Present were descendants of Burwell Colbert, the slave who fluffed Jefferson's deathbed pillows, and Wormley Hughes, the head gardener, to whom Jefferson entrusted his exotic plants.
Also present were descendants of Lafayette, Rochambeau, de Grasse, and Steuben.
Sultan Sulaiman's family history has also been chronicled: Princess Sri Sulalai, a consort of King Rama II and mother of King Rama III, was descended from Sultan Sulaiman; present-day descendants include the 22nd Prime Minister of Thailand and a former Navy admiral.
Just a century ago, however, windmills by the hundreds of thousands dotted many of the same landscapes where their present-day descendants now loom.
When their present-day descendants can be located, you learn updates of the very American tales of immigrant families who moved on to Queens or Ohio or California.
The supernatural merges eerily with the mysteries of electricity, mirrors and doubles, but only in the parallel memoirs of the two illusionists and their present-day descendants are their multiple secrets divulged and their repercussions through the generations understood.
I somehow don't see the French agreeing to strip out all mentions of Bonaparte from their curriculum for fear of offending the present-day descendants of all those whom he butchered.
They were fixated, like so many peoples of antiquity, with gods, masculinity, sex and death – their present-day descendants might be guilty of just such obsessions – although life can be easier now.
Just as often they lend themselves to low-key, observational styles as in the work of the Italian neorealists like Roberto Rossellini and their present-day descendants like Abbas Kiarostami.
