What has your family done?

Has anyone in your family left a mark in history? I was eating with my grandparents today and found out mine apparently did. My grandpa Ralph Frew was part of the team that invented dental sealants and also put fluoride in the water of the USA.

So apparently my grandpa is a closet millionare, my uncle, Joe Frew is the best dentist in Mt.Gomery county of annapolis and now my dads representing the spectrum branch of the national defense at nato.

I fucking have a lot to live up to

I don't know much about my family history (nor do I really care), but I guess our last name Kilgour, is royalty in Sweden. Back in the day, and I mean WAY BACK, King and Queen Kilgour ruled over Sweden. Castle Kilgour stands there, as a pile of rock most likely, to this day.

That's all I really know.

my family is royalty. And my grandpa built a road made out of stones that still is in working and perfect condition after 50 or so years.

My ancestors are a bunch of drunks from Ireland

I could care less what my family did. I make my own history.

Anyone can trace back to anywhere pretty much, if you go back far enough.

With me, for instance, if I go back far enough, I'm related to Lady MacBeth. She was Royalty, but none of that MacBeth stuff played out like Shakespeare made it out to be.

Hmm, let's see.

My father's family was apparently very wealthy in the Philippines because my paternal grandfather worked for the US Embassy and got paid in American dollars. They were the shit, had a huge house, a nice car, etc. etc. My aunties and uncles grew up to be selfish, conceited, materialistic assholes. Apparently, my grandpa sexually abused one of my aunties when she was like five years old (runs in the family, I guess?) and today she is psychologically unwell (doesn't ever speak, sleeps on the floor like a dog, shivers uncontrollably) and almost all of my family on my father's side is living in poverty since they moved to the United States because they were spoiled as shit and never learned to work for anything of their own. OH! And one of my aunties on my dad's side threatened my mother with murder when my dad went to jail. Why, I don't know, I swear to God all of my dad's side of the family is psychotic, selfish, and generally fucked up.

My maternal grandparents grew up in poverty in the Philippines. My grandfather was a man's man; he was a carpenter, a mechanic, and started smoking when he was twelve years old. He and my grandma raised a family of seven children, taught them the value of hard work and following your dreams, managed to send them all to college, move to the States, and watch their children become successful and raise families of their own. My grandmother, though she has never had a "real" job of her own, is the strongest, most hardworking woman I know, and I love her to pieces. She lost her mother when she was two years old, grew up with very little education, and still managed to become an awesome mother and grandmother herself. Every day she greets me from work/school by offering food, in that traditional Filipino hospitality. She turns 97 in two weeks.

tl;dr - My dad's family is a bunch of selfish, child molesting assholes, and my mother's family is made of hard work and awesome.

my mother's family is made of hard work and awesome.

This=win.

That also sounds like my mother's family. Her mom's father came to the States from Italy, leaving behind his family so he could work here and make enough money to bring his wife and daughter over as well. My grandma didn't really get to know her father until she was ~7 years old. My maternal grandfather's family is also from Italy. Grandma worked as a secretary and Papap worked in a steel mill in Pennsylvania. My grandparents didn't teach my mom or my aunt Italian because they wanted them to grow up completely American and my mom was the first on her side of the family to go to college. Her family is hard working, valued education and is awesome.

My dad's side has been in the US for idk how long. My dad's maternal grandfather started/owned Bastin Lumber Company in Lancaster, Kentucky and was also the mayor of the town for awhile as well. Now, my immediate family on my his side all lives in the Chicago-area. ~70% of them are lawyers, including my dad (also including the married-in members). They are basically arrogant, self-centered people who are always looking for some way to express how awesome they are at every turn and my aunt is the worst of them all. She's queen peach of the family, never misses an opportunity to boast, and lately I feel like she's rather fake mostly in her sincerity about being happy for other people. Get together for Easter: "We're all hoping you choose that school in Canada. *plastered on smile*" Now watch, once I'm the first in the family to have a PhD she'll be all like "Oh, my niece is has a PhD and works for [insert big name ag company here]."

So, yeah. My mom's family is also made of hard work and awesome. My dad's side... harmless arrogants who I think are completely nuts and much less awesome.

Unfortunatly my dads adopted so I only know my mothers sides history. From what my dad has leaked through though, my grandfather was an italian mafia hitman in NYC, my grandmother died from crack overdose while she was in jail. My grandpa actually came after my uncle john to 'take over the legacy', my adoptive grandparents called the police, never seen or heard of them again.

It's a shame theres so much tainted blood in our generation.

I'm apparently related to some famous football player.

Something or-other rice. Pretty sure it's not jerry. I don't know much about my mom/dad family history though. I'll ask them both once my dad gets back from iraq.

Nothing about me, but I knew a girl in my class who was related directly to William Bradford, from the Mayflower.

I guess I can brag that my parents lived through the Cultural Revolution in China, but that's about it.

My dad's family hasn't done much for the world, but has lived in the town I live in for almost 100 years. One of the main roads in our town was named after my grandpa's grandparents or great grandparents and you can see her in the graduating class composite up in the high school from 1927.

My family was slaughtered and turned into packaged food.

I await the same fate.

I never really got to meet my grandparents on my father's side, though I know they were very poor. My grandmother had killed herself when my dad was 4, leaving behind three sons and a husband. Joe, my would-be grandfather, worked diligently to raise them until his death by emphysema seven years later. My father, uncles, and their step-sister took care of themselves from then on and grew apart as adults (especially after my father passed away). Of my ancestors in this bloodline, I can say I'm related to gypsies in Europe, robbers, murderers, victims of suicide, and a Native American princess. Hell, the first of my family to settle in the U.S. (aside from my Native American ancestors) only came to escape the French authority in Rouen. As a whole, they've at least accomplished diversity.

Like my father's family, my mother's started out with barely anything to call their own. My grandpa and grandma both came from large families and had worked from young ages; they shrugged off hardships like rain on their shoulders. After WW2, my grandpa married my grandma and they started a great family in Pawtucket. I'm extremely proud of them. Aside from my immediate family, I have a cousin who serves as the assistant attorney general of RI (and is currently fighting to remove the "assistant" from her title) and an uncle who once was close to becoming the governor of RI.

I don't know much about my father's side of the family but I do know that his father died when my dad was 8 years old due to complications from WWII. He left behind my grandma and 4 kids leaving my dad to take care of the kids since he was the oldest. There were members on my grandma's side that died in the holocaust (they were from Austria or Lithuania). I don't really know much about my mom's side other than they are of German and welsh decent. We aren't really close with them so I don't know much.

Italian mafia. I am not kidding.

Only thing I know currently about my family and what theyve done is that someone on my mothers side appernelty worked on coding Mrs. Pac-Man

Italian mafia. I am not kidding.

Daillesi =/= Mafia name.

In Soviet Russia manual laborers were regarded as supreme, and intellectual labor of various sorts was on a lower rung. A bus driver received more money than a doctor. My parents, despite this, became a doctor and engineer, and also after a lot of work and luck fled the Soviet Union. We were "refugees," in that we left the country to escape oppression, (Russians don't like Jews very much,) and we were stuck in limbo, first in Austria then in Italy, and we didn't know where we'd end up. In Italy, for 1.5 months out of our 6 months there, we lived in the ghetto; my mom and my brother came out of the elevator, there was a druggie that was bleeding to death. My parents have recently gone to visit Italy, the whole place we were at has since been torn down.

While in Italy, I scavenged garbage dumps to find useful stuff for my family, ripping open garbage bags, sifting through the crap, and getting out before being seen. I was 9 years old. I found a lot of useful stuff, (including even a small TV that my dad repaired and that we watched,) but I also got a very serious stomach infection, and it basically felt like my stomach was being cut up by knives. We couln't afford medical attention, but my mom being a doctor was able to help me anyway. We had almost no money, so we took what little we had and bought food smartly, looking more to sustain ourselves rather than get anything tasty. After the 6 months, we were allowed into America, my dad started working 12 hour days while my mom retook all her medical exams at the age of 40, (foreign medical diplomates are not valid in the US,) and she was one of two in her class to pass them all from the first try. She also learned to drive, at the age of 40, and within three years of coming to the US we had a mortgage and a nice house in a good suburb of Chicago. My brother got into Northwestern, then into MIT for his PhD, and is now married, wiht a kid, and works for Harvard. I went to Georgetown and am editing my first book.

Maybe not as impressive as some others, but it's a fairly typical example of what people can do if they work their asses off. Which is why I love America as I do: so much opportunities for people that actually want to do so.