G2G: Question of the Week: Do you have any ancestors who were musicians?

Question

Do you have any ancestors or family members who were musicians? 

Please tell us about it with an answer below. You can also answer on Facebook or use the question image to share your answer with friends and family on social media.

Comments

Yes, many musicians in my family and I was a music major in college. My parents were professional bluegrass musicians in the 1970s-1990s. All past generations of my fathers family were musically inclined. My great-grandfather played the same Appalachian style banjo that I do and he often played for barn dances in Eastern Kentucky. The rest of the family all sang Appalachian ballads that had been handed down from the mid 1700s when various aspects of the family immigrated to the Appalachian region from Northern Ireland and Scotland.

My parents are in the center of this Photo. 

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How awesome!

Answer 1

Lots.  But what about descendants?  (I have 5 of those who are musicians of one form or another.)

Answer 2

My maternal grandparents played piano and banjo for dances in Saskatchewan in the 1940's and 1950's. My mother and her sisters would sing. Many of the venues that they played did not have their own piano, so grandma and grandpa would haul their own upright piano along. This well travelled piano now rests in my home.

Answer 3

This is a 1928 Red Lion, Pennsylvania high school yearbook photo of my second cousin twice removed, Wilton Hutton, standing third from the left.

He started his music career here, and he went on to play the trumpet with Sammy Kaye and Jerry Wade in the Big Band Era in New York City. 

Wilton’s career allowed him to travel to Europe and South America entertaining on cruise ships. He became the leader of the orchestra and musical director of the S. S. Brazil, a Moore-McCormack Good Neighbor Fleet liner sailing to South America. The Red Lion musician played the trumpet, sang, and was also a comedy performer.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hutton-5533

Comments

I never stop admiring your beautiful photos thank you my sweet friend for sharing

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Susan, I remember that you played in the band with your father. I’m so glad that you like the photo.

Wilton had two brothers that were also musicians, so this must have been a musically talented family. 

Answer 4

There is my brickwall ancestor Heinrich Schlegel who came from the famous musician village of Hundeshagen. However, it is not known (yet) whether he himself was one of those traveling musicians.

And of course, every German with a musical bone in their body aspires to be related to Johann Sebastian Bach.  Well, he is not my ancestor, but: My 5C5R Pastor Emil Georg Christian Petri (1850-1929) married Anna Marie Friederike Bach, a descendant of the Meininger branch of the Bach musician family. Her ancestor Johann Jacob Bach (1655-1718) was a famous musician himself and second cousin to Johann Sebastian. 

Answer 5

Wow! My family is full of musicians. Starting with my grandmother, Dorothy Ruth Boyd. She started piano lessons at age 3. In her teenage years she played theater organs at various cinemas along the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  She then studied at The Progressive Series Piano Insitute with Sir Arthur Edward Johnstone. She then began teaching piano, organ and voice until 1980 when she retired. Her three daughters were also pianists and organists - fun times at family gatherings when the sisters would go into the music studio and play.

My father is also musical with BA in music. He was in all the local theater musicals and plays.  He has also been on TV, movies and print ads.

All of my siblings are musical as am I. We had to be.

I even have a cousin who was a professional singer.

Answer 6

The only musicians I know of in my family are 2 of my brothers.  One played the trumpet in our high school marching band and the other played the french horn in our junior high school band.

Answer 7

My husband’s second cousin is Randy Travis. Randy Travis is my 6th cousin.

Karla Davis a contestant on “The Voice” is my third cousin.

Comments

So you're related to you husband, distantly.

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It happens more often than you'd think. I'm kin to half my husbands, and I'm batting .750 if stepcousins count. Technically, I could have met No. 1 at a family reunion instead of a friend's kitchen table.

The one I procreated with? We are not directly related, but we share dozens of cousins, which could be the case with Randy Travis here. I sent No. 2 and our daughter to my family reunon because I had to work, and he came back a little pale-faced because of the number of kinspeople he had there too. I had to color-code the tree for him to prove we were not kin.

