Ancestral Anecdotes

[Beorn]

When members of my family weren't saving their mates from cave ins or taking a day off from school to watch the Beatles in the Cavern Club, or being well renowned for their singing and musical talents, they were usually found engaging in the criminal underworld of Bristol.

I had one great-Uncle(?) who got so deep into the life of crime, and owed so much money as well as going overboard in how he acted about town, that he was warned by close friends and accomplices that he was about to be made an example of and have his knee-caps removed by way of a gun and a insincere whisper in the ear. He high-tailed it out of Bristol and landed up on the shore of Australia where some previous family had settled long before. But he didn't make a life of missionary work with the Abos like them, but simply became a regular Joe with a regular job and family.

His grandchildren often came back to Bristol and stayed with my Nan. They would cause so much trouble and steal so much that in the end they were told to F-off and not return.

On the other side of my family, my Mum's Uncle was suspected to be in the SAS or some form of Special Force. My Dad would always ask him why for a man of the Army he was always so unclean shaven and long haired. .

[Liffrea]

Nothing exciting, my two great uncles Harry and George both served in the Somme campaign, both were gassed on the same day, one (can’t remember which) brought back a German officer’s knife, I still have it, complete with blood stained into the blade where it has rusted.

My mother’s family Tagg’s have quite a long history in the East Midlands and have owned a substantial amount of land in Derbyshire in the past. There are a few famous names further back in time but I personally don’t count any of that nonsense as important (very few people in Europe can’t claim some famous person or other). Apparently there were Tagg’s at Agincourt, can’t claim they were anything to do with my ancestry, though.

Some Irish gypsies came over in the 1880’s (opened up a horse “dealership” in Chesterfield what more proof do you need?). My grandmother Tagg (stone dead before I was born) detested the Irish with a passion and wouldn’t have anything Irish in the house.

Other than that, nothing much, just farmers, labourers, craftsmen, occasional warriors, just ordinary people.

[Goidelic]

My great-great-great-grandfather was an Irishman who fought in the Civil War.

My other great-great-grandparents were Irish Catholic peasant immigrants.

My 6x great-grandfather was a Revolutionary War soldier of peasant Ulster-Scots descent.

My 7x great-uncle was apparently a Methodist preacher of Ulster-Scots descent.

That's it as far as famous people go. I may have other famous ancestors that I'm unaware of but from my understanding at least 3/4 of my ancestry is of peasant stock.

Also, forgot to add my father was born in Ireland with his parents but left at 2 or 3 with them, most of the Ulster-Scots is from my grandmother but she also has Gaelic Irish ancestry as well.

[Óttar]

This fellow is one of my ancestors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Benjamin,_Sr.

My relative Edward Monroe Meekins, a 32nd degree Freemason, married Harriet Adams, a descendant of John Adams, America's 1st VP and 2nd president.

[Electronic God-Man]

Burrhus Frederic Skinner, the behavioral psychologist, was closely related to me. I think he was something like my grandfather's cousin.

The man wrote a sequel to the book Walden.

He had some tough critics:

Noam Chomsky

Perhaps Skinner's best known critic, Noam Chomsky, published a review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior two years after it was published. The review (1959) became better known than the book itself. It has been credited with launching the cognitive movement in psychology and other disciplines. Skinner, who rarely responded directly to critics, never formally replied to Chomsky's critique. Many years later, Kenneth MacCorquodale's reply was endorsed by Skinner.

Chomsky also reviewed Skinner's Beyond Freedom and Dignity, utilizing the same basic motifs as his Verbal Behavior review. Among Chomsky's criticisms were that Skinner's laboratory work could not be extended to humans, that when it was extended to humans it represented 'scientistic' behavior attempting to emulate science but which was not scientific, that Skinner was not a scientist because he rejected the hypothetico-deductive model of theory testing, that Skinner had no science of behavior, and that Skinner's works were highly conducive to justifying or advancing totalitarianism.

Anthony Burgess

In his novel, A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess criticizes Skinner's theories as being immoral, claiming that moral choice is a necessary part of one's humanity. The novel's protagonist, Alex, believes he can be released from prison early by participating in an Ivan Pavlov/B.F. Skinner inspired rehabilitation program referred to as the "Ludovico technique," which conditions criminals to become nauseous from the mere thought of violence. Before participating in the program the prison chaplain warns against it, declaring that an action is only good if derived from good intentions. Thus conditioning in any form is criticized for being dehumanizing and oppressive.

Awesome. My relative was a totalitarian and made A Clockwork Orange possible.

[Grey]

My great-grandmother was full of odd stories, although I can't understand half of them because her English is horrible. I'll tell a few that I know, but they're nothing magnificent.

First of all, she laughed about an incident in the 1940s when it rained fish in my town. It was storming and all of a sudden there were loud thumps on the roof. People looked outside and were astonished to see fish falling from the sky. It was investigated afterward and apparently it was caused by a waterspout over Spring Bayou that hurled the fish into the air to land all over the area.

There was the Great Flood of 1927 which completely submerged most of my parish. I live in a slightly elevated area, which was one of the only places that remained unflooded for miles and miles around, and so became a sort of haven for those who were displaced. Even today it's known as the Island.

