Another Cousin Pops Up on Facebook

My second cousin Kate Keller has done more to advance my family history research than any other individual. Her genealogy page on FamilyTreeMaker 15 years ago was the first site I ever found that had information on MY family. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw my grandparents written up on the internet. That was in the year 2000 when I'd only owned a home computer for 2 years and had just started my family history research.

Last year Kate created Family Groups on Facebook for many of her/our ancestral lines. One of those is for Descendants of Philippe Du Trieux (1676-1759) who is my 7th great grandfather. Yesterday I saw that Tammi Truax posted this photo of Sarah Truax, "an American actor whose career began in the mid-1890s and lasted well into the twentieth century."

I'm not very familiar with my Truax ancestors and didn't know there was an "Actor" in the family. So I was curious how I might be related to this Sarah Truax.

At iMDB.com I found this brief bio about Sarah: 

I didn't have Sarah in my RootsMagic database, but by searching at FamilySearch.org, I was able to fill in some blanks and determine my relationship with Sarah as illustrated in this chart. 

Sarah Addie Truax is my 5th cousin, 5 times removed, or as I like to say, my 5th cousin, 5 generations back. She and my 3rd great grandfather were 5th cousins. Thank you, Kate Keller and Tammi Truax for giving me the opportunity to discover this cousin of fame in the theater from the last century. 

My Cousin, Robert Truax, Top Rocket Scientist

A headline in the New York Times September 29, 2010 said “Robert Truax, a Top Rocket Scientist, Is Dead at 93.” That article caught my attention because I have a 4th great grandmother named Sarah Truax (1775-1850).

As I read the information about Robert, this is what I learned: “Mr. Truax was one of the premier rocket scientists of the 20th century. He was a career naval officer lent to the Air Force for top-secret projects, and later was a corporate aerospace executive and an entrepreneur. His early research for the Navy laid the foundation for the liquid-propelled rockets that are the centerpiece of American space efforts, and he was a leader in developing the Thor, Viking and Polaris missile programs.

When Wernher von Braun and other German rocket experts came to the United States, Mr. Truax led the team that debriefed them. As president of the American Rocket Society, he was an early, vigorous advocate of the American space program.

The Encyclopedia Astronautica called him “one of the great originals of American rocketry.” In an interview, Rick W. Sturdevant, an Air Force historian, called him “an artist when it came to rocketry.”

In 1953, he developed a concept for putting long-range missiles on submarines. Some say the Polaris missile emerged from this work.

Mr. Truax was more modest: “I just like to go out and play with rockets.”

Robert Collins Truax’s 7th great grandparents, Philippe Antoine DuTrieux and Susanna du Chesne are my 9th great grandparents. So Robert is my 8th cousin, twice removed. It’s always nice to be able to learn more about a cousin by reading a published article in the New York Times.