Diplomats
Aberdeen, George Hamilton Gordon
George Gordon was the grandson of the 3rd Earl of Aberdeen. His mother died in 1791 and his father in 1795, leaving him in the care of two guardians: William Pitt the Younger (the ... [more]
Brooks-Randolph, Angie
Brooks was one of nine children, and her parents were forced by poverty to place her in a foster home where she was brought up by a widowed seamstress. Ambitious to become a lawyer, she ... [more]
Carlson, Richard Warner
Carlson, an adoptee, has been a journalist for United Press International and the three major US television networks, CBS, NBC and ABC. He has been a television presenter and news broadcast... [more]
Casement, Roger David
Casement was born into a mixed-religion family near Dublin. While the children were young the family lived in Ireland (then still under British control), France, Italy and Jersey, but his m... [more]
Chesterfield, Philip Stanhope
Stanhope was the distant cousin and godson of Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773), the author of Letters to His Son (1774) and Letters to His Godson (1790). When... [more]
Douglass, Frederick
Douglass was born in Maryland to a slave woman and named Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey; his father was white - quite possibly his mother's owner (a common practice). As a young child... [more]
Langston, John Mercer
Langston was born free, the son of a freed slave and a plantation owner, but he was orphaned by the age of five. He was then raised in both white and Black families and was well educated at... [more]
Roosevelt, Eleanor
Eleanor Roosevelt was born, the eldest of three children into a wealthy and prominent New York family (her uncle was President Theodore Roosevelt), but her mother and one brother died when ... [more]
Short, William
Short was the adopted son (or possibly protégé) of President Thomas Jefferson. He was born into a well-to-do planter family in Virginia. He helped found the US academic honor society Phi... [more]
Yoshida Shigeru
Yoshida's birth father, Takeuchi Tsuna, was a samurai noble, and his mother was his mistress, possibly a geisha. He was adopted as a baby or small child by his father's friend, Yoshida Kenz... [more]
