MEMBERS OF THE ASTOR FAMILY

This thread includes every prominent member of the Astor Family and their connections to other families of the cabal and organizations. Each member is listed in order of birth.

Jan 20, 2023

The Astor family comes from the infamous Rhineland area that I have talked about many times in my threads. Rhineland is known as the ‘cradle of Jewish life in Europe’, when Ashkenazi Jews moved from Babylon to Ashkenaz to Rhineland around the year 1000 AD. John Jacob Astor moved to America in 1783 and became one of the wealthiest Americans due to his cabal connections. One of his sons, William Backhouse Astor, married into the Livingston Family, which can be traced all the way back to the Knights Templar and the creation of Freemasonry. I talk about this in my ORIGINS OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR thread.

Connected Bloodlines

Chanler
Harriman
Jay
Livingstons
Obelensky
Roosevelts
Stuyvesant
Vanderbilts
Warburg
Wilson
Windsor

Connected Organization

American Red Cross
Children's Aid Society
CIA
Four Hundred
Freemasons
German Society of the City of New York
Milner's Kindergarten
New York Stock Exchange
Pall Mall Gazette
Peithologian Society
Philolexian Society
Rough Riders
Tammany Hall
Theosophical Society

Members

John Jacob Astor (1763 - 1848) - He was born in 1763 in Walldorf, a town near Heidelberg in the Electoral Palatinate, which is in the present-day German state of Baden-Württemberg. He was a German-American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor who made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by smuggling opium into China, and by investing in real estate in or around New York City. Astor belonged to the Freemasons, a fraternal order, and served as Master of Holland Lodge #8, New York City in 1788. Later he served as Grand Treasurer for the Grand Lodge of New York and was president of the German Society of the City of New York from 1837 to 1841. Astor began buying land in New York City in 1799 and acquired sizable holdings along the waterfront. The property ran west of Broadway to the Hudson River between 42nd and 46th streets. That same year, and the following year, he bought considerable holdings from the disgraced Aaron Burr.

William Backhouse Astor Sr. (1792 - 1875) - He was an American business magnate who inherited most of his father John Jacob Astor's fortune. His massive investment in Manhattan real estate enabled major donations to the Astor Library in the East Village, which became the New York Public Library. At Columbia, he was a member of the Peithologian Society and Philolexian Society, both undergraduate literary societies. On May 20, 1818, William married Margaret Alida Rebecca Armstrong (1800–1872), the daughter of Senator John Armstrong Jr. and Alida Armstrong and sister of Horatio Gates Armstrong. Her mother, a member of the prominent Livingston family, was the youngest child of Judge Robert Livingston and Margaret Livingston. The Livingston family are descendants of the Knights Templar.

Alexander Livingston of Callendar (? - 1451) was a Justiciar of Scotland, and keeper of Stirling Castle for at least part of the king's minority, during which he had custody of the king. He conspired with William Crichton, the Lord Chancellor, in the assassination of the 6th Earl of Douglas and his brother, David, at the "Black Dinner" at Edinburgh Castle. Later he allied with the Douglases against Crichton. Stirling Castle was owned by the Knights Templar / Freemasons of Scotland.

Charles Astor Bristed (1820 - 1874) - was an American scholar and author, sometimes writing under the pen name Carl Benson. He was the first American to write a full-length defense of Americanisms and is the earliest known person to use the term "conspiracy theory". Bristed made the earliest known use of the term "conspiracy theory," in a letter to the editor published in The New York Times on January 11, 1863. He used it to refer to claims that British aristocrats were intentionally weakening the United States during the American Civil War in order to advance their financial interests.

William Ewart Gladstone, the UK Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and a senior Liberal leader, had grown wealthy through the ownership of slaves in the West Indies. He strongly spoke out for Confederate independence. When the Emancipation Proclamation was announced, he tried to make the counterargument that an independent Confederacy would do a better job of freeing the slaves than an invading northern army would. He warned that a race war was imminent and would justify British intervention.
During the Civil War, several British arms companies and financial firms conducted business with Confederate agents in Europe, supplying the Confederacy with badly needed arms and military wares throughout most of the conflict, in exchange for Southern cotton.

John Jacob Astor III (1822 - 1890) - His deeply religious wife Charlotte supported the newly formed Children's Aid Society and sat on the board of the Women's Hospital of New York, an institution that to her dismay refused to accept cancer patients. She persuaded her husband to donate $225,000 to erect the New York Cancer Hospital's first wing, the "Astor Pavilion." For twenty years, she supported a German industrial school.

