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.

Love the stories

Not amazing but when my Grandad was 10 he saw a black and tan being shot and slowly die outside his front window. It haunted him for years (Irish)

My grandmother was doing her ‘deb’ season in 1914. Posters went up asking for women who could drive to join the ambulance service. Her family chauffeur had taught her to drive so she signed up and was in France a week after her ball. She drove ambulances until she was gassed in 1916. She lived (albeit with recurring emphysema) until 1949.

Two of my ancestors were in music hall in the 1800s. The male of the couple was a comic and impressionist and the female was a dancer and singer, including sword dancing.

He described his occupation as Professor of Singing in one census.

Apparently my relative was the inspiration behind "Yankee Doodle Dandy"

An ancestor received the Victoria Cross for an act of bravery during the Crimean War at the age of 19.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Trewavas

@cupidsabsolutepsyche
My gp was born at Cooperhill which was owned by the same family, I went to have a look but didn’t have the nerve to go up the driveway

On my dad's side several times great uncle was Keir Hardie, founder of the Scottish Labour party, trade union leader and social reformer. The first time I saw a photo of him I thought I was looking at my dad!

On the posh side of the family my grandma was a golf champion in the 1920s and 30s, was the first woman to drive a car in her area. My aunt was the first qualified female lab scientist and went on and built a career in the USA.

My grandfather did our Family tree and discovered we are related to Captain Hardy. Captain of the ship HMS Victory from the Battle of Trafalgar and who Lord Nelson said his final words to (Kiss me/kismet Hardy)

Great grandmother was part of Lord Kitchner’s household (You country needs you poster crappie). They lived with him in Alexandria.

Descended from Robert Burns aunt on mums side of family

One relative - Ran whiskey to America during prohibition and relieved a famine on Tristan da Cunha (?sp)

Another relative - pulled bodies out of the water after the sinking of the Titanic

Another relative - rescued someone from a burning building (I saw this)

Another relative - saved a ship and was scarred for life putting out a fire in a ships engine room.

Another relative - was the only six year old who refused to sign up for the Temperance oath in the school because he didn't know what he would be like as a grown man. Was teetotal as an adult but it was the principle .

Another relative - worked at Chester Zoo in the office and opened boxes that contained live snakes.

Another relative, a few generations ago - died on a bridge that was over the boundary between England and Wales and caused significant paperwork because no-one knew which country should deal with the postmortem etc.

I suspect that there are more that I can't think of at the moment. My family is very good at two things - handing down stories of what the family have got up to and being bloody awkward and difficult in general.

I’m related to the great industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie

How do you all know all this personal story stuff?

All I know is one side of my family were farmers in Ireland when the potato famine hit. My dad always said we should be dead proud they managed to survive.

On the other side they were generations of doctors and all strict, strict, scary Baptists who celebrated nothing and were very austere.

Designed St Paul's cathedral

Not mine (nothing of interest there) but my DH's Great X many times Grandfather was Abraham Darby and built Ironbridge.

I vaguely remember my mum saying that someone on her side was in Scott's expedition and my maternal grandmother was dropped at an orphanage during the Depression in N America. She was then collected again when the family's fortune turned back round. There was also a whole branch of the family that got excommunicated from the Catholic Church lol

Among many other things my grandfather designed the machine that puts flavouring on crisps, and parts of the first CAT scan machines. I wish I had not been so young when he died and had been able to have more conversations with him.

Hunting, gathering, cave painting.
Rituals around the camp fire.
Semi hibernating in caves in winter.

An uncle of mine was one of the guards at the Nuremberg trials.

Not exciting or famous, but l think it's sweet. My maternal grandfather was at the Somme. He looked after the horses on the front line.
Years later, he brought a retired pit pony home. My grandma nearly had a fit, apparently. They lived in a small terraced house in a very small coastal village. He used to graze the pony (Bobby) on the common land, and all the neighbours used to give him carrots from their allotments for Bobby.
My mam told me that he used to take Bobby to the beach to collect sea coal. My grandad would have one sack of coal on Bobby's back, and two on his own. And my grandad was a tiny man.
Someone had reported him, saying the pony was being ill treated. When someone came out to check (my mam said from the RSPCA, but l'm not sure if that's right) on the pony, the person said that he was in very good condition, and said my grandad was doing a wonderful job with him.
l never met my grandad. He died two months before l was born.

Bluerussian !

My granny was an heiress and a tomboy. She really wanted to join the army during WW2 but as a woman that could not happen. She was however a crack shot so she was employed to tutor snipers. ( I’m not sure how true that last bit is and of course there are no records of a woman teaching men to kill people, but it’s the family legend and it’s pretty cool).
On the same Granny’s side I am related to the Von Traps.

More recently my older half sisters dad was amongst the first soldiers to liberate one of the nazi death camps, until his dying day he never spoke about the horrors he saw. As I grew up I understood why.

These are all just fascinating

Invented the MRI scanner.