Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, his wife Olivia, and two daughters Susan and Clara are living in Hartford, Connecticut in 1880, where he is listed in the census as "author," just 4 years after the publication of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and five years before the publication of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." 20 years later, he and his wife are still living there with Clara and their third daughter, Jean.
In 1900, George H. Ruth was a little 5 year old living with his parents in his native Baltimore, Maryland. By 1930, he was living in New York as a baseball player going by the nickname "Babe."
In 1920, 5 year old Joe DiMaggio was living with his parents, grandparents, and 8 siblings in San Francisco, California. You can also find old newspaper clippings on Ancestry about DiMaggio temporarily quitting baseball to fight in World War II.
Albert Einstein can be found on 3 passenger lists sailing into New York: in April 1921, listed as a professor of Hebrew ethnicity; in December 1930; and in October 1933, listed as a scientist.
Thomas Edison, as Alvah Edison, can be found living as a 13 year old in Port Huron, Michigan in the 1860 census. In 1900, Edison and his family are living in West Orange, New Jersey, where he is supporting them as a "general inventor."
The lists, of course, go on and on, depending on who you find interesting and who you want to find out more about. For added fun and a way to keep doing genealogy that interests you when your own family tree search has stalled, I like to trace the trees of these famous folk to see if their tree and mine intersect anywhere close at all (so far for me? Not really...not anywhere before the 1700s, anyway...) Pick figures who share the same ethnic history as you, and you can even do current figures (Brad Pitt? Madonna? Princes William and Harry?Brett Favre?)...if you can find their parents and/or grandparents on record, that's all you need to get started...
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