Cool Things Your Ancestors Have Done

My ancestors came to USA from Europe during the great wave in the early 1900's. Grandpa was a janitor at a local high school and grandma worked in the textile mills. I loved them just the same.

 

My anunt is a recording artist
http://www.catherinehowe.co.uk/

My great great grandfather invented the steam plow (Savory)

 

That's really interesting.

 

I invented the question mark.

 

Great grandfather patented a process for extracting gold from low grade ores. I have a picture of him outside the family gold mine explaining the process to Thomas Edison.

 

Thats awesome

 

Whoa!! Do you have any info on it I could read somewhere?

 

On the process, the mine, or the photo?

Some info ...
http://www.angelfire.com/sc2/tokenofthemonth/token006/
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~sclancas/history/hailegoldmine.htm

 

That answered my question, thanks! That's fascinating stuff I love gold mines. Got 2 placer mines here in AZ.

 

Did he know Jacob Beser? One of my strangest flea market finds was running across a framed, 8 X 10 b&W photograph of a uniformed guy standing in front of the Enola Gay. The picture was taken during the war. I looked at the picture and didn't recognize the guy at all. Then I noticed the autograph at the bottom of the pic. It was Jacob Beser. This name would not have meant anything to a thousand people who might have glanced at the picture at the flea market. But I recognized the name and bought the picture for $5. Jacob Beser was the radar specialist aboard the Enola Gay AND Bockscar during both atomic bomb missions over Japan. He was the only crew member to fly on BOTH missions. And there was his picture, sitting in a frame, for $5 among other junk at the flea market.

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

 

I've heard there are some low grade ' ' ores who can extract gold from rich old grandfathers!

But seriously,...my ancient ancestors started Ferrarichat. Unfortunately, they were ahead of their time because this was long before the invention of computers and the internet.
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Wrote a version of the bible.

 

I heard some cool things from coworkers today that remined me of this old thread.

Any new stories out there?

 

I'm related to Cecil B. DeMille.

That's all I gor

 

Related (distantly) to Samuel Clemons and William Tecumseh Sherman on my mother's side.

Great, great, great uncle was also a Union soldier and wrote a couple of books about it as well. My grandmother was a Surby.
Amazon.com: surby: Books

 

My fathers side of the family, Travis, makes me a direct descendant of William Barret Travis, Texas commander at the battle of the Alamo. My father is named after his first son Charles Edward and I have verified this relation through a genealogist.

 

Died of tuberculosis.

 

Ones like this sure make you think, "what if..." And the incredible odds it is that we're even here. Wm Travis dies very young, good thing he had Charles before he went to defend the Alamo!

 

So true.

 

My grandmother made flags for the Nazis during the war.

Years later. she immigrated to the US and made the flags that went to the moon on Apollo 11. I have a letter on NACA letterhead thanking her for her services.

I don't believe they ever knew she made the flags for the Nazis during WW2.

 

And my dad was on the LST with MacArthur when he returned to the Philippines. A copy of his photo was donated to the MacArthur museum by us. He was also at Hiroshima after the bombing.

 

No doubt she probably did not have a choice back then, in my opinion of course, but she made amends and I am sure you are very proud of her. Nice contribution, thank you.

 

Thanks. It's a good thing she had her own seamstress business. She kept my uncle out of the Brown Shirts.

My grandfather was in a Russia POW camp for five years.

Everyone learned English and became proud and productive US citizens after the war.

This is a wonderful country.

 

Well said.

 

I don't know if it's cool, my great, great grandfather William Howard was the Quartermaster on Blackbeard's ship. My other great grandfather was a master stone mason from Italy and when he came over, he helped build a lot of the churches in Manayunk Pa, and this little military post that is right around the block from me in Bala Cynwyd Pa.

Jim