John Winthrop Chanler (1826 - 1877) - A Democrat affiliated with Tammany Hall, Chanler was member of the New York State Assembly in 1858 and 1859. He was nominated for New York State Senate in 1860 but declined. He was known for his censure on May 14, 1866 for an insult to the House of Representatives. The censure stemmed from a resolution he introduced expressing support for the vetoes of President Andrew Johnson, in which Chanler called acts of Congress vetoed by Johnson "wicked and revolutionary," and called House members who overruled the vetoes "malignant and mischievous."

Caroline Schermerhorn Astor (1830 - 1908) - was a prominent American socialite of the second half of the 19th century who led the Four Hundred, a list of New York society during the Gilded Age. Ward McAllister coined the phrase "the Four Hundred" by declaring that there were "only 400 people in fashionable New York Society." According to him, this was the number of people in New York who really mattered; the people who felt at ease in the ballrooms of high society.

Matthew Astor Wilks (1844 - 1926) - He torn down the various mixed buildings and commissioned architect Charles W. Clinton to build a ten-story Italian Renaissance revival building, known as the Wilks Building, from 1889 to 1890 at 15 Wall Street in New York City. The building, located at the corner of Wall Street and Broad Street, was torn down in 1923 in order for its adjourning neighbor, the New York Stock Exchange, to expand into what became known as the New York Stock Exchange annex, designed by Trowbridge & Livingston.

DeLancey Astor Kane (1844 - 1915) - In 1892, both Kane and his wife Eleanora were included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred", purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times. Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom.

William Waldorf Astor (1848 - 1919) - In 1882, President Chester A. Arthur appointed Astor Minister to Italy, a post he held until 1885. He told Astor, "Go and enjoy yourself, my dear boy." Astor made several business acquisitions while he lived in London. In 1892, he purchased the Pall Mall Gazette, and in 1893 established the Pall Mall Magazine. In 1911 he acquired The Observer a national newspaper. In 1897, John Jacob Astor IV replaced his mansion with the Astoria Hotel, which was operated as an extension of the William’s Waldorf Hotel; the complex became the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He continued his philanthropic activities, like his father. Among the charities he supported were The Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the British Red Cross Society, and King Edward's Hospital Fund.

Augustus Jay (1850 - 1919) - He was an American diplomat and member of the prominent Jay family and Astor Family. His paternal grandfather was Peter Augustus Jay, a member of the New York State Assembly and Recorder of New York City, and grandson of John Jay, Founding Father and first United States Chief Justice. On October 3, 1876, Jay was married to Emily Astor Kane (1854–1932),

John Innes Kane (1850 - 1913) - Kane was a grandson of Walter Langdon and Dorothea Langdon and a great-grandson of John Jacob Astor. In 1912, the Kanes traveled to Egypt with J. P. Morgan. Kane belonged to the Union Club, the Knickerbocker Club, the New York Yacht Club, the Metropolitan, the Whist Club, St. Elmo, the South Side Sportsmen's Club, and the Automobile Club of America. The Kanes attended Alva Vanderbilt's famous March 1883 masquerade ball christening the Vanderbilt's new Petit Chateau on Fifth Avenue. In 1892, several members of Kane's family, but not Kane and his wife, were included in the society known as the "Four Hundred".

James Roosevelt Roosevelt (1854 - 1927) - He was an American diplomat, heir, and the older half-brother of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States. On November 18, 1878, Roosevelt married Helen Schermerhorn Astor (1855–1893).

Woodbury Kane (1859 - 1905) - He was a cousin of Lt. Col. John Jacob Astor IV. Woodbury entered Harvard College in the autumn of 1878; during university he was a member of the Hasty Pudding and Porcellian Clubs and other organizations. While at Harvard he became a close friend of Theodore Roosevelt. He was also a member of Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders.

Marshall Orme Wilson (1860 - 1926) - He was the son of Richard Thornton Wilson, a multimillionaire American investment banker known for being the father of five children who all married into prominent families during the Gilded Age of New York. Those families were the Astors and Vanderbilts.

Winthrop Astor Chanler (1863 - 1926) - Through his mother, he was related to the Ward and Astor families, and through his father, he was related to the Dudley–Winthrop, Livingston, and Stuyvesant families. After his marriage, the Chanlers moved to Washington, D.C. where the surrounded themselves with a group of friends including Theodore Roosevelt

John Jacob Astor IV (1864 - 1912) - He died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic during the early hours of April 15, 1912. Astor was the richest passenger aboard the RMS Titanic and was thought to be among the richest people in the world at that time, with a net worth of roughly $87 million when he died (equivalent to $2.44 billion in 2021).

