My dad invented lightning control systems for underground phone cables.
My grandfather invented a printing technique that could replicate rubber stamp imprints (which is used primarily to forge attendance stamps for union meetings).
I invented a technique to use pseudo-random sampling to accelerate the Hough transform (and other image processing algorithms).

My mom invented refrigerated pre-peeled potatoes. I tried to come up with a way to refil pump toothpaste containers since I thought they were wasteful when I was about eight.

And, my grandfather, from beyond the grave, came up with the current idea in postage stamps ("they should just stick a letter on them or something, so people who buy rolls can use the old ones up when they change the rates and not have to get those silly penny stamps"). He was a mailman and hated the penny stamps, they always fell off.

My family has tended more towards the arts:

Before his untimely death, my Grandfather was an artist and an engraver. He did the engravings for the plates for many books & religious magazines.

Before her untimely death, my Mother wrote several books on Rock Gardens, Auriculas and Primulas.

I hope to one day become a published poet. If I don't die first.

My family didn't invent anything, except for funny sayings that probably are only funny to us. I've met the person that invented the UPC. Cool, eh?

My hubby had a patent for an attachment for a concrete block mold alignment device and one for automatic blending of compressed gases. He was a certified welder/ machinist/engineer/knower of all things mechanical.

We paid out the wazoo for the patents, and never broke even on the products…though the gas one was on the way to making some money, until events conspired against it.

He was the most unlikely intelligent human being from the looks of it, until you got to know him – then it became evident. Absolutely, one of the most thorough thinkers I’ve ever met. I always used to kid that if you asked him which bolt to use, the explanation started with where the ore was mined….

My grandfather invented the Internet.

It took awhile to catch on.

My grandfather invented Red Dye #2. Yes, yes, he did. Well, it wasn't just him alone - he was one of a team of chemists who did. In fact he invented lots of weird scary food additives and preservatives. Sorry about that, y'all.

My dad had a patent on navigation systems that display your own position on an electronic map.

My grandfather was a research biochemist who worked on early synthetic fiber. Patents belonged to the employer. He was a pretty cool guy who sent the best gifts; always science-related.

Your hang-in-the-tank toilet cleaner? My brother.

That drop-it-in-the-tank toilet lozenge thing? My brother.

And one more thing ...

"Disposable, macroscopically three-dimensional hydroentangled cleaning sheets" aka The Swiffer? Yep. That was him.

(And no, they won't kill your pets.)

I invented Facebook. Well, I had the idea for something like it when I was back in college. But it was 1993 then, so it didn't take off.

Though I always knew we had Underwoods in the family, only a few years ago did I learn that we were those Underwoods.

My father, an early adopter of computers*, wrote a mess of programs, notably one for less destructive, more targeted oil drilling.

*One of his prized possessions was a silver-plated dish engraved with thanks from the students of the high school computer club he taught. The inscription is dated 1961.

My great grand-uncle obtained a patent on a freestanding wooden swing. (I can't find it right now at USPTO, though.) There's an ad reproduced in the family history, where it's called the "HARTUNG REST-EASY" or something like that, and as was the practice of the day the patent number was in big digits right in the ad.

My grandfather, who was an expert on the teaching of mathematics and a University of Chicago professor, wrote several standard slide-rule manuals used in Pickett and other brands. He tried a geometry puzzle (similar to tangrams) he invented on me, and to my eternal regret I got frustrated and gave up (I think it was a sunny day and I just wanted to play outside).

My uncle was a managing engineer with both Ford and Chrysler and at one point oversaw production of the then-standard Chrysler HVAC control unit.

Oh, and my first cousins were punk rock pioneers in Chicago.

Most of my family is farmers just two or three generations back, though. Half in Iowa, half in Sweden.

My dad designed the Mazda Racing facility in Charlotte, NC. He didn't brag much about his work, but he seemed quite proud of the sound proofing he did for the dynamometer room. He also was featured in a three-month home-renovation series in Popular Mechanics (even got his picture in the magazine!).

Our own special brand of misery? Somebody can do this joke better than me!

Seriously, I'm very impressed with all the family inventors. I'd never have thought.

Dad has a building, a laboratory, a scholarship, and a kitchen named in his honor.

Mom is on the North Carolina Board of Nursing, and my brother was national co-chair of the US Green party for a while.

My godfather invented (OK, was on the team that invented) the gantry and scaffolding system used to hold Saturn V rockets upright. My father invented the afternoon nap, though he never received any credit for it. I invented the chocolate-orange martini. As far as I know.

I can honestly say that my family hasn't invented a single thing.

This is one of my great relatives. He did quite a lot!

Cuts of meat at the supermarket are usually checked for spoiling using sight or smell. One of my uncles invented a process for analyzing spoilage using optical sensors.

Well, he didn't invent it, but my grandfather (a PHD in chemistry) worked on penicillin. It used to turn people who took it a shade of yellow, so the story goes, and he worked on it (I'm sure not alone) to eliminate that effect.

Also, we found out years later, near the end of his life, that he developed the different colors of smoke flares the soldiers use during wartimes. This was during WW II.

He also worked for Eastman Kodak and the development of color film. They would send test rolls home with employees to try. Sometimes the whole roll would come out in shades of green or yellow or red.

His brother-in-law held a patent on a motor for windshield wipers, also. I remember seeing a prototype on a commemorative plaque in Uncle Bob's workshop.

My grandfather "invented" the Kent coal strike.

We're not inventors, just crazy engineers. My grandparents built a tortilla-making machine out of car and washing machine parts in the 1930's. All of us cousins grew up making rube-goldberg type mechanations that did nothing.