What a fun thread!!!!
Let's see. On my mother's side... we had moonshiners, doctors, convicted and hanged horse thieves AND an Irish white slave woman, abducted as a young teenager from her home in Ireland.. taken to a plantation in the south where she was bought by my ancester, one of the southern Baldwin clan. She made the most exquisite lace by hand. Baldwin ended up marrying her. They had children.... and 200 years later, I have the auburn hair and white skin of my ancestor. Happens about every other generation or so. Neat fact: Up until my grandmother's time, we still had a scrap of a hand knotted? tatted? lace collar she had made, sew into a quilt. The quilt, along with a lot of other furnishings, was donated to the American historial collection of the Smithsonian. We can trace those northern roots back to a Baldwin who was (one of?) Queen Victoria's medical physicians back in England.
The first frame house in New Hampshire, was also built by my family....it's now a small, state run historical site. Apparently, the New Hampshire Baldwins came over on the ship after the Mayflower (forget it's name). The wife of THAT Baldwin, wrote a diary about her crossing and early settlement experiences called, "A Cup of Tea in a New Land". Much later, her hand written memoir was typed up. Her original diary is somewhere in the Smithsonian, but I have a copy of the typed book. Way cool.
Some of the other things attributed to them:
Baldwin College
Baldwin Apples
Baldwin Pianos
In more recent times, my grandfather, Clyde I Swett, was an eminant doctor who did his residency during the Great Depression in Boston. The State of Maine put him through Medical school on the condition that he return to the state and serve as a doctor in rural country areas. Even though he literally traveled the world giving symposiums, speeches and stuff.... he always remained practicing in the northern Maine woods all his life. He became the first doctor to successfully re-attach a hand (and have the hand actually work after healing), the first doctor to reverse a vasectomy. He was also the Maine State Coordinator for the Civil Defense during WWII, a Silver Beaver awarded Boy Scout member (highest ever award), a Mason, a hypnotist, studied Roseacrucianism and did a host of other things.
However, I remember this eminant and well-known doctor... chasing me around the kitchen table, syringe in hand, to give me my immunizations! He also used vodka to clean a scalp wound I got one time. God, did that hurt like the dickens. lol. He was a large man, prone to laughter and living life large.
My father's mom/dad were Polish. Came to American on stolen? passports from Warsaw and nobody knows who they really were or how they got the money for passage during the start of WWII (late 30's). I used to fantasize that I was a Polish princess or something. Yeah... um....right.