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.

Not cool. Early settler in Australia who had three Aboriginal people shot without trial.
Another descendant of the Boleyns.

@flamingoandjohn Edward jenner?

Arrested Guy Fawkes.

My great-grandmother was quite a bohemian. She was in a few little pathé films doing astrology and reading bumps.

She also had a jewellery shop on the King’s Road, and hid away all the good stuff when the allegedly presumptuous and entitled Queen Mary was to visit.

My great grandad survived Auschwitz. He was a broken man but he managed to rebuild a life of sorts. Amazing man died when I was around 5.

My great uncle was in the 1966 England World Cup winning squad. One of DH ancestors was one of the signatories on Charles I death warrant.

My grandpa was a pilot and lived in Kenya with my grandma, Dad etc. When the Queen heard the news her father had died, he was the pilot of the plane that flew her to her first destination knowing she would be queen. From Nairobi to Entebe.

There are news articles on the chap who flew her back to the UK, Ronald Ballantine. But that wasn't actually her maiden flight since hearing the news, that was the one my grandpa flew. We've got an old newspaper somewhere that mentions him which my Mum got him to sign at some point when we were young, so it's definitely true! Ronald Ballantine got an MVO fourth class for it, but my grandpa didn't get anything.

One of my distant relatives was Robert Catesby, the leader of the Guy Fawkes plot.

Another relative (GM's Aunt) was on the Titanic - she was rescued but her husband perished. They were travelling second class, which is probably how she managed to get on a lifeboat.

5 x great grandfather was a General under George Washington during the American Revolution. Fought at Valley Forge and tried to have Benedict Arnold court marshalled a few times (BA did the same to him, they hated each other).

My GD mowed down the Archbishop of Canterbury's prized roses during WWII because he was too busy checking out his daughter who was sunning herself on the lawn.

My gg granddad sailed on the Cutty Sark.

My great uncle was one of the four survivors of the Thetis submarine disaster in Liverpool Bay.

Mine were an emigrating lot.

My great grandad build up an orchard in Arizona in the 19th century, fought in the Indian wars, but ultimately returned to his home country.

His daughter, my granny took up teaching in pre WW2 Japan where she got married to my grandad, himself an accidental migrant, having got stranded there when the company who sent him out for a short stint, got bust and his return ticket was suddenly an asset owned by the debtors.

They created themselves a living and stayed until the late 1940s when they had to return to the home country.

Both had siblings who did similar and so I have now relatives in Namibia, New Zealand, Canada, Sweden and plenty other places.

My Grandfather made friends with the son of a German soldier when our island was occupied in WW2. A bit like the boy in the stripped pyjamas without the concentration camps and death. They kept in touch after the war finished and I always thought it was a lovely case of peace and friendship winning over evil.

No @mrssalvatore14. He took the credit. My ancestor was before him.

My grandads grandad designed and built a hydrorelectric power plant that bought electricity to his valley for the 1st time (1800s rural Italy)

My grandad also became an engineer and designed machines for factories.

No engineers in my generation (afaik, the youngest cousins are 12 and 8)

But DS (nearly 4) spends all his time building complicated bridges using brio track and talking about how train engines work so he could be this generations! I think it'd be pretty cool if it was a family trait that was passed on.

One was a witch according to her occupation on her death certificate though she does of natural causes, so I guess maybe they were a bit more chilled out about that sort of thing.

One ancestor commanded a ship defending against the Spanish Armada. He was Italian and it turns out spied for the crown whilst living in Britain. He lent money to Queen Elizabeth I and his will mentions the £28,000 that he owed her (apparently never repaid!).

I also have a link to royalty back at King Edward I, and a connection to the Boleyns and various other prominent families like the Bowes through marriages on that line between 1300-1600.

More recently, my 2x great-grandfather was a bit of a black sheep who abandoned his family and vanished, but I found that he fought in a lot of key battles in WW1, and enlisted before he had to as a married man.

My 2x great grandmother emigrated to Canada as a servant to an emigrating family - I think that took some real guts to leave her family like that in 1905!

A Lord in Cromwell’s army.

Robbed the mail train, stole loads of money and ran away to America. Can back 18 months later having "made his fortune" there.

I’ve got a Luddite in my family tree...a transported convict (to Australia), and one of my great great x whatever grandmothers had loads of kids and gave a couple of them the names “napoleon bonaparte” It’s funny to see it in the family tree, amidst all the Ethels, Alberts and Josephs...

My great-great grandparents were Romanies and came over from Europe in the 1800s. Both died very young. My great-great aunt murdered one of her children. She was put away for 5 years for it, and one of her children was born in prison.

There is a possibility that there might be a relationship to Rob Roy McGregor, but it will require quite a lot of work to figure that out.

I am very distantly related to Wat Tyler who led the peasants revolt in the 1300s.

My great great grandfather was a colonial governor, the first to permit local subjects to dine with him at Government House. He's the inspiration for the character Phiz in Trollope's novels. We're descended from his mistress, who he couldn't marry as she was Ulster Protestant and he was Catholic. His legitimate marriage was scandalous enough, as his wife was part Malay.

DM's dad designed a famous sweet wrapper.

GG Granny bought herself out of slavery, set up a small reading school and taught others how to cook and sell food which they ploughed back into buying other slaves out of slavery.

That's amazing Moonlightdancer.

A distant cousin won his country's highest civilian decoration for his part in the resistance of the German occupation of his country. He spent the whole war despised as a collaborator and after it was over out came out that his seeming cooperation was a front for an underground escape route.

A great uncle of mine infiltrated a Mosely rally, denounced him fron the lectern... and then ran like hell!

My Grandad was a chauffeur for 20th century fox. Jenny Agutter once threw up in his car when she was drunk, so he made her clean it up.