Thinking I was dealing with a severe case of small town kinships, I went all the way to Indy for No. 4, and guess what? Yep, 8th cousins. My ancestor went south, his headed west.

Back to those small town kinships for No. 3, who happened to have been a talented musician. His color coding lights up like a Christmas tree. I was kin to him 4 times over, he was kin to my son-in-law a couple of times, and he had at least one link to Hubby 2; my beloved bass player had all the colors! I found out when his grandmother told me where to find the gravestones after giving me "the nod" as a granddaughter-in-law 6 months into the marriage.  His reaction? "Granny, I didn't want her to know. Now she's going to find everything!" She cackled, handed me a quart of her coveted canned pears, and told me where to find the criminal court records for He-Who-Survived-Hanging (and caused his whole line to be erased from all the family histories because he did a really bad thing to get hung in the first place).

That last one, where records and kinship lines were ignored for 3-4 generations by the family book writers due to shame? That's how cousins end up marrying each other right there!

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Yep, related. I think 6th cousins, He dated 3 of my cousins before he got to me. I knew of 2 my cousins that he dated already but he came to a family reunion and saw his ex girlfriend‘s mother. He said hi, bought up a bit. We had a good laugh about that. Luckily we’re just 6th cousins.

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I love it! Thanks for making me smile with this comment. My granddaughter helps with this tree - it's going to be hers someday. She also picked an Indy guy but he is not related (well, maybe). I'm going to leave his tree for her to do.

I get texts from the younger ones that go something like this: "is it okay to date a (insert surname)." Anything past 5th cousins 3x removed and the answer is yes. Obviously, we haven't left our place of birth since the 1820s and I have already researched her father's tree lol! He happens to be my 1st cousin 13 times removed. We got hysterical over that one, just could not stop laughing!

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My mother's family were in Pennsylvania from around 1720, when they arrived from Switzerland, until around 1848, when they started moving west. My great grandfather made the entire trip from Pennsylvania to Ohio, to Indiana, to Kansas, to California. I'm the 2nd generation born in Calif. I moved as a child, with my mother, from southern Calif. to northern Calif. I chose not to have kids, but my brother has one. They moved up to Washington.

Answer 8

There were several musicians in my family. My father played guitar, and mandalin as well as sang. My mother grew up singing in churches and cang with my father. I hear some of my grandparents also enjoyed playing instruments as well as singing. My connections do lead to a few of the Notable musicians as well. I am working on a Free Space Page for My Notables and their Specialties.

Answer 9

Not any ancestors that I know of but in a recent generation there is a professional musician - the son of my first cousin has recorded at least one jazz album so far and was nominated for a Juno award (Canadian music award) last year. Others in the family can sing or could play instruments.

Answer 10

My maternal grandfather’s brother was married to a German Opera Singer, Margarete Teschemacher, who was quite well known at the time. I created a profile for her (Teschemacher-26) but have been unable to connect her to anyone besides my Opa’s brother.

She was a soprano who sang at the Dresden Opera in the 1930’s

There are some links to old recordings in the profile, if anyone wants to listen to her sing!!

Answer 11

My Grand Uncle, Clarence Newman Fearnside was the organist at Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire, England and became the organist at Kirkwall Cathedral, Orkneys, Scotland until he died in Kirkwall in 1934.

His father, my Great-grandfather, Frederic Fearnside was an organist in Bradford and a Professor of Music.

Answer 12

I wasn't aware of any musicians in the family until I came across this photograph. That's my great-great grandfather, William Randall, on the left. His sister, Mary Ralph, is in the middle and two of her two daughters are on either side of her. I'm not sure who the couple to the right is. The picture was taken at Mesick, Wexford County, Michigan sometime in the late 1920s. 

  

Comments

Everyone played an interesting instrument.  Do you know what some of the more uniques ones were called?

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I'm not sure they all have names. The men seem to be using large wash tubs as drums. The lady to the right looks like she's holding one of those Victorian hearing aids you see in the cartoons, or perhaps an old victrola horn. The others look like a baritone horn (?), a violin, and a trombone.