Ava Lowle Willing (1868 - 1958) - She married Colonel John Jacob Astor IV. When World War I broke out, Ava became involved with the American Women's War Relief Fund and she served as the group's vice-president. American Women's War Relief Fund was an expatriate organization in the United Kingdom started by American women to fund and aid World War I support efforts. The group was made up of wealthy socialites, politicians' wives and humanitarians.

Lewis Chanler (1869 - 1942) - He was a politician who served as Lieutenant Governor of New York from 1907 to 1908. On May 23, 1921, he married Julia Lynch Olin. Julia’s mother died in 1882 and her father remarried to Emeline Harriman (1860–1938) in 1903. Emeline was the daughter of Oliver Harriman and the sister of Anne Harriman Vanderbilt, Oliver Harriman, Jr., J. Borden Harriman, and Herbert M. Harriman. The Harriman’s went to school with Bush family and worked with the Nazis in WWII.

Grace Vanderbilt (1870 - 1953) - Her brother, Marshall Orme Wilson, married Caroline "Carrie" Astor, youngest daughter of William Backhouse Astor Jr. and Caroline Webster Schermerhorn of the Astor family. Grace was the wife of Cornelius Vanderbilt III. She was one of the last Vanderbilts to live the luxurious life of the "head of society" that her predecessors such as Alice and Alva Vanderbilt enjoyed.

Margaret Chanler Aldrich (1870 - 1963) - She was an American philanthropist, poet, nurse, and woman's suffrage advocate. She served as a nurse with the American Red Cross during the Spanish–American War and Philippine–American War, traveling to the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, where she organized the care and treatment of wounded soldiers.

Lina Cavalieri (1874 - 1944) - She was an Italian operatic dramatic soprano, actress, and monologist. Her first marriage long over, she had a whirlwind romance with Robert Winthrop Chanler (1872–1930), a member of the Astor family and Dudley–Winthrop family. Her portrait was painted by the Italian artist Giovanni Boldini (acquired by Maurice de Rothschild) and by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury.

Peter Augustus Jay (1877 - 1933) - He was an American diplomat who served as U.S. General Consul to Egypt, U.S. Minister to El Salvador and Romania and U.S. Ambassador to Argentina. Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson appointed him into these positions. He grandmother was Dorothea Astor.

Waldorf Astor (1879 - 1952) - When his friend David Lloyd George became prime minister and formed a new coalition government, Astor became his parliamentary private secretary. In 1918 he served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food and from 1919 until 1921 he served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health while also playing a prominent role as a member of Lloyd George's "garden suburb" of advisers.

Tadd Roosevelt (1879 - 1958) - Among his large and prominent family were uncles Franklin Delano Roosevelt who later became President of the United States, and Colonel John Jacob "Jack" Astor IV, who died during the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Tadd's paternal grandparents were businessman James Roosevelt I and Rebecca Brien Roosevelt, while his maternal grandparents were businessman William Backhouse Astor Jr. and socialite Caroline Astor, who was known as the "Mrs. Astor".

Nancy Astor (1879 - 1964) - She was an American-born British politician who was the first woman seated as a Member of Parliament (MP), serving from 1919 to 1945. Through her many social connections, Lady Astor became involved in a political circle called Milner's Kindergarten. Considered liberal in their age, the group advocated unity and equality among English-speaking people and a continuance or expansion of the British Empire. As fiercely anti-Communist as they were anti-Semitic, Kennedy and Astor looked upon Adolf Hitler as a welcome solution to both of these "world problems".

Theordor Douglas Robinson (1883 - 1934) - He was a member of the Roosevelt family through his mother and was the eldest nephew of President Theodore "T.R." Roosevelt, Jr. (1858–1919). As an Oyster Bay Roosevelt, Theodore was a descendant of the Schuyler family. In 1912, Robinson was elected chairman of his uncle Theodore's Progressive "Bull Moose" Party in the State of New York, and served until 1914.

