Wendy Rush, the spouse of Stockton Rush, the OceanGate chief government who was piloting the submersible that disappeared Sunday throughout a dive to the Titanic wreckage, is a descendant of two first-class passengers who died when the ocean liner sank in 1912, archival data present.

Ms. Rush is a great-great-granddaughter of the retailing magnate Isidor Straus and his spouse, Ida, two of the wealthiest folks aboard the Titanic for its first voyage. Mr. Straus, born in 1845, was a co-owner of Macy’s division retailer.

Ms. Rush, born Wendy Hollings Weil, married Stockton Rush in 1986, based on a New York Times wedding announcement. Her LinkedIn web page says that she has participated in three OceanGate expeditions to the Titanic wreckage within the final two years; that she serves as the corporate’s communