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.

Helped pull the "Louisa" up Countisbury Hill in the famous overland lifeboat launch.

I dont think this ancestor is cool but she is certainly interesting
An English ancestor in the 19th century who was born into extreme rural poverty, starvation levels of poverty really. Whose mother (a bigamist) probably abandoned her on more than one occasion. She was brought up mostly by her extended family (who were also no strangers to the law courts, some even in old age). She served at least 4 prison terms for various crimes, including thefts of jewellery, burglary, confidence tricks and prostitution. Married a coal miner, who had conveniently lived near one of the prisons she had been incarcerated in. Seemed to settle down in midlife and lived to a ripe old age.
She was still alive when I was born

My French grandfather was the first man to cross the Channel in a kayak, in the 1930s. He was also in the Olympics in Berlin in 1936, that Hitler presided over.

Great-great-aunt worked closely with William Morris.

That's about it

Defeated the English at Bannockburn.

Built Wigan Empress Hall, which became Wigan Casino.

Irish here. On bloody Sunday in 1920 in croke park my grandad was playing for Dublin when 13 people were shot dead including 1 player.

Great grandad owned a shipping company and wrote a book about exploring the amazon. There's a portrait of him in an Amazonian museum

His great uncle was Charles Booth the sociologist/philanthropist

Another great uncle co-invented the rocket and his son wrote a book slagging off Robert Stevenson for taking all the credit

Great aunt was a suffragette who got arrested for throwing rocks through a window and went on hunger strike in prison

Great great grandad x a lot was Ethelred the unready!

So many interesting people, wish I'd been able to meet them and ask them questions

@BorneoBabe The Auxillary Units.

Very outing, but My great grandfather was missing part of his hand so had been declared ineligible for the army as they thought he wouldn't be able to fire a gun. This was despite him being known as one of the sharpest shots in the area (he shot game for the family butchery business)

www.coleshillhouse.com

Flamingo you must be related to Benjamin Jesty. As are some family friends of ours who used to tell us that story too.

Survived the Titanic sinking. Another wasn’t so lucky and went down with HMS Hood in the war.

@kez my relative was involved with that. She owned property on countisbury hill

My Dad made the gates at Downing Street in 1989, a minor miracle he was dying from cancer at the time.

@Secretwitch you'll be familiar with Susannah Martin then?

Mine was on the titanic transporting a car over to the USA.

My great aunt was a midwife and has a statue dedicated to her at the hospital she used to work in.
The character Lucille in Call The Midwife is based on her - and very obviously so as that is her real name.

My grandad was in the merchant navy and a bigamist who literally had a family in every port. When he died, we found five different birth certificates for him with a variety of names and dates of births We have no idea if my maiden name is even our family name. His mum left Scotland as an unwed mother and came to London, so she could easily have made it up.

FIL's family have an interesting history. They left Cyprus at the turn of the century, went to Zimbabwe and founded goldmines. Left Zimbabwe and came back to Cyprus and founded the Greek Cypriot equivalent of Warburtons.

My great aunt is a legend (she's 98 now so not quite an ancestor yet).

She was quite naughty for those days and had sex out of wedlock - which she's proud about- and became pregnant. She was marched up the aisle.

He abused her physically so she divorced him and brought up her DC by herself which was practically unheard of in those days and her parents disowned her. She then had lots of boyfriends and turned down proposals to keep her independence.

She then fostered DC when her own were older, she had a particular knack for young pregnant girls and supported them to keep their babies and stay in education. She also did a degree for herself.

She's the loveliest person, I only met her for the first time last year as my grandad had followed his families wishes and didnt have a lot to do with her and I don't have a lot to do with that side of my family.

I love a rebel and she's just so lovely and positive.

A distant relative of mine was Elizabeth Fry. She was a Quaker who was a prison and social reformer.
She was also on the £5 notes until quite recently.

My maternal grandmother born in 1878 started in service as an under house parlour maid in a big house and worked her way up to cook, she was 93 when she died so she saw electricity invented, cars, planes, , telephones come into being, and every royal from Victoria to our present queen, two world wars, had eight children, two husbands find it fascinating how much the world changed during her lifetime

Not cool but unusual. My dearly departed dgm was born in Cologne, Germany and like many other kids her age she was in Hitler youth. The twat was doing a rally and patted her on the top of the head. He didn’t do that often from what she said!

My ancestors left Scotland and were among the first to drive cattle across the Rocky Mountains. Then decided it was a bit chilly and settled in New South Wales instead.

My great granddad was in Egypt in WWI when he heard news his brother was dying in Cairo. He was refused leave to go to see him. Snuck out in the night, walked across the desert, hitched a ride across the Nile and saw his brother before he died.

In a rare display of military sense, he left his court martial with a rap over the knuckles and a recommendation for a commission.

In almost all parts of my family tree there are some pretty awesome folk. There’s a family legend that one ancestor diverted the Roundheads away from where Charles II was hiding in the Royal Oak, but we take that with a pinch of salt (despite that the family motto is ‘I see and am silent.’

My great grandad was captain of ship, he carried his captain title right through his life.

My great uncle, who was in the RAF, was captured during WWII and managed to escape from POW camp 3 times. The first 2 times he was recaptured but the third attempt was a success and he fled Germany never to be seen or heard from again. My family suspect he ended up in America but no one knows for sure.

My great great x a lot uncle was named maggoty Johnson and was one of the last jesters in England.

Not my blood relative, but my uncle (by marriage) - his grandfather was a metalworker that worked on building the Titanic.

A great-great-great uncle gave the order for the charge at Gallipoli.

Great-grandfather was a music-hall artiste (a strongman!!) and his wife always berated him as she had 'married beneath' herself.

And DH is distantly related to Cecil Rhodes.

My family history doesn't exactly contain glowing, glorious moments from history