Related to Alexander Kennedy on my moms side. He was a gun maker and seems to have sold weapons to the Americans during the revolutionary war -

http://buildingthepride.com/tvhs/the-history-corner/
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~lelandva/kennedygun.html

My lotta greats Grandfather was William Arnold, one of the original 13 proprietors of Providence. His Son Benedict succeeded Roger Williams as President of Rhode Island, and was later the first Governor of Rhode Island.

The Governors great grandson was a General who shoulda died at Saratoga.

Melvin Purvis is a distant relative.

My late grandfather was a B29 radio operator and part of the squadron that the Enola Gay was in.   He was in Guam and saw it take off with the atom bomb.

Related to Horatio Gates?

LOL, He just never should have been given stars in the first place.

At some point in time my Paternal Grandmother had the highest airforce security clearance a civilian ever had.
She was an artist and hand copied blueprints to scale on a number of aircraft. The last project she worked on was the b1 bomber. She literally could replicate anything she saw by hand and insanely fast. She once copied some pages out of a comic book I had when she was destroyed drunk and hand copied them on notebook paper in a couple of minutes each. This was when she was in her 70's and had been retired for 20 years.

Odd... I have heard almost the exact same story about my great grandfather.

My great great grandfather was Lord Frederick Sleigh Roberts.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Roberts,_1st_Earl_Roberts

Poem about him written by Rudyard Kipling.
http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/lord_roberts.html

My grandfather smuggled whiskey into the US during prohibition. He used the money to put himself through Georgetown Law School, then later became secretary to the US Attorney General.

My Brother spent 24 years in the Navy as a Cryptologist only spent 6 weeks on a ship during his whole career. His only stint was during the decommission of the USS Peterson. He spent most of his career inland which seems odd if you think about it.

My BIL was aboard the USS Gettysburg when the Navy Seals captured the Somalian Pirates a few years back.

My GG Grandfather Tom S Milligan 1819-60 was the first sheriff of Mason County, TX. He was killed by Indians about 200 yards from his home. Someone in the family still has the spear point they took from his heart. The Indians couldn't get in the house for his wife and four daughters.

GGGG Grandfather Hugh (Joseph) Allen was a Texas Ranger in 1838.

GG Grandfather John Nelson Sessom was a TX Ranger in 1858. His father, Mike Sessom, moved to TX in 1822 and served as a scout (spy) and interpreter for the TX militia several times. He served with Capt. Jack Coffee Hays and Sam Walker of Colt Walker fame.

I am related to him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brashear

My maternal great-grandfather, Charles D. Hayes was a Lieutenant Commander on the U.S.S. Indianapolis. He was an initial casualty to the torpedoes, and did not have to face the sharks. I do not know much about him, and genealogical research has been difficult.

My paternal Great-great-great grandfather, Levi McInturff fought in the Mexican War. He claimed to be the second man over the wall at Chapultepec. There were several that made this claim (ostensibly because George Pickett was recognized as the first over the wall), but historians have been able to place him in the first storming party to scale the defenses. He later enlisted in the Confederate Army (Stonewall Brigade) and fought through Antietam. He was discharged in late 1862 for old age and advanced arthritis. He continued to contribute to the war effort in various ways after his discharge and lived to old age; farming, spinning yarns and shilling for dubious pharmaceutical companies (he gave a great testimonial for Dr. Williams' "Pink Pills", which miraculously cured his arthritis).

He claimed to have travelled to California during the 1849 Gold Rush (those years are unaccounted for; he was discharged in 1848 and didn't return to Virginia until 1851). He claimed that he saw some foresters fell a mighty redwood in a valley one day. He claimed the redwood rolled down one side of the valley, and back up the other. It continued in this manner for some time, and the foresters, being unable to stop the great rolling tree, moved on to another valley. Late in life, nostalgia overcame him and he returned to California on a vacation. While travelling through his old stomping grounds in a remote valley he heard a rustling in the leaves. He was surprised to see a small toothpick rolling down one side of the valley and continuing up the other side. He claimed he was shocked to realize that the toothpick was the remainder of that same old rolling redwood, worn down from years of rolling up and down the mountain.

He also claimed to have visited his father, "Mountain" Henry McInturff, in Powell's Fort one day. While visiting, they happened to notice two old tom cats fighting with each other about 50 feet up in the air, and rising rapidly. Levi was astounded, and wondered aloud as to how the cats were remaining airborne. Mountain Henry, unimpressed, told him that the two cats were simply climbing up each other.

Another Great-great-great grandfather, Ezra Spiker, was regarded in local and family history as being a well respected Confederate veteran. I was surprised to find that common historical records only showed him as serving in the 146th VA Militia, and showed his discharge at the beginning of the war. Some digging turned up his obituary in a long out of print Virginia newspaper. The obituary claimed that he served the entirety of the war as a scout in Blackford's Cavalry. Blackford (a Jefferson County descendant of Andrew Jackson) lead a guerrilla band that served in the Shenandoah Valley and West Virginia pan-handle as scouts early in the war. After the passing of the Partisan Ranger Act, they continued to fight an unconventional war in service of the Confederacy, in a black-flag manner reminiscent of Quantrill in Missouri. There are no documented records of the men who served in his outfit. Finally I had an explanation for Ezra's widespread local esteem as a fighting man (he later held political office, and his son became a County Sheriff for many terms as a Republican in a Democrat dominated area).

