncle came to the back door and remarked "gotcha, Sniffy Deaves!" Grandad was known as Sniffy Deaves in the village from that day on.

Got away with horse rustling by finding out , and evoking, an old old Law from the Queen Elizabeth days . They were from a more recent time than Elizabethan though still some centuries ago from now.

In the 19th century, as an unmarried mother, became a village postmistress - a responsible and respectable occupation back in the day (not that it isn’t now, but you know what I mean I hope).

Discovered the concept of vaccination but because he was a country farmer no one really listened so it was discovered again a few years later by a scientist.

Mine survived being very poor Irish immigrants who worked in the textile mills or as itinerant labourers. Not an easy life I would imagine, the most remarkable accomplishment I guess was not dying.

Won the Battle of Trafalgar
Not a direct connection though, lovers and illegitimate children were involved...

A many times Great Uncle worked as sculptor and died in Rome. We went to look for his grave a few years ago and found him buried in the Protestant cemetery with Keats and Shelley.

Discovered a very famous and priceless roman hoard that is now in the British museum. He was mucking about in a river at the time

My Great Grand Father went AWOL in WW1 and was lashed for it. He then saved a French soldiers life and was awarded the Croux de Guerre so the family legend goes

My g,g,g,g,g.... Grandad was David Livingstone. Can never remember how many greats in there.

Wow flamingos! Shades of Alfred Wallace. Fascinating thread.

My MIL is descended from a survivor of the Southport lifeboat disaster. Amazing story.

I have a pirate explorer in the background of my mum's family. Not that cool as he was viciously racist and cruel even for the 18th century, which is going some.

Great great grandfather was a part time bare knuckle fighter. Allegedly.