Once when I was about 12 years old, an American, who claimed to be related to my mother, came to dinner at our family home in north London. I had the impression that my parents had no idea who he was. He brought with him a file filled with papers, which he looked at while we were eating. During dinner, he turned to my mother, and said:

“You know you are related to Dr Albert Einstein.”

My mother thought he was pulling her leg, but the event remained in my mind.

Several decades later, I was researching my family tree. One of my mother’s ancestors, her grandmother was Hedwig Ginsberg (née Rieser). Hedwig’s grandmother was one Sarah Rieser, whose maiden name was Sarah Einstein. When I spotted this, along with her dates of birth, marriage, and death, I contacted two leading Einstein genealogists. Both were certain that Sarah Einstein was a blood relative of the famous physicist Albert Einstein. To cut a long story short, my mother was Albert Einstein’s third cousin three times removed – a relative, but not a close one.

Some years later, I was looking into whether Albert Einstein had ever applied to Albania for a visa so that he could emigrate from Nazi Germany. As part of my enquiries, I contacted an Einstein archive in Israel, mentioning en passant the nature of my relationship with the great man.

I received an email that confirmed what I had suspected. Namely, that Einstein never approached Albania for a visa.

Then came a blow to my ego. The lady who wrote to me from Israel pointed out that at the very most I shared only 1% of my genes with those of Albert Einstein.

Still, even 1% of such a genius’s genetic material must be worth having! What do you think?