What’s the coolest thing you can say about one of your ancestors?

1. I am Australian and I found out that my great great great... Grandfather got sent here as punishment for a plot to assassinate the King of England.
   — SeanTheTre


2. An ancestor of mine fought in and was injured in the Civil War. Years later he died in an accident during a reenactment of the battle he was injured in
   — jmarsh642


3. My Dad circuit trained with Arnold Schwarzenegger before he landed his first movie role.
   — spoonybum






4. My grandfather grew up in the Soviet Union (Azerbaijan) and got drafted for WWII. He became a POW in a German camp pretty quickly and was there until the war ended (around a year later). At that point, Stalin was executing the POWs because they didn't escape or die trying. He and several others took the name of some dead Turkish soldiers who were previously POWs at the time. This allowed him to get sent back to Turkey rather than his home country. He never saw his parents again, and he didn't see other members of his family for several decades. I also have a Turkish last name, but I have no Turkish ancestry.
   — OutFromUndr


5. My great grandmother was the very first woman they allowed into medical school in Hong kong. It was back in the day. She was a doctor. My grandfather ( her son) became a surgeon. My uncle ( his son) is a surgeon. Unfortunately the 3 generation streak for becoming a doctor has been broken by me, my siblings and cousins. none of us have come close to wanting to become doctors. Sorry Dai Por
   — raquille-


6. My moms great grandpa fled to Canada from Italy because he killed a pedophile, who was the local priest.
   — Whoopa






7. As a 14 year-old Polish Jew in 1939, my great-grandfather had every reason to flee the Nazis as they swept into Lodz. His family fled east, only to be immediately captured by the Soviets. His father was involved in some sort of altercation with the Soviets, so they executed the father and sent my great-grandfather to a work camp in the Caucuses while the rest of the family were deported to Siberia. A year later, my great-grandfather, along with other prisoners, escaped from the work camp to Turkey on a makeshift raft. He somehow made his way to Ellis Island, NY as an immigrant. When he turned 18, he joined the US army's 99th Infantry division. He took part in the Battle of the Bulge and the liberation of Dachau concentration camp. Since he spoke Yiddish, Polish, German, and English, he was able to interview many of the concentration camp victims and testify during the Nuremberg trials. Edit: The part of his family that was deported to Siberia was never heard of again, neither was the part of his extended family who decided to stay in Lodz. Edit 2: After the war, he set up a bakery in Trenton, NJ, married another Polish immigrant, and had two sons. One son became a geneticist at CalTech and later Stanford. The older one, my grandfather, became a Radiologist at UPenn. My great grandfather died in Before I was born, but my family still looks up to him. TL;DR my Jewish great-grandfather escaped the Nazis and Soviets, and returned to Europe with the US army.
   — IlikeFOODmeLikeFOOD


8. Literally Ghengis Khan
   — CharCharThinks


9. My great great (maybe one more?) grandfather fled Germany after breaking into a food reserve during a famine. The local government would not hand out food so he fed the people in the town with the help of his sister and some friends. After that, they fled Germany and never saw each other again. There is a street named after him in the town he was from and the event is documented there.
   — verticon1234






10. My Gr-Gr Grandfather (my fathers name / family) was shipwrecked off of Newfoundland, on his way to Delaware. As an Orphan he stayed there. We did not find this out until we were living in Delaware (~86) and my Uncle on my mothers side did the family tree. On our street at the time were three families with the same last name.
    — geek66


11. My great great great great... grandfather is William Henry Harrison, the president who served only about 40 days.
    — michigandiscusbball


12. My great, great Grandad was a boxer who fought 245 times (he once had two fights in one day). In one instance, he finished work at Billingsgate fish market in London, took the train up to Liverpool, fought a bout, had his purse and clothes stolen and still made it back in time for work the next day. He was killed in the Somme in 1916.
    — bohicality






13. My great uncle worked as a brewer for Al Capone.
    — bensonsmooth24


14. My great-grandmother's cousin was Harry Houdini
    — dantooine1977