Where Are They Now: Modern Day Descendents of 10 Historical Icons

1. Adolf Hitler

German dictator, Adolf Hitler, is one of the most renowned mass murderers in the history of mankind; luckily, he expired in mid-1945. However, 65 years later, Hitler’s bloodline still runs in 39 living descendents. Three of the Fuhrer’s descendants live in Long Island, New York under the name Stuart-Houston, with explicit instructions from the American government not to procreate. The other 36 live in Austria, mostly in the Waldviertel region. Allegedly, many do not know the truth of their lineage.

2. Napoleon Bonaparte

His military campaigns still studied to this day, Napoleon Bonaparte is considered a brilliant if inauspicious military leader. His genes may have been useful in recent war campaigns. Or maybe not. Napoleon’s last living relative, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, died in 1945 of a fatal injury that he acquired when tripping over the leash of his own dog.

3. Ernest Hemingway

Author Ernest Hemingway is known mainly for the books students are forced to read in high school: For Whom The Bell Tolls, A Farewell To Arms, The Sun Also Rises. After committing suicide in 1961, he left his seven living relatives in different shades of scandal; fighting over the $7.5 million estate was the least of the family’s dirty difficulties.

4. Harry Houdini

Notorious magician, Harry Houdini, was a mystery from the moment he was born. His death provoked an investigation by one of his living relatives, George Hardeen, on suspicion that the magician was poisoned. Mr. Hardeen has recently been knocking on doors to get permission to exhume his great, great uncle’s grave. It seems that the taste for publicity was inherited, even if the results are not as palatable.

5. Joseph Stalin

The notably tyrannical rule of Russia reached a terrible momentum under the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. His death caused an international collective exhalation of breath, and this included that of his only daughter – Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva, now known for defecting from the Soviet Party in 1967 as well as her writing. Currently, she is living in Wisconsin, USA under the name of Lana Peters, with one of her two daughters.

6. Albert Einstein

Since the death of the renowned physicist Albert Einstein in 1955, the remaining relatives have been hiding from Einstein idolaters and trying to live a life distanced from their famous ancestor. Spectators from all sides are trying to find that spark of genius inside the minds of his secretive relatives.

One such direct relative, Einstein’s out-of-wedlock daughter, disappeared into a fog of mystery and has been lost to genealogy historians. The only one of the family willing to talk is Albert Einstein’s adopted daughter, Evelyn. She tells of the current family members, spread out in the wide world: Thomas Einstein is an anesthesiologist in California; Paul Einstein is a violinist in France; Ted Einstein is a college dropout and mason living in Los Angeles; Mira Einstein is a musician in Israel; and PR and spokesman expert Charly Einstein lives in Switzerland.

7. Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde, author of the dark and atmospheric novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, suffered a dramatic death of destitution and scandal in 1900. His only grandson, Christopher Merlin Vyvyan Holland, changed his last name to distance himself from his grandfather’s humiliation. Holland’s only child, Lucien, is a computer programmer.

8. Jane Austen

Jane Austen, an author recently re-popularized by the book, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, really rakes in the money post-mortem. Her books inspired tons of films and contemporary retellings of her stories. She has one famous 8-times great niece, actress Anna Chancellor, who played Caroline Bingley in the 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice.

9. Vlad the Impaler

Vlad the Impaler, also known as Vlad Tepes, was the inspiration for Dracula but has also long been known as a real person. However, just as his life was shrouded in mystery, so was the life of his descendants. The flamboyant German socialite named Ottomar Rudolphe Vlad Dracul Kretzulesco claimed to be related to Dracula and lived in a medieval castle near Berlin. He exploited his Dracula lineage up until his death in 2007.

10. Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan, militant ruler of the Mongol Empire, governed much of Central Asia upon unifying the nomadic tribes of the area. After he died in 1227, his empire was divided between his four sons and many grandchildren, who lost no time in their own kind of unification. To this day, it is supposed that 8% of all Asians are descendants of Genghis Khan.