My Son and Iron Man

A few months ago, my son went to the Avengers movie with his girlfriend and best friend.  

Chris (Iron Man), Makayla (Hulk), Matt (Captain America)

He had always liked Iron Man up to that point, but that movie created an obsession.

Suddenly everything was about Iron Man.

Chris in his tux for prom

Four days after he graduated from high school, we dropped him off at college.  His first assignment in his English class is to write about himself.  He wrote about Iron Man.

While Chris has been away at college, I've been collecting family history stories for my blogs.  Even though my husband is mostly English, he is one-fourth Swiss.  I was curious to see how far back his Swiss line went.  Turns out pretty far.  

Ignore where it says "Living." This is a record-keeping error.  I assure you they are no longer living.

I couldn't find any more information so I decided to quit and relax by watching my favorite show.

I picked a random episode on pbs.org and began to watch.  It was an episode I had seen before so I wasn't really paying close attention, it was more like background noise.  When suddenly I heard something that made me stop everything else I was doing.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. said, "Your mother's mother's line goes back 600 years all the way back to the 1300's.  The oldest ancestor we were able to identify was Ruolf Guth, your sixteenth great grandfather."

Wait, what did he just say?  Didn't I just read that name?  I quickly went back to my husband's tree.  The names were spelled slightly differently but the years and places matched.  I looked a little further and sure enough, he was talking about the very same line.

Are you wondering who the celebrity was who Henry was speaking to?  

That's right.  Robert Downey, Jr.

As in, Iron Man.

I couldn't wait to call my son and tell him that his seventeenth great grandfather was the Iron Man's sixteenth.  His response?  "Cool." I think that is teenage code for "Wow!  How exciting that I'm related to the actor who portrays my most favorite comic book hero ever!"



You can watch the segment below.

Watch Robert Downey, Jr. and Maggie Gyllenhaal on PBS. See more from Finding Your Roots.

Ruolph Guttan (1370- )

My Son's Seventeenth Great Grandfather

Christopher William Pack --> Bradford William Pack --> Patsy (Pat) Marilyn Fresh Pack --> Marie Johanna Maurer Fresh --> Elise Bachofen Maurer --> Maria Paulina Gut Bachofen --> Johannes Gut --> Johannes Gut --> Johannes Gut --> Rudolf Gut --> Kaspar Gut --> Hans Heinrich Gut --> Hans Gut --> Hans Gut --> Jacob Gut --> Welthi Gut --> Hans Gut --> Klaus Gut --> Welti Gut Guttan--> Ruolph Guttan