Answer 13

Both my mother and great grandfather were church organists. My great grandfather had beautiful handwriting and copied musical scores with watercolor illustrations. He was from Manchester, England. When he came to the US, he continued to teach piano in private lessons. This is how he met my great grandmother. My sister has his upright piano. I grew up hearing my mother play organ in church. Her parents bought her a spinet organ and my sister still has it. My first cousin once removed was also a church organist. He also taught music at St Augustine’s grammar school in Cheshire, England England

Answer 14

Love this question! Both of my parents played violin as teenagers, but my dad continued till his shoulder joints gave out in his 60s. My mom was given her dad's violin as a teen, and played in her school orchestra till someone stole all of the students' instruments out of the band room (my grandparents could not afford to replace it). My grandfather played violin (and several other instruments) in a Hungarian gypsy band in  Pittsburgh as a young man but had little time for music after he got married. My maternal uncle (3 years younger than my mom) and one aunt (14 years younger than my mom) had piano lessons and my uncle- in his 80s- still plays. My maternal grandparents were fine singers as were my own parents and singing was an important part of my home life growing up. My maternal grandmother's father was very musically gifted, and could play pretty much anything he picked up. On my dad's side there were several cousins and older relatives that were musical, but my dad was the only one of his generation that followed his musical inclinations, though my aunts and uncle loved music and most folks sang- it was a family thing we all loved to do together. I remember my dad's maternal grandmother singing Danish children's songs with my grandmother at my dad's prompting when she was in her late 60s- they both had lovely voices, and it is a cherished memory. Folk music and music of Hungary and Denmark (lands of my grandparents), as well as the traditional dance music, was always being played in my childhood home, as well as classical music. My nieces and nephews are musical, as are the daughters of one of my nephews. I and my siblings all sing, and I play folk harp. Several cousins are musical.

Answer 15

Yes! The Bassano Family were renaissance musicians in King Henry’s court. The invented some of the first double reed instruments.

Answer 16

My 1st Gr Grandfather was a fiddler. He travel by horse back to many venues in Lewiston, Idaho, USA. Here is a picture of of a Portrait with 4 generations.



Four Generations: 1st Gen - Great Grandpa "Ferd" [[Roos-1420| Ferdinand Roos]] (Portrait), 2nd Gen - Grandpa Roos [[Roos-1412|John P Roos Jr]] , 3rd Gen - [[Roos-1409|Karl G. Roos]], [[Davidson-11019|Christina I Davidson]], 4th Gen - [[Roos-1411|Steve Roos]], [[Roos-1410|John Roos]] and [[Roos-1405| Carey Alexander Roos]].

Answer 17

My paternal grandfather was a vaudville musician, his grandfather immigrated as an opera singer/Watchmaker. My maternal great great uncle was Earle Scruggs, and Ricky Van Shelton is a cousin.

Answer 18

Many Acadians were musicians.  However, I did have one standout musician in the family.  He was Joseph Frederick Arthur Alfred (the French liked many first names) Bourque, my great granduncle.  He was born in 1865 in Quebec.

Fred played in the Barnum and Baily circus.  I don't know how long he was with them.  He is pictured and named in a 1988 photo taken in Sioux City Iowa.  Later that year he married and probably the traveling musician got a more regular job at home.  He was a machinist in 1900.  But in 1910 he was a musician in an organ shop, so he must have had a love of music.  It is unknown how successful he was in the music career to support his family because in 1920 he was a baker.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bourque-592

Answer 19

My Aunt, 2 sisters and I learned to play piano from my paternal Grandmother. She was a church organist for many years and studied at Syracuse University School of Music. She learned to play from her mother, my great grandmother - Martha (Gifford) Marvin (1876 - 1968).  I have memories of sitting on her lap as a child in her rocking chair.  I have that very same chair in my house today.

Answer 20

My first cousin once removed is Jack Kilty, a lovely famous baritone on the stage back in the 40s and 50s. And one of the first disk jockeys!

https://youtu.be/7g0ChGaTnoU?si=gjshGk0ZIBIpF0nD