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• Famous Ancestor: Aaron Burr

  5/6/2013 3:18:00 PM

  At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Burr took part in the invasion of Canada and the failed attempt to capture Quebec. Burr also participated in the Manhattan skirmishes and the Battle of Monmouth. After the war, he served in the New York State Assembly and then served as attorney general for two years. In 1791, he was elected as New York senator, defeating incumbent General Philip Schuyler, Alexander Hamiltion's father-in-law. Burr served as senator for six years, then spent two more years in the New York State Assembly from 1798 to 1799. He ran in the presidential election of 1800, along with Thomas Jefferson, incumbent John Adams, John Jay, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. Under the system at that time, the recipient of the majority of the votes was elected president, while the runner-up became vice president. Burr tied with Jefferson in the Electoral College, and then Jefferson was chosen as president by the House of Representatives. In 1804, when Jefferson was running for re-election, he dropped Burr from his ticket, so Burr ran for the governorship of New York. During Burr's campaign, Alexander Hamilton defamed him in the press. The insulted Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel: Hamilton accepted, and Burr killed Hamilton on 11 July 1804.

  To view Aaron Burr's Family Tree, login to OneGreatFamily, launch Genealogy Browser, and enter OGFN#500792438. You can also see whether or not you are related to Aaron Burr by going to the Relationship Calculator on the Family Dashboard Page when you login to OneGreatFamily. . You can also see whether or not you are related to by going to the Relationship Calculator on the Family Dashboard Page when you .

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• Famous Ancestor: Patrick Henry

  4/29/2013 3:12:00 PM

  Patrick Henry was born in 1736 in Virginia. He became a lawyer in 1757; he was a skilled and passionate orator, and an advocate for the cause of American rights. He first became well-known as a radical and revolutionary in 1763, when he was the defending lawyer in the "Parson's Cause," a case in which he argued against the royal power to veto colonial laws. In 1765 he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses and became its leading radical member, proposing the Stamp Act Resolutions and working to get them passed.

  Henry's famous words, "Give me liberty or give me death!" were spoken on 23 March 1775 in the House of Burgesses, when he argued that Virginia had to mobilize troops to check the movements of the British. The following month, royally-appointed governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, was growing nervous because of the revolutionary feeling in the colony, so he seized the colonial militia's stockpile of gunpowder. Henry led the militia, chased down Dunmore, and forced him to make payment for the stolen gunpowder. In 1776, Henry was elected governor of Virginia and continued to work for independence from the British.

  To view Patrick Henry's Family Tree, login to OneGreatFamily, launch Genealogy Browser, and enter OGFN#530995396. You can also see whether or not you are related to Patrick Henry by going to the Relationship Calculator on the Family Dashboard Page when you login to OneGreatFamily.

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• Famous Ancestor: Thomas Paine

  4/22/2013 3:08:00 PM

  Thomas Paine, a poor corsetmaker, came to the colonies from England in 1774, just in time to participate in the American Revolution. He published his famed pamphlet Common Sense anonymously in Philadelphia in January of 1776.

  Unlike earlier revolutionaries, who had criticized Parliament's taxation of the colonies but not the king himself, Paine attacked King George as a tyrant and denounced the institution of monarchy on the grounds that all men were created equal. He used Biblical language to condemn King George, calling him the "Pharaoh of England" and comparing his taxation of the colonies to the oppression of the Israelites by Solomon. He wrote:

  "But where, some say, is the King of America? I'll tell you, Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind...let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know...that in America THE LAW IS KING. For in absolute governments the King is the law, so in free countries the law ought to be the King."

  From 1776 to 1783, Paine published a pamphlet series entitled The American Crisis, in which he wrote the famed words, "These are the times that try men's souls," and argued for the revolutionary cause.

  To view Thomas Paine's Family Tree, login to OneGreatFamily, launch Genealogy Browser, and enter OGFN#596897443. You can also see whether or not you are related to Thomas Paine by going to the Relationship Calculator on the Family Dashboard Page when you login to OneGreatFamily.

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• Famous Ancestor - Nelson Mandela

  4/15/2013 12:12:00 PM

  Born as Rolihlahla Mandela, Nelson Mandela was given his English first name by a schoolteacher. He was the first president of South Africa to be elected in fully democratic elections and held office from 1994 to 1999.

  Mandela was born in 1918 in the South African district of Umtata. After studying law, he became politically active in the African National Congress (ANC) and worked to end apartheid. Although he initially advocated nonviolent protest, he became disillusioned with the effectiveness of nonviolent tactics and in 1961 he led a bombing campaign against government buildings. In 1964, he was arrested along with other prominent ANC leaders and convicted of sabotage and armed action against the South African government.

  He was imprisoned at Robben Island, just off the coast near Cape Town, for the next eighteen years. In 1982 he was moved to another prison; finally in 1990 he was released by South African president Frederik Willem de Klerk. That same year, the ANC's existence was legalized and Mandela was elected as the organization's official president.

  Mandela and de Klerk participated in a series of negotiations and peace talks, and they were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. On 27 April 1994, South Africa's first fully democratic elections were held and the ANC won 62% of the votes. As the elected leader of the ANC, Nelson Mandela became the first president of non-apartheid South Africa and led his nation into a new age of equality.

  To view Nelson Mandela's Family Tree, login to OneGreatFamily, launch Genealogy Browser, and enter OGFN# 598568281. You can also see whether or not you are related to Nelson Mandela by going to the Relationship Calculator on the Family Dashboard Page when you login to OneGreatFamily.

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• Famous Ancestor: John Adams

  4/8/2013 12:54:00 PM

  Second cousin to Bostonian patriot Samuel Adams, John Adams also opposed the Stamp Act and similar measures on the grounds that Parliament did not have the authority to tax the colonies because the Americans were not represented in Parliament. John Adams represented Massachusetts at the First and Second Continental Congresses.

  In 1775, at the second congress, he nominated George Washington as commander-in-chief of the newly-created Continental Army. In June of 1776 when Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed to the Congress of resolution for independence, Adams seconded the motion and continued to press for independence until the other members of Congress agreed. A committee was formed to draft a declaration of independence to send to London, and Adams was appointed one of the members. The Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Congress on 2 July 1776. The following day, Adams wrote to his wife Abigail:

  "You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet, though all the gloom...I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction."

  John Adams served as vice president to George Washington for two terms, and then succeeded him as president of the United States. He was in office from 1797 to 1801.

  To view John Adams' Family Tree, login to OneGreatFamily, launch Genealogy Browser, and enter OGFN#593888133. You can also see whether or not you are related to Samuel Adams by going to the Relationship Calculator on the Family Dashboard Page when you login to OneGreatFamily.

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