Not an ancestor quite, but P.T. Barnum is a distantly-related cousin. The genealogical research I’ve done has found conflicting accounts of the Barnum family tree and depending which is correct (assuming either one is correct), I’m something like a 4th cousin 4 times removed or a 2nd cousin 6 times removed to P.T. or something like that. (I don’t remember precisely.)

My grandmother was a Barnum by blood but adopted into another family in infancy. She met her birth mother once but didn’t get any information about her father’s identity. After her mother died, we made contact with some of her living mother’s-side relatives and got to know them. They were very gracious and welcoming, but they also had no clues as to my grandmother’s biological father’s identity. Ancestry DNA finally gave us a piece to the puzzle that narrowed the search for the identity of my grandmother’s biological father down to two brothers, both named Barnum. (One was a little closer to my grandmother’s mother’s age, so seems slightly more likely, but we can’t be certain.) My grandmother was in her eighties when she finally got some amount of closure on that particular family mystery.

Finding out my family is related to circus folk explains a lot, honestly. (Kidding. Kidding. That’s just a joke. Lol.)

There is presently a worldwide search being undertaken to find one of my ancestors, Luca.

You can find a bunch of video essays about it on YT https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=luca+ancestor

For sure. Here’s one of mine: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373595/

The made-for-cable documentary film The Real Eve is predicated on the theory that the human race can be traced to a common ancestor. The mitochondrial DNA of one prehistoric woman, who lived in Africa, has according to this theory been passed down from generation to generation over a span of 150,000 years, supplying the “chemical energy” to all humankind.

:P

My grandpa was half of an amalgamated character in The Devil’s Brigade. Un real life, there were more than, like, twenty of them, so they ‘merged’ my grandpa and a couple of his friends into one character for the movie. It’s weird seeing my grandpa die heroically during the Monte La Difensa campaign in the movie, when he actually lived into his 90’s.

I guess that’s kinda famous?

At least one of us has to have some Genghis Khan in them

Yep.

edit: two signers of the Declaration of Independence (plus, a founder of Dallas, TX; a prominent aviator in the 1900s; and one of the inventors of Indiglo© — though I’m unaware of movies, etc. made of their lives).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Walker_(abolitionist)

A great, great, great, great grandparent.

Not famous, but potentially interesting: ancestor fought in USA war of independence… for the other side. He had to move to Canada after the war because of harassment. His barn was burned down.

Does porn count?

I’m related to the infamous 12th century profit Thomas the Rhymer and Admiral Byrd who discovered the largest volcano in Antarctica … It would make a great crossover episode

I mean, I have a few relatives famous enough that there could have been a documentary made about them. But I don’t know of any actually existing.

Sort of, I have an ancestor that was a member of The Hunters of Kentucky that fought under Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812. Most notably he fought in the Battle of New Orleans. I also have ancestors who were members of the Logan Wildcats and the Hatfield clan but none that directly participated in the feud.

I’m related to Jesse James (the old west train robber, not the TV guy born in the 60’s) so that’s pretty ripe material for a documentary if one hasn’t already been made.

I bet one or two people might, yes.

Probably but I’m sure as hell not doing the research to find out.