Post Your Awesome Relatives

Well this came up in a discussion I was having on Reddit earlier, and I thought it might be cool to see what sort of interesting connections/ history this forum might have in their families. For me I'm going with my great uncle, Bryan Erb

From the article:
"While officially retired, Dr. Erb has continued to pursue his interests in the prospects of alternate energy sources. He was an Engineering Aerodynamicist with A.V. Roe (Avro) Aircraft at Malton doing thermal analysis on the Avro Arrow until 1959 when NASA recruited him for his expertise. He laid the concepts, as one of the original 8-person team, for what became Apollo, the only manned spacecraft to reach the moon. He was responsible for the technical leadership for several key elements of the Apollo spacecraft, including the Command Module heat shield. He managed the Lunar Receiving Laboratory during the early critical missions. Dr. Erb planned and managed important remote sensing experiments, including the first world-scale inventory of wheat using satellite data. He was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service medal for this accomplishment. He became Chief of the Earth Observations Division of NASA’s Life Sciences Directorate in 1979 and later was the Manager of the Earth Resources Program Management Office. Having maintained both his Canadian citizenship and broad network within NASA, Dr. Erb was pleased to be selected as the Assistant Director of the Canadian Space Agency’s Canadian Space Station Program in 1986. In this role, he represented Canadian interests at the Johnson Space Center and to other partners on the International Space Station Program. By 1991, Dr. Erb had become captivated with the potential of solar power from space and served as the President of the SUNSAT Energy Council for five years. He chaired the International Astronautical Federation’s Space Power Committee from 1998 through 2001. From 2000 through 2002, he instigated and managed the Canadian Space Agency’s Canadian Space Power Initiative. Dr. Erb took his B.S. in Civil Engineering at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, an M.S. in Aerodynamics from Cranfield Institute of Technology, England as an Athlone Fellow, an M.S. in Fluid Mechanics at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, an M.S. in Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA as a Sloan Fellow, and was awarded an Honorary D.Sc. from the University of Alberta. Dr. Erb is a prolific author and speaker with over 100 technical publications and major presentations including invited papers for meetings in Canada, Brazil, France, Italy, Mali, Ghana, Australia, and the United States. He was also a Lecturer at the International Space University Summer Sessions in Toronto, Huntsville, Houston, and Barcelona."

I laughed at the nose art

/Waits for FE

Molla(title) Ahmet Külüşlü




The man isn't such a big deal outside of the Yalova area, but here's what I got on him.

He is my great grandfather (GGF). One of three brothers and one of the two to create and take on the surname.

He was a merchant in the town of Kulus (not to be confused with the one in Azerbaijan), which was located I think in Greece... whatever it was called under the Ottoman Empire. Around the time of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, there were numerous militant groups acting "in the name of" their ethnic groups. My GGF sold supplies to many of these, including an Ottoman one. That group was betrayed by a spy to the Greek government. The group was arrested, and my GGF along with them. They were sentenced to death, the group for being militant (I have no idea whether they carried out attacks but I suspect so) and my GGF for associating with them. They were sent to a prison camp where they were subjected to the classic punishment of breaking larger rocks into smaller ones.

During this his time in the Hellenic Hotel, the soldiers guarding the site would occasionally strike the prisoners with the butts of their rifles. Fed up with the beatings and with nothing to loose, the last guy to do this to my GGF took a shovel to the head... then to his neck... then through his neck. Other soldiers quickly noticed and slashed the fellow to near death.

You can't execute a guy who is super beat or sickly, it wouldn't look good. They put him into a hospital, unaware of his pimptastic skills. A Bulgarian nurse tended to him, and she was also there against her will. She helped him escape back to his home village some time after the slashing where, as a community and religious leader (Molla), he influenced them to head East. The founding Turkish authorities would send ships to various lands to move people of ethnic groups to the regions they wanted to go to. Some were regrettably forced to such areas. There were deals with the other governments that these ships are Turkish territory, and that other nations had no business on them. My GGF's family and some followers went to one of these ships, which got stopped on its way out to sea. They were looking for him. The captain held his ground, told them they had no right to board, and the ship carried on its merry way.

He helped found the modern version of a town Northeast of Yalova, which was situated in some mountains. His descendants were to become Turkish rednecks. He had 6 wives in his lifetime, 3 of them were at once.

In short: He was a crafty badass, pimp, and a hero and savior of a sizable group of people..

Research is still in the works, but its possible that I am related to George Custer.
Based on a recent find, his family name was originally "Kuster" which is my mother's maiden name.

Aside from that though, my family has been pretty average joe since they got off the boats from their respective countries.

Fun little story though about my Grandmother's family- maiden name "Atella"
Her brother worked in a bank, and one day had a customer get irate at him and demanded his name. When he told her it was "Atella" she thought he was screwing with her and demanded to see the manager. Only after the manager confirmed that this was in fact his name....did the woman calm down. 

Also relatives of the same grandmother was a set of sisters, one was a nun, the other was a prostitute who was hit by a train and killed.

jmac3 wrote: I don't really know anyone famous or who did cool things at all.

Pretty average, though my dad's dad came from a family of 13 and they used to own a large saw mill until it burned down.

Theres also a story that i don't fully know but my mom had an ancestor who married a guy and decided to move away overseas and her sister got a letter from her in one place and then they were never heard from again, so it is believed they were lost at sea... kind of romantic actually but I forgot the details and thats just off the top of my head.

My aunt, aunt uncle, uncle, uncle, cousin, cousin, cousin, cousin are alcoholics.

I win.

Pfft, my family's boring.

I think I'ma have to be the one to make history for us.

Both my grandfathers served in WWII, but the closest either got to combat (as far as I know -- my mother's father was a mechanic in Europe and my dad's was a radio technician on the USS Firedrake) was a couple reconnaissance rides in an Avenger.

Although my (great) Uncle Harry also has some good history.  He's put up the flagpoles on most of the major buildings in Boston (including most of the federal and state buildings, and the Prudential Center).

My great-grandfather on my mother's side moved here from Greece, and none of our family knows much about the family before they moved to the US.

My family on my father's side goes back to at least the 1830's in Eastern Pennsylvania as heavily Lutheran Pennsylvania Deutsch (or Dutch, as they call them now, even though none of them were from Holland).


Edited by ParielIsBack - 18 April 2010 at 11:51pm

Psh. Jesus is my daddy.