Most of my grandfather's stories about his family began with "They got drunk and...".
My mom's Dad told me once that he nearly shot General Jan Smuts during the 1922 Rebellion in South Africa.
On my dad's side, there is a story about some ancestors in Scotland who ran afoul of the church for selling potatoes to the Irish Catholics. According to the story, when the local church leaders came to put a stop to this, the Campbells reacted by tossing them into a pile of manure. Needless to say, the family's denomination changed for a while. The story came to me verbally, but I've since seen it in a family history compiled in the 1920s, which was still a few generations after the fact. I don't know how accurate it is, but it doesn't surprise me.
My wife tells me that her mother's family has the distinction of settling on a nice patch of land in Southern Ontario many years ago....after driving the Indians off it with pitchforks.
A piece of that land has been at the centre of some unrest in the last few years. I'm sure Newt knows what I'm talking about.