On my family's land there's one place that has always remained overgrown and unused. This is where my family allowed the Confederacy to build some sort of storage area, where a large amount of gold was hidden away. When the Union soldiers came through they took control and scoured the building for gold but found nothing, and they demolished the building. Their arrival was a complete surprise and there was no time to move it, so it is unknown what happened to it. After the war and everything, the place was just forgotten about. My great-grandfather and his two sons used to spend all day working on the farm, and then they'd come home and spend a couple of hours every night digging for gold. He had all sorts of theories about where it could have been hidden, but died without ever finding it. The story became a sort of family legend, and when I was little I'd dig around for it, but at this point most just resign themselves to the idea that there's nothing out there.

Also, apparently my German grandmother was a close relative of Robert Ritter.

An ancestor who came through Gibraltar was an inventor and did a lot of work on the propeller. He came to the US as part of the European Regiment in the Confederate Army.


My girlfriend's great-great-grandfather was a moonshiner who after the death of his first wife fathered several half-black children. In response his two white sons became devout Protestants and one became a member of the Knights of the White Camelia and the other became a Grand Dragon in the Klan (I believe that's the correct term).

Her family are the Kimballs, and their ancestors had a relative who was dating an Injun/Black woman. He was kicked out of the family and forced to change his surname to Kimble so as not to damage the family's name.

Her ancestor owned a plantation, and apparently it was taken away at some point. They just learned that they could have reclaimed the place and still own it (the gov't never notified them of their inheritance), but just a few years ago the government auctioned it off and now there's a plant of some sort in its place.

[Mesrine]

My great uncle (Alban Leyshon) was a goldsmith and was very friendly with Dylan Thomas, they used to drink together in a local pub. When Dylan used to visit my uncle at work, my uncle used to heat up copper coins and throw them out into the street while they were still hot. They both had a childlike sense of humour (sounds familiar ), so I can imagine them laughing at other people's expense as they tried to pick up hot coins in the street.

LMAO, Alberto Sordi does the same trick in Il marchese del Grillo. I love that kind of humour.

[YOUTUBE]edokG9l1XGg[/YOUTUBE]

[Black Turlogh]

My grandfather and his brothers had the prankster's blood and so every chance they came across to scare the shite out of their friends and family was one not to be passed.

At the wake of my grandfather's uncle, he and his brothers came up with an elaborate scheme involving a board, ropes and pulleys to re-animate the corpse, which had been placed on ice in the deceased's home, as was the custom of the day. They'd gone to the house early before the other family members had arrived, and had fastened the body to a large board which was stood upright so it seemed as if his uncle was standing. When the other attendees gathered outside the home to greet one another, they noticed the body walk to the window before waving to the people outside and breaking into dance. People were in amazement, some cursing in disbelief while a handful of the women had fainted.

This was one of the highlights of my grandfather's life, without doubt. To pull a prank on such a scale brought a tear of laughter to his eye even in old age. He was old enough to be called a man in those days, he said, but still young enough for him and his brothers to receive a hefty beating from their father, which he always claimed was well worth it.

[Barreldriver]

My family patriarch Robert Reader III was exiled from the family estate in Yorkshire for leaving the Anglican church and becoming a Baptist. His father Robert II gave the inheritance from his father's, Robert I, title for his sisters dowries. Robert II became a churchwarden for the Anglican Church.

Robert III settled in Mecklenburg County, VA with his wife Grace Brigham of Blacktoft in Yorkshire. He established a 448 acre plantation, upon his death the estate was divided among the descendants. Most of them going to Overton County, Tennessee, this includes my main lineage. Thomas, my direct ancestor and son of Robert III, took a Scots-Irish wife before coming to Overton County with his wife, his brother Robert IV, and his in laws. Thomas' son William became a constable in Overton County, and it is speculated that he served in the Confederate Army, Tennessee Infantry during the Civil War, though this is uncertain, the records hint at it but I cannot confirm it 100% due to lack of pension requests. William's son, James Buchanon Reeder, was just your average Appalachian, he married a woman of one of the more prominent families in the region, Emaline Smith, this family were among the founders of Overton County of a Colonial Anglo-Scots stock (her main line was from Somerset). My great great grandfather, Johnny Hardy, the son of James, was a moonshiner and trouble maker, wound up doing time in Nashville as a result of his moonshining. He took a Scots-Irish and Welsh mixed wife. My great grandfather Talford Mainous, the son of Johnny, was a hard working farmer, had a 100 acre farm in Overton County, Tennessee with 40 head of angus cattle, came up North during the Depression and rented land out to other farmers for a while till finances were rebuilt.

Throughout my life I had heard stories around the coffee table about how our family were "blacksheep" or "exiles" and that's how we wound up in America, I never found out exactly why until I did genealogical research, and to my dismay it was all because of a religious fiasco.

[Guapo]

I'm jealous after reading all of this. Most men in my family were just gamblers, alcoholics, womanizers and murderers, nothing magnificent. I guess there's one, Vojvoda Sindjelich, a paternal ancestor that blew himself up and hundreds of Turks in a battle. There's a very famous song about him which goes something like "you cut Turk's heads off that's why Serbs celebrate you". That's about it.