Have you discovered a (living) famous person in your extended family?

[Bellejazz]

That should read a common ancestor.  This is hardly surprising since 30 generations ago you will have had up to two to the power of thirty ancestors.  This is in the order of one billion ancestors.  I say "up to"  because many of them will be ancestors on more than one line.  A tree which shows just your direct ancestors will be a little large.

This gives me a headache 

 

- Belinda.

[trish1120]

hi everyone,

Hopefully yes, just waiting to receive a marriage cert. from N.Z. that my grandmothers sister was the grandmother of a very famous novelist. She married an Irishman and went to Ireland. Her grand-daughter if correct , the writer, was born in England early 1900's, and died a few years ago.

This has been a family fact/myth for several generations and will soon prove or disprove it.

Trish ( can't wait till I receive cert!!)

[toni*]

Catherine Cookson ?

[WHS1899]

Distantly, to Sophie Stewart, the Scottish actress, and her brother James, who was an MP and later became Sir James Henderson Stewart. Both now dead. I'm also told we have a family connection to the Australian actress Lesley Pearce (alive).....same side of the family as the Stewarts.
Beverley

[Burrow Digger]

I have a distant connection to Paul MacDonald.
He's "world famous, in New Zealand".

Paul McDonald, one of New Zealand's canoeists at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics who won several gold medals, is distantly related to my family only by marriage. Two of Paul's uncles married two of my fathers cousins.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_MacDonald

http://www.olympic.org.nz/Athletes/AthleteProfile.aspx?Print=&ContactID=1248&id=3774

[Comosus]

Nope - common as muck!

[Musicman]

Digressing ever-so-slightly (‘cos I don’t have anyone famous in my ancestry - and I feel left out!):  about 20-years-ago, there was a young lady working in the office next to me whose surname was Pinsent.  Facially, she had the same high cheek red colouring that Matthew has.  She told me that her father and Matthew’s father are cousins.

John

[Magrat]

Do any of you have famous ancestors?

I thought all mine were completely infamous, sorry, not famous for anything and it was true.  However I did discover that one of my ancestors is shown on the 1851 census as the cook to Henry Newton, artists colourman.  He is the very same Henry Newton who with William Winsor started the Winsor and Newton company, still one of the most famous of the paint and art supply companies in existence.  So ok my ancestor wasn't famous but she worked for a famous person!

Cheers
Magrat

[Matt R]

Hi Magrat, how interesting!!

My 6x great granduncle was the famous huntsman John Peel (Dye ken John Peel), from Greenrigg in Caldbeck. Sad to say, nobody up in Cumbria knows we are related yet!

Wonder what he would've though about the hunting ban

Reaybo.