What famous/historical person are you related to?

[StarshipTitanic]

My family traces back to King Fergus of Ulster.

By God! King of Ulster? Truly a giant among men! Mighty empires quiver at his passing!

Nah, that's cool. My ancestors were Neapolitan peasants, so I can't really talk.

Bahaha, and mine were Aragonese nobility! Bow to your lord!

Well...no, but my last name shows up a lot as towns or train stations around southern Italy and it also originated in Spain so...I'll just make that leap...hehehehe

[The Cleric]

I'm a Kennedy . But seriously, one of my ancestors was mentioned in a book somewhere. No lie.

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

Descened from Anne Boleyn.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Uhh... my great-grandfather was a Confederate drummer boy. *shrug* That's all I got.

[Gunshy]

Although probably every American of Mexican descent says this...I'm supposedly a distant relative of Pancho Villa.

Edit: Oh, and I just remembered that (much to my shame) I'm third or fourth cousins with Lt. gov Cruz Bustamante.

[johnmarkley]

One of my ancestors has a Markley street named for him somewhere in Pennsylvania.

[Straha]

General Sheridan from the Civil War.

[SirNitram]

My family is famous only on the Isle Of Man, where a Royal Marine of my blood once shouted himself to death. Very sad. The recruits he was training at the time were never the same.

[Bob McDob]

My great-grandfather on my father's mother's side were samurai.

[Peregrin Toker]

Well, on my mother's side I'm related to a psalmwriter and a woman who once was the oldest person alive.

[PeZook]

I'm supposedly a relative of the famed Potocki nobles family.

No idea if it's true, but one of my IRC buddies has done some digging and it turned out the royal hetman Potocki was a half-blind drunken idiot. Not a very grand heritage.

[Chardok]

Waaaaay on back, back when I was a genuine irishman, not some diluted, watered down americanized unholy mix of irish and other....stuff....I was royalty...or something. The O'Neilll(?sp) family crest is on the official seal of ireland. Bloody hand!!! (Yep, I'm This O'neill, though my irish blood is now tainted somewhat.) For those who don't wanna read the long story here's the short version:

Two guys and a bunch of ppl are racing. First to place their hand on the shore of Ireland is it's king or some such. O'Neill sees he's going to lose the race. Being the clever Irishman he's destined to become, he cuts off his own hand and throws it onto the shore, rather than lose. hence bloody hand.

[Andrew J.]

My Italian relatives and I are descended from 14th century humanist and poet Francesco Petrarca, aka Petrarch. He was actually one of the first humanists ever.

[Dartzap]

the only famour ancestor i had was about 50 years ago ans was the chairman of the labour party of Britain and helped to set up the NHS

not great but, meh...

on my Grans side, im half Austrian, so im probabaly related to some sort of royalty.....

[Lord Woodlouse]

Copy and paste from SB:
I have no idea if we're related, but we share the same (fairly rareish) surname, Bayes. Thomas Bayes was a fairly famous mathematician in the 18th century (IIRC), came up with the "Bayesian Theorum", which is still pretty significant to this day in probability, apparently.

Besides that, I know the surname originates from a Holland/Rhineland/Normandy kind of area, and we're all supposed to be descendants of refugees from holy war in France about 500 years ago. So, somewhere, there is a bit of French blood in me, probably.

Not famous, but I think quite interesting, here's my Great Grandfather:


He died fighting in the Great War, and his son (my Grandfather) went off to sign up to the same regiment (but, IIRC, was recruited into the Grenadier Guards because he was quite tall) and he served between the wars. During WW2 he served as a technician for the RAF, I believe. Here's a pic of him between the wars:


Not famous, but I think it's fairly interesting...

[Embracer Of Darkness]

I'm one of the many descendents of Richard De Vernon, the nobleman who rebuilt Haddon Hall in England from a crummy castle to a huge and elegant building...



...however it is no longer under the control of my family, it got passed on from us Vernons (now Barlows/Davies') generations ago.

It should also be noted that Richard De Vernon aquired the place from the illegitimate son of William The Conqueror.

That's all I've found on my family so far, our family trees are *damn* rare as nobody seems to have ever bothered.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Um, some of my ancestors were French pirates. Not famous ones, but it's still cool to say.

Bah, my English ancestors weren't pirates. They were privateers!

[Zac Naloen]

im related to a professional footballer, apparently...

and some saxon king many many many many many many centuries ago

[Dalton]

There's no certainty, but I might be related to:

The scientist John Dalton
The infamous outlaw Dalton Gang
A knight by the name of Sir Robert Dalton

Also, I'm fairly sure a relative of mine is currently the mayor of a New Jersey town.

[His Divine Shadow]

It's a thread at SB and I thought it'd be interesting if it was asked here too.

Seriously I am related to the Queen of Norway, our family tree branched somewhere in the 1500's I think it was.

[Alex Moon]

My great great uncle was Omar Bradley. Thats the only person I know of. I do know that my family was here before the Revolutionary War.

[IndustrialNoise]

Barney the Dinosaur.

Really, I don't know of anybody "famous" that I'm related to. I'll ask my uncle tonight, he's into that stuff.

[Captain Cyran]

I'm related to John Chapman, or should I say, Johnny Appleseed. And I might be related to Aaron Burr, you know, the guy who offed Hamilton.

[Robert Walper]

I'm related to Patrick Swayze. My grandfather's sister is his aunt, making him a second? or third? cousin. I just know he's in the family tree. *shrugs*

[Alyrium Denryle]

On my maternal grandmothers side, we are connected to scottish nobility(they still have their land from what I am told)