OT: Your family claim to fame

My grandma always used to tell me I'm distantly related to Abraham Lincoln.  Who knows if that's true.

Clay Aiken is my 3rd cousin... nope can't take this post back now.

My great uncle pitched a 1 run game against the Tigers when he was with the Army team (during the Korean war)...and lost 1-0

My grandfather played high school football with George Gipp. Yes, the Gipper was a Yooper. Years later that same grandfather put up a few bucks to help keep the Packers alive. The share certificate is still in the family.

My dad was a scottish orphan and my mom's family comes from a two goat village in some mountain. Suffice to say, they had the best looking goats this side of Beirut, though.

My uncle played high school baseball with Tom Seaver and my soon-to-be-uncle was an All-Big 8 cornerback for Nebraska in the mid-60s. Also, one of my ancestors (actually a great-grat-great-great uncle, plus or minus a few greats) was General Joseph Wheeler, who was a Confederate cavalry commander and later a general in the Spanish-American War. Among the men in his command were General Leonard Wood, Lt. Colonel Theodore Roosevelt and Lieutenant John Pershing. If you've seen the movie "Rough Riders" he is portrayed by Gary Busey, which should give you some idea of what kind of person he was.

Edit: I left out one that I found out recently. My grandfather owned a manufacturing company that specialized in ladies' undergarments, and as a result he was the original manufacturer for Victoria's Secret. The guys who started the company came to him with their designs, and he told them he didn't really understand how to make what they wanted because he was used to making things for old ladies but he realized their potential, so he teamed them up with some of his young staffers who were fresh out of college and soon his factories were cranking out the original Victoria's Secret line.

My father wrote the last song played at Rick's every night. (At least while I was in AA - not sure what they play now).

My grandfather was the first player ever to letter in two sports (football and baseball) at Michigan State. He was also fraternity brothers with Frank Kush. He was drafted to play baseball for the Red Sox but decided to get a real job because the pay back then to be a ball player was so low. 

My grandpa was a first-alternate on the US 1936 Olympic swim team.  He was obviously in Germany for the olympics that year.  Never was able to meet the guy unfortunitely.   

My cousin tackled Mike Hart in high school.

I've traced my family roots back to about the mid 1700s in every direction hoping to find some cool facts...I got nothing.  I come from a long line of shoe makers, farmers, and middle class workers.  My mom's family just came to the US in the early 1950s though, so we havent' been here long enough to really do anything noteworthy in this country.  My grandpa was part of the underground movement against the Nazi's though.  You won't see his name in the history books, but as a teenager, he did a lot to disrupt their activities in his home country.

My wife's family however, I have traced to the Royal families in England, even to Leif Ericson.  Other famous people in her tree are U.S. Grant, Jimmy Carter, FDR, JFK, the guy who played Moff Tarkan in Star Wars, and Gene Roddenbury the creator of Star Trek.  Needless to say, I am extremely jealous of her pedigree with so many cool things.

Charles Manson is a distant cousin. Not sure how distant but my great grandma knew the connection. Can't really ask her. Same with Ricky Skaggs.

fought on the wrong side of World War II

My grandad's uncle through marriage won a Nobel prize in physics.

The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

and my grandpa was in the secret service.

My grandfather and Jim Tressel's mother are first cousins. I'm not sure what that makes him to me but oh well. She is buried in my home town of Ada Ohio. Dont judge me.