Orme Wilson Jr. (1885 - 1946) - In 1913, he joined the firm R. T. Wilson & Co., which was started by his grandfather and run by his uncle, Richard Thornton Wilson Jr., where the young Wilson became the New York Stock Exchange board member for the firm. On March 21, 1944, Wilson was appointed the United States Ambassador to Haiti by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

John Jacob Astor V (1886 - 1971) - In 1922, he purchased The Times, a British newspaper. In addition to his newspaper business, John Jacob V served in politics, as Alderman of the London County Council between 1922 and 1925, and in the Parliament of the United Kingdom for 23 years as Unionist Member of Parliament (MP) for Dover from 1922 to 1945. He was a director of Hambros Bank between 1934 and 1960. He was Vice-Chairman of Phoenix Insurance between 1941 and 1952 and Chairman of between 1952 and 1958. He was a director of Barclays Bank between 1942 and 1952. Astor served as the first chairman of the General Council of the Press, which was established in 1953.

Serge Obolensky (1890 - 1979) - He was a Russian-born aristocrat then American citizen, U.S. Army colonel, socialite and publicist. He served as vice chairman of the board of directors of the Hilton Hotels Corporation. He was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. paratroopers and a member of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), forerunner of the CIA, and made his first five jumps in 1943 at the age of 53. On July 24, 1924, he married Ava Alice Muriel Astor (1902–1956) in London, Middlesex.

Vincent Astor (1891 - 1959) - Like his father, Astor belonged to the New York Society of Colonial Wars. He served as commodore of the New York Yacht Club from 1928 to 1930. On October 8, 1953, several weeks after divorcing his second wife, Astor married the once-divorced, once-widowed Roberta Brooke Russell. During WWII, in the quiet before the war, Astor sailed the Nourmahal in 1938 to Japan on a secret civilian mission for President Franklin D. Roosevelt to gather intelligence on the Japanese naval operations around the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Helen Huntington Hull (1893 - 1976) - She was a guest at the United States presidential inaugural balls of four different U.S. presidents: Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon. She was a good friend of Nelson Rockefeller and his wife, Happy Rockefeller. At Locusts on Hudson, she held her gala fundraising events and raised her six dogs, and at Hopeland House, she hosted her Republican political fundraising events, attended by the likes of former U.S. presidents Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge. On April 30, 1914, Huntington, age 21, married William Vincent Astor (1891–1959).

Beatrice Chanler (1896 - 1946) - was an American stage actress, artist, and author. She was active in charity and philanthropy during World War I and World War II. Minnie Ashley was courted both by William Randolph Hearst and William Astor "Willie" Chanler.

Theodore Chanler (1902 - 1961) - He was a son of Major Winthrop Astor Chanler and Margaret Ward (née Terry) Chanler, an author and musician. Theodore's godfather was President Theodore Roosevelt, who attended his christening in Newport in 1902.

Margaret Van Alen Bruguiere (1876 - 1969) - She was an American socialite, art collector and the niece of Frederick Vanderbilt. From the 1940s until her death, she was the leader of the social scene in Newport, Rhode Island. She married James Laurens Van Alen (1878–1927), the son of James John Van Alen (1848–1923) and grandson of Caroline Schermerhorn Astor (1830–1908), "the Mrs. Astor".

Mary Astor (1906 - 1987) - She was an American actress. Although her career spanned several decades, she may be best remembered for her performance as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941). In 1925, Astor's parents bought a Moorish style mansion with 1 acre of land known as "Moorcrest" in the hills above Hollywood. The Langhankes not only lived lavishly off of Astor's earnings, but kept her a virtual prisoner inside Moorcrest. Moorcrest is known not only for its ornate style, but its place as the most lavish residence associated with the Krotona Colony, a utopian society founded by the Theosophical Society in 1912.

William Astor II (1907 - 1966) - In 1932, Astor was appointed secretary to Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton, at a League of Nations Committee of Enquiry in what was then known as Manchuria. Between 1936 and 1937 he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Samuel Hoare, who was then made Home Secretary in the new cabinet of Neville Chamberlain in 1937.

Joseph Alsop (1910 - 1989) - He was an American journalist and syndicated newspaper columnist from the 1930s through the 1970s. He was an influential journalist and top insider in Washington from 1945 to the late 1960s, often in conjunction with his brother Stewart Alsop. Through his mother, he was related to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and James Monroe. In 1961, he married Susan Mary Jay Patten, daughter of diplomat Peter Augustus Jay, who are part of the Astor family.

