While I have not yet found us closely related to any current celebrities you would recognize (although the odds are good, considering the size of our family), we have a few notable ancestors who were famous in their time:
Wallace Stevens - Pulitzer prize winning poet and insurance professional. We share a common ancestor, our 9th great-grandparents on our father's side, Jacques James Sellaire (Zeller) and Clothilde de Valois (who was famous in her own right). More on the Zellers in a future entry.
George DeBinder - personal physician of the Marquis de Lafayette, and served with Lafayette in the American Revolution. His son, Joseph DeBinder married the native American (Mohawk), Mary Bill. Their daughter, Ann, was Mary Dempsey Monaghan's mother.
Joseph Wambaugh - author of many true-crime and fictional crime books; his family and ours share the Wambaugh paternal grandfather, Louis "Napoleon" Wambaugh/Wambach who arrived in America in 1848 or thereabouts.
The Goodyears (originally Gutjar) - by marriage in the Buzard/Buzzard family.
Speculated but unconfirmed: The House of Valois - through as yet unsubstantiated claim by the Zeller family, though they are still quite enthusastic about it after 300 years!
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