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.

Designed the Cutty Sark

Took over half the (then) known world. Well done (great great great x a few) Grandad!

He was a bit of a hero for the British in WWI and was awarded the Albert medal, but was a spy for the Japanese in WWII.

Another ran the East India Company. Another established the Ravenscroft glass company.

A brother of one of my grandfathers was mentioned by name in 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'.

Apparently we are descended from Scottish royalty...or a king in Scotland. I forget which. There is still a castle there with our family name and crest.

My great great great great great grand uncle on one side was decapitated trying to save the new brides from his village from spending their wedding nights with the village head (the head took all the girls’ virginities). His effigy is worshiped in my ancestral village.

My wealthy great grandfather was on the South African train that Gandhi was kicked out of, and left the entirety of his African estates to him. His wife (my gran’s step mum) fearing being penniless smuggled everything valuable out of the country. To this date nobody knows how.

One of our lot went to pan gold in San Francisco, he sailed round rather than take the wagon train , he did make money at it.

GGF invented rescue stretchers and ambulance systems for miners. And paid for them in Yorkshire's coal mines.

GM was a Day, one of the Dorset clans Hardy kept an eye on to find his heroines - Fancy Day is his tribute to the ladies of our family.

Franklymydearidontgiveadamn.... I'm from Manchester great grandma was a johnson from Macclesfield I believe. Lots of the family been to the grave I'm going to take the kids this year. Maggoty is amazing!!

Mine are very dull. However one of DH's ancestors was one of the signatories on the death warrant of Charles I. I quite like the fact that DDs are decendants of a regicide as I'm in favour of abolishing the monarchy (though not in the same way that Charles I was dispatched obviously 🤣😂🤣)

Got executed in the Salem witch trials. We found out when some very distant American ancestors got in touch with us.

Some less distant ones ran a glass factory and made leaded wine goblets.

We also have an electro-plated teapot that was awarded to my great grandfather for having the best "fat beast" at a local agricultural show. But that's a bit less impressive.

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

Johnson you say? Are you sure he was one of the last jesters?

My so many greats grandfather was Polish and didn't like the way things were looking on the continent so he sent his family to different countries in the hope one survived. That was in 1880s I think.
As far as we're aware (he had an unusual name) we are the only branch that survived WWII.

And a very outing one. My Grandad flew the Flying Bedstead.

My other Grandfather saved a younger soldier's life during the war. They were desert rats and the younger chap decided (probably due to PTSD) to run towards the enemy lines. My Grandad went and fetched him back at risk to his own life. No officer actually saw it, so he wasn't allowed to be awarded a medal for it, but they wrote to my Gran to tell her. He also was on the reserve list for the English football team.

My grandfather was Polish, captured with others by the Russians at the start of WW2 and taken to Siberia. He escaped and they walked/hitchhiked all the way to Libya where they joined the English/ Polish 8th Army.
He was awarded medals for being heavily involved in the Battle of Monte Casino.
DH’s grandfather painted the royals ‘gold’ carriage that always gets wheeled out on big occasions. We even have a thank you letter from the then King.

Fairly distant, but one of my g-g-g-g-g-g... grandmothers was a sister of a priest who was hanged, drawn, quartered and his head stuck on a post outside the jail in the town of his execution for twenty years ('pour encourager les autres'). He was tried three times before a jury finally delivered a guilty verdict.

My great grandad was a Romany horse trader. He lived, with his wife and children, in a horse drawn caravan and drove all over the north of England buying and selling horses. My great grandma (not from a Romany family) was from Durham and eloped with him as he passed through the town when she was just 17.

My late mom told me that when she was just 3 years old he sat her on the back of a huge horse, told her to hold onto its mane and slapped its backside so it went galloping off at great speed and that is how she learned to ride!!

My grandfather was a Major in the parachute regiment during WWII. He was part of the 6th airborne division who were amongst the first to parachute into France on D-Day. His job was to clear the fields of Rommel's asparagus in order to make way for the Hodder gliders to land.

We have the actual silk map he was given with x marks showing where he was going to land. Strange when you look at the history books which show the same thing!

On my mothers side, instigated the Mutiny on the Bounty, And another was ships doctor on The Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert,

On my fathers side, one was one of the founder members of Harvard, the widow of another married George IV before he became king and then had to divorce him as she was catholic,

i’m related to the Beverley Sisters.

Not my family history (dull) but DH's - his great great great grandfather worked in a pit, one of his daughters emigrated to USA and opened a mine over there, then married a man who was a pioneer and founded great swathes of rail tracks. One of her descendants is a PGA winning golfer, he would be a cousin of my DS several times removed.

Charles Dickins was a close friend of DH's families. He nicknamed DH's great aunt "Little Dorrit" and before he wrote the book. He was out walking with her when they came across a shepherd trying to put a flock of sheep into a tiny pen. When they said they would never fit the old shepherd said "They will. I'll scrooge 'em in" leading to the character of Ebeneezer Scrooge

Rescued troops from the beaches of Dunkirk in his tug as part of the Lite Ships rescue mission.

Little Ships