David Astor (1912 - 2001) - Astor became the editor of The Observer in 1948 and by the mid-1950s. He warned of the dangers of big government and of big business, influenced by his friend and employee of The Observer, George Orwell. He was so close to Orwell that his gravestone resides right next to Eric Arthur Blair, Orwells real name. Astor broadly supported the Cold War containment policies of Atlantic alliance and consequently had difficulties with The Observer's foreign editor, the German emigre Sebastian Haffner. During the 1980s and 1990s, he campaigned alongside Lord Longford to try and gain parole for the Moors Murderer Myra Hindley, claiming that she was a reformed character and no threat to society, and had therefore qualified for parole from the life sentence imposed on her in 1966 for her role with Ian Brady in the murder of three children.

The Moors murders were carried out by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley between July 1963 and October 1965, in and around Manchester, England. The victims were five children—Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey, and Edward Evans—aged between 10 and 17, at least four of whom were sexually assaulted. Hindley began to emulate an ideal of Aryan perfection, bleaching her hair blonde and applying thick crimson lipstick. The couple were regulars at the library, borrowing books on philosophy, as well as crime and torture. They also read works by the Marquis de Sade, Friedrich Nietzsche and Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

Gavin Astor (1918 - 1984) - Business positions included the chairmanship of the Times Publishing Company and life presidency of Times Newspapers Ltd.

Jakie Astor (1918 - 2000) - Educated at Eton and New College, Oxford. He married ana Inez Carcano and had three kids. Their son, Michael Ramon Langhorne Astor, married Daphne Warburg, daughter of Mary and Edward M. M. Warburg of the Warburg Family, in 1979.

Susan Mary Alsop (1918 - 2004) - Alsop was born Susan Mary Jay in Rome on June 19, 1918, to Susan Alexander McCook and U.S. diplomat Peter Augustus Jay. In 1939, she began working at Vogue magazine as a receptionist, writer and model. Her Georgetown home hosted dignitaries and publishers during the 1960s and 1970s ranging from John F. Kennedy, Phil Graham, Katharine Graham, and Isaiah Berlin, earning her the nickname "the grand dame of Washington society."

Irene Astor (1919 - 2001) - Her philanthropic contributions included being chairman of the Sunshine Fund for Blind Children from 1947 to 1989, during which she raised over £14 million and she served as vice president of the Royal National Institute for the Blind from 1977 to her death in 2001.

Her father was Douglas Haig, who commanded the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front from late 1915 until the end of the war. He was commander during the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, the Third Battle of Ypres, the German Spring Offensive, and the Hundred Days Offensive.

John Astor (1923 - 1987) - His wife, Diana Kathleen Drummond, was a niece of Herbert Sameul Holt who was President of the Royal Bank of Canada, Montreal Light, Heat & Power, and a director of some 250 companies worldwide, with assets valued at around $200 million. On his death, the Montreal Gazette described Holt as "the richest man in Canada", but he was also one of the most reviled. Among his peers in the Golden Square Mile, "everyone respected his business ability, but nobody liked him personally".

Ivan Sergeyevich Obolensky (1925 - 2019) - Obolensky was born in London, England, on May 15, 1925, to Sergei Platonovich "Serge" Obolensky and Ava Alice Muriel Astor. Paternally, he belonged to the Obolensky family of Russian princes who trace their lineage to the Rurikid rulers of Russia who preceded the Romanov emperors. hroughout his main career on Wall Street as a financial analyst, Obolensky covered many prestigious accounts. He was Vice President of Moseley, Hallgarten, Estabrook & Weeden Inc., Stock brokers and Vice President of Shields & Company.

Annabel Astor (1948 - Present) - She is an English businesswoman and socialite who is the CEO of OKA, a home furnishings design company. Her paternal grandparents were Sir Roderick Jones, the Chairman of Reuters, and the novelist Enid Bagnold. Her mother Patricia was the daughter of the Hon. Sir Bede Edmund Hugh Clifford, GCMG, CB (son of William Hugh Clifford, 10th Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, a descendant of King Charles II of England) by his wife Alice Devin Gundry.

Liz Astor (1950 - Present) - he has done extensive charity work, focusing on raising funds for the Parkinsons UK and The National Autistic Society.

William Astor (1951 - Present) - Viscount Astor is Chairman of Silvergate Media and director of Networkers Plc (since 2007) and trustee of Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham. He’s married to Annabel Astor.

Laura Lopes (1978 - Present) - She is the daughter of Queen Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles, and the stepdaughter of King Charles III. On 6 May 2006, she married chartered accountant Harry Marcus George Lopes, who is part of the Astor Family.

Thank you for reading this thread and hopefully you learned something new about the Astor Family. Be expecting more threads like this from every family that is mentioned in my FAMILIES OF THE CABAL series.