William Jones, governor of Rhode Island was an uncle,
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Jones-699
and Nathaniel Edwin Harris, governor of Georgia and very involved with the history of Georgia Tech, was a cousin.
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Harris-16307
(That took DNA and breaking a brick wall to work out.)
And family lore says my Granny Jackson was of the same line of Irish Jacksons as President Andrew Jackson, but that can probably never be proved one way or the other. Jackson is distinguished as having the least understood paternal line of any president.
Another broken brick wall, finding my 6x-great grandmother, turned out to simultaneously break a brick wall for Beto O’Rourke, who descends from her sister (but he doesn’t know about the favor I did his family genealogy!)
My grandfather was an elected official — member of the school board of Long Beach, California for many years. I have some stories there, like the teacher, just starting her career, who disciplined my mother for talking during class, then freaked out when another teacher told her that she had disciplined the daughter of a school board member. That was a different time, and when a teacher disciplined a student, the parents figured they deserved it and didn’t take issue. But the teacher didn’t know that my grandfather approved! My mother still feels bad about that.
And also according to my mother, my grandfather was approached by Republican Party officials to see if he would run for his US Congress seat. He said no, and supposedly the big reason was that the incumbent Democrat, his presumed opponent, was his friend from Scottish Rite. Again, a different time.