None of these accounts will ever make a history book, but they mean the world to me. Researching these men as an adolescent inspired my own military service.

My dad was roommates with Bob Evans nephew. I do not know the exact details but, at the nephew's wedding my dad got into some sort of disagreement with Bob Evans on the account of him being a Nixon supporter. My dad ended up being a store manager when at the time there were four restaurants, he said he was worried he would not get the job because he thought Bob Evans would remember him.

Best I have, my parents never said more than a few words about my grandparents.

My grandma's cousin was (RIP) Fitzhugh Fulton, Air Force pilot.  He flew the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War, and was a test pilot for many years.  He flew the Valkyrie, and was supposed to fly it the day of the famous collision.   He holds the highest altitude with greatest payload record.  I believe he reached 87000 feet.  He flew many other experimental aircraft, and finished off his career as captain of the 747 that carried the space shuttle.  I don't know if this fact changed, but at one point he was the only American to ever fly the Concorde.

Homer Van Meter.

Family legend has it that John Dillinger was just a dumb Indiana farm boy, and that Homer was the brains of the outfit.

I have no clue whether or not that is true.

I had an uncle who evidently looked a lot like Homer, because he cops used to harass he shit out of him, until they found out that he wasn't Homer.

Also, one of the grandsons of my immigrant ancestor married one of the granddaughters of John Endecott, several times Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony.

They decamped to New Jersey, after the witchcraft bullshit in Salem, and together with a cousin were among the original settlers of Mount Holly, NJ.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Endecott

Two uncles on my mother's side served in WWII.  One in the Navy, one in the Coast Guard.



Navy uncle's ship torpedoed and sunk.  Coast Guard uncle was the guy who pulled him out of the water.

I have a Japanese aunt (married to my mom's oldest brother who met her when he was in the Navy) who was a child in Hiroshima when it was nuked.  She remembers the sound and flash, but she was far enough away that she wasn't physically injured or burnt but suffered permanent hearing damage.  I only found this out within the past few years, she never talks about it.

She is now in her late 70s

Well, my grandfather was a flight engineer on cargo planes "over the hump" in the CBI theater during WW2.
My great-uncle flew B-24's out of North Africa, and flew on the raid to Ploesti, but he died when I was little so I don't have any stories to pass down.

And if that's not enough of an interesting history I'm also related to this guy:
SS-Obergruppenführer Theodor Eicke
Best known probably for executing Ernst Röhm, commanding the 3rd SS Panzer division, and generally being a dick.

My son is only 33 but has an interesting story. He made a 35 on the ACT and Northwestern Med School contacted him right after high school to recruit him for med school. NU said they have 6,000 applicants for med school annually, but they were looking for students who were just a little bit better than the rest.

After his junior year in college, he was a summer research intern at Cold Spring Harbor Lab where the pres. emeritus is Dr. James Watson, of DNA double-helix fame with Francis Crick. My son was one of 15 young scientists in the U.S. selected along with 10 from around the world. Watson had a pizza party at his house for the "his kids" as he calls them.

He got a Ph.D. in cellular neuroscience from UCSF and took a post-doc at Duke Med School in neurobiology. For his phd and post-doc he also had offers from Stanford, 3 different neuro labs at Harvard, Wash U., and at MIT had a Nobel Prize winner recruit him.

At age 28, he co-authored (first author) a chapter in a medical textbook on neurochemistry. His chapter is on epilepsy. He has a handful of research articles in several different journals and now works in pharmaceuticals.

My grandpa's sister was married to Barry Seal.

So my uncle was an officer in a Special Forces unit back in Nam.

He had this habit of making tape recordings of himself to send back to his wife. He would talk and talk, and often would fall asleep before turning the tape machine off.

He'd then unwittingly send his wife a tape of him talking for an hour or two, and then 6 hours of snoring.

She thought it was cute.

Well, anyways, he had fallen asleep with the tape machine on in his hotel room in Saigon on January 30th, 1968, the night Saigon came under attack during the Tet offensive.

So he's awoken by the shitshow in the street, and with the tape machine still recording, begins engaging targets from his hotel window with his rife. He's yelling at people, asking questions, giving orders, firing his weapon, and you can hear a lot of battle noise in the background. It's a crazy tape.

The best part is, just like the other tapes, he didn't realize he hadn't turned the machine off before falling asleep.

He sent the whole, unedited tape to his wife thinking it just contained his first message to her before he fell asleep.

Hilarity ensued at home.

If you can, get a copy of that and put it on youtube

Grandma had a whorehouse and speakeasy, Grandpa ran whiskey to her.

Also, my great Aunt was also in Saigon for Tet. She was the first female graduate of the U.S. War College, and an Ambassador.



Here's a link to a much more thorough bio of her and the transcript of an interview she gave to the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project.

http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Tull,%20Theresa%20A.toc.pdf

Fucking THIS!

Not only is it hilarious, but the Tet offensive was no small shit, that recording is history right there, just like all the recordings on the internet from various USAF bombing raids up north.

A grandparent that got 9 years for Racketeering, one of 16 people convicted in one of the largest RICO cases up to that time.
Between the time of their conviction and their scheduled appearance to start the sentence, they were invited to attend Reagan's inauguration and did so with approval of a US District Court judge.
Only did 4 years of the 9 year sentence. I spent those first 4 years of my life visiting the prison on weekends.





 
 
 

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My grandfather was a flight engineer that certified bombers flight to Europe.  My grandmother painted the dials on altimeters with Luminol.  My grandfathers cousin (US) killed many German in WW2.  But my grandfathers other cousin (GER) killed many Russians, and I have his prison release form the cold.

For my third post in this thread, my grandfather, Commander Robert Tull.

My family is famous for a feud.

My great grandmother grew up in Tioga, TX with her cousin, Gene Autry.  All I got.  

My step-father has a very unique story.  He actually passed away this year and after his death we uncovered more and more of his story which he rarely spoke of.

He grew up in Pennsylvania and was drafted by the Army in late 1943, he was 19 years old.  After training he was send with the 45 ID to Africa and then Italy for the Anzio invasion. After moving North from the beachhead his unit was left exposed and captured by the  Germans at The Battle of the Caves.  He was taken to a temporary POW camp and them moved to a more permanent camp where he and another soldier escaped over the fence.  His buddy from basic was shot by the Germans during the escape and died hanging on the barbed wire.  My step-father ran into the woods were he eventually met up with a few other escapees, two Brits and a South Africa. The 4 of them wandered the mountains until they were eventually found by a group of Italian Partisans. They fought with the Partisans and made raids on the Germans until one night as they were walking down a mountain road they were ambushed by a German patrol.  The four men were split into 2 groups as they ran from the ambush and never  saw each other again.  My Step-Father eventually made it South far enough to link back up with the Allies as they moved farther North.  After the war his story has been well documented and has been told in several papers, books and documentaries. I have in my possession several photos of him and the other 3 escapees in the Italian mountains hanging out with the Partisan group. The picture are crazy as they look like they are having the time of their lives drinking wine and enjoying their time in the mountains. My Step-Father was truly one of the Greatest Generation, his story is pretty epic and I truly miss having him around.

My grandpa flew at least one leg on NC19903, the Boeing 307 at the Smithsonian annex in Dulles. He was a FRO for Pan Am. Then he worked for Aeronautical Radio Inc., which became ARINC.

My dad was an engineer for the USAF and then for ARINC. We would go to the contractor tent at the Dayton air show and casually point at something and say, "About six months ago I wasn't allowed to talk about that..."

"You had ONE job!"  

Great-great-great grandfather was a polygamist.

Three wives.

He died when climbing onto his horse from a wagon tongue.  Slipped and racked himself up, he knew when it happened that he had ruptured a testicle, took three days to die.  Wrapped up his worldly affairs and set the wives and kids up for success.

Good man.

Richard Dawson or Steve Harvey?

I bet our great great great times a few grand pappys knew each other. mine is in Benjamin West painting depicting Penn making a treaty with the Indians. He was also one of signers of Penn’s original Pennsylvania charter drafted in 1683.

remembered another one.  dad witnessed the 1966 palomares h-bomb incident from about a mile away, co-altitude.

he was flying the #2 tanker in that flight.

My dad was in a John Wayne movie

Had a relative who belonged to the SS and was an aide to Adolf Eichmann

One of my ancestors worked in the mob during the 1930s as a bookie.

Nothing super interesting but some kindof cool. My favorite is how our family name got its start. (First and Middle).

I had a great grandfather in WWI that was named Brant. He met a Frenchmen I'm the trenches and they became brothers. Both survived and when they separated ways at the end of the war they took the other's first name as their own. So Brant became Harlan Brant and the Frenchman became Brant Harlan. Part of their "agreement" was to pass this to their firstborn sons, so theoretically speaking there could be a Brant Harlan somewhere in France because of these events. There are at least Four generations one the American side with this name.

Related to BHO (his mothers family) through marriage..

Dad was copilot in B-17's flying out of Italy. Shot down on a mission over Hungary and spent last year of the war as a POW in StalagLuft 3.


Great great great uncle was a Confederate cavalry officer who became sheriff of Rapides Parish, LA after the war. He'd always wanted his deputy, who'd rode with him in the war to be buried with his family when the time came, but the people of the local Catholic Church wouldn't hear of a "heathen indian" being buried in hallowed ground. Uncle told them to fuck off, and had private family cemetary built.

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My dad sent men to visit others with a baseball bat and may have coined the term kneecap.

Dad is a nuclear safety consultant and was on the Glomar Explorer during it's adventure:  Project Azorian

Nope

I am related to Ernst Sieler who was a German vet of WW1 and WW2. He earned an iron cross in WW1 and got a Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves in WW2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Sieler