I'm a genealogist, and found some interesting things when I did my own line. In more recent times, my grandfather was a rum runner and his father, my great grandfather had a mysterious life that involved "certain business dealings" with Joseph Kennedy said to be illegal, and a secret so big that he changed his (our) last name entirely and NO ONE knows why. I'm very good at what I do and I can't even figure out why we have a mysterious name change and cannot trace the line beyond him. All his families' records have been altered with conflicting facts, dates, places etc., in a clear attempt to not create a paper trail. He did very good covering whatever it was up!
On my mother's side, I have it traced back to the 1400's. My eleventh great grand-uncle was Governor John Winthrop, who founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His niece, my tenth great grandmother was notorious in the Colony, for having three husbands, being self sufficient, and also accused of being a witch at one point. She later moved away from the Colony and help to found Greenwich, Connecticut. It was virtually unheard of at that time for a woman to own property, so this was a pretty big deal.
Well there's my claim to fame. Oh yeah, and my grandfather was a semi-famous organist in his time who had a radio show and who played organ at the funeral of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's daughter. He also abandoned my grandmother and her seven children to go live his "life of music".
So pretty interesting ties, but notice they all have some sort of scandal attached!? I feel it's my duty in life to do something really scandalous to keep up with the family tradition. I'm open to ideas. LOL.
