I was in my doctor's waiting room the other
day and while waiting to be seen I saw a copy of
Hello! Magazine dated August 1, 1992. To be
honest a rather glamorous picture of Whitney
Houston made me pick it up, but what 1 found
totally fascinating was an article on descendants
of famous and infamous Americans. A few of those
featured include Susan Brown, who drives a school
bus, and is a descendent of Abraham Lincoln; and
George Armstrong Custer IV, a landscape designer,
who is the great-great-great grandson of General
Custer. Among the infamous there's a descendent
of the notorious Dalton Brothers, who ironically
earns a living as a private detective. The great-niece
of AI Capone lives in France, but she's not at
all proud of being a relative of the 1930s
gangster. Prairie Rose Little Sky is quite
determined to become a biology teacher and as she
inherits the genes of her ancestor Chief Crazy
Horse the Sioux warrior, no doubt she will.
Curiously enough in November the Telegraph
Magazine had a similar feature. Laura, Emmeline
Pankhurst's great-greatgrandaughter, is
apparently obsessed by her Barbie dolls; Charles
Dickens great-great-great grandson Harry Lloyd (an
Eton schoolboy) says "I was always aware of
him but I didn't realise how famous he was, I
just thought he was this old geezer who wrote
books". None of the present Duke of
Wellington's children has a passion for military
warfare, so another family tradition has come to
a full stop.
If you've got a famous ancestor let me know
and perhaps we'll be able to tell your story in a
forthcoming magazine.
