Does Your Family Have A Claim To Fame?

[Caran]

My grandfather put the first rivet in Blackpool Tower!
Can you beat that?

[Cloverjo]

I’m somehow related to David Livingstone. Or so I’ve been told through family history/folklore.

[Caran]

Also the old time singer Beatrice Lillie was related to my grandmother.
And the London store Maples supposedly had a connection.

[Buenchico]

I've been struggling to think of any great claims to fame from my (generally boring) family, Caran.

My uncle (on my father's side) was Essex County Chess Champion for many years in a row but that's just plain boring!

An uncle (by marriage) on the other side of my family was far more interesting but, rather than 'fame', I think that he'd probably not like too much publicity about his ability to nick stuff and get away with it! For example, he took a liking to a small stool in a nightclub and walked out with it. Over his next few visits, he gradually acquired a collection of matching small stools and then started on collecting the bar stools that also matched them. Eventually he completed his collection by managing to successfully nick not one, but two, matching sofas from the club!!! (Nothing much was safe when he was around though. He once got drunk at a family wedding reception and walked off with the wedding cake!)

[Caran]

Brilliant Chris, what a family member to have!

[tonyav]

Now that is an interesting uncle, Chris. Brilliant.

[Apc2604]

Yes, my great grandfather was the first captain to sail the south China sea with full Chinese crew and chart the trade winds. We had some documents to prove it, but they have got lost, but I still have his references. He ran away to sea aged 14 and was disowned and disinherited by his very rich family!

[Tuvok]

How about starting the California Gold Rush!

[Caran]

That is some claim to fame Apc.

[Peter Pedant]

no thank god ( no this is not meant to be a put-down)
I know a few children and grandchildren of nobel prize winners

and there is always the unasked idea of
why arent you as brilliant as your brilliant relation ?

Luckily I dont have any of THAT !

Darwin took his kids oudda school as he thought any creativity or originality was getting beaten out of them!

and for this one
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jocelyn_Bell_Burnell

"I havent had a bad career as the woman who should have got the Nobel Prize!" - described the first quasar and her thesis supervisor got it and not her

[Caran]

That's a good one Tuvok.

[Apc2604]

And my uncle (dare I say it) was the man who was responsible for 'Sing something simple' with the Adams Singers. Only oldies will remember this!

[Tuvok]

Apparantly for years a jar of gold dust sat on a mantlepiece - it got knocked down and broke and was swept up and put on the fire!

[Ken4155]

One of my cousins was an extra in the film, Whistle Down The Wind. He was one of the kids watching Jesus, aka Alan Bates, getting carted off by the bizzies. We gave him the nickname 'Blink' after that because if you blinked, you missed him :-)

[Peter Pedant]

// I’m related to David Livingstone. Or so ,,,,
ry/folklore.//

o come on you can improve this to

I’m somehow related to David Livingstone. Or so I presume .....

[MynameisLuca]

I've been told that my grandfather won an award for being the best carpenter in the world. I don't really believe it, as it was in the 1950's. He was brilliant though and I do have some of his skills, without training.

[Tuvok]

Went to a talk by Jocelyn Bell and she mentioned about not getting the Nobel Prize.

[Zacs-Master]

My great grandad spent 20 years looking for Leicester forest West services

[Caran]

Did he find it in the end?

[Toorak]

I worked at leicester forest east

[Canary42]

My great(x5000) grandmother and my great(x5000) grandfather were thrown out of the Garden of Eden for eating fruit off the tree of knowledge.