I have 2 famous ancestors - Charles Dickens and French royalty. (Serious.)
I e.g. wouldn't mind being a writer much like Charles Dickens. (I'm also reading a few of his books now. A good 1 to symbolize the 2 heritages - A Tale of 2 Cities.)
Also, someone once told me that I'm French in character. I then read a book about French culture. It was like me. A lot of people here with French descent were from the French Huguenots. But mine was from a group fleeing the French Revolution.

Originally posted by BlackOps719

My aunt has traced our family history back as far as it can be traced on my mothers side, and from her assertions we are directly descended from the lineage of William the Conqueror.

Then we are cousins, but do the math. Assuming 4 generations a century if you go back 1000 years you have a trillion ancestors. Obviously there's a lot of overlap, but at a certain point it becomes meaningless. In fact, it would be surprising to find out that you were NOT a descendent of William the Conqueror. Anyone with Anglo-Saxon ancestry is.

I can trace my ancestry back to Jamestown easily, and Jesse James is my fifth cousin. It's kind of fun to play with it, but beware there is a lot of junk ancestry information out there.

Ok...I don't know if this really counts but...my great grandmother is 100% French...and she is in the direct bloodline of one of the (ladies in waiting) to Marie Antoinette.

Not really *famous*, but my great - great grandad was Queen Victoria's Jockey. He later went on to perform around the country with Buffalo Bill's show.

Seem's I didn't get my height off him though.

Yep!! but goodness its not that good lol! I was doing a family tree and my relative was not a very nice guy at all!

But known in Ireland, he was called Buck Alec Robinson! somethings you just wish you did not know!

Nasty piece of work by the sounds of it! And it was kept from most of the family and now i know why,

For those wanting to trace it, you may get lucky.

Back when I was looking into it, I stumbled across another website by a family member who had basically already done all the work!

Traces the family from the colonial days when we first came here from Wales to Virginia.


You may be just as lucky if you Google well enough, and find a relative of yours has done the work for you.

I am related to Jesse James and Johnny Cash, two rebels in their own respect.

On my mother's side, her grandmother was Susan Renville, daughter of Gabriel Renville. He is written about in the history books in MN, so locally kind of famous, maybe not "famous" but known. Well, he's the only claim to fame my family has.

He was born in 1824, the son of Victor Renville or Ohiya and Winona Crawford. After the death of his father he was raised by his uncle Joseph Renville. He opposed the Dakota Conflict of 1862 and became the chief of the Dakota Scouts called the Renville Rangers. After the formation of the Lake Traverse Reservation by the Treaty of 1867, Gabriel was appointed Chief of the Sisseton-Wahpeton. He died at his home in Browns Valley in 1892.