Like many of you I so enjoy these tidbits of history. My own family is uneventful, Swedish and German immigrants from the late 19th century. Swedish GF dug 6' tile lines by hand across Illinois and Iowa. 100 years later the ditches are starting to be replaced. My father was a MP in WWII and guarded the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, top secret stuff at the time.
My DH's family on the other hand has ancestors coming on the Mayflower, Dutch immigrants in the 1600's, RW and CW soldiers and a CW battlefield nurse, a black sheep who drowned in the Ohio River, and a 3 time Pulitzer Prize winner for political cartooning in his family tree.
Be inspired by the good and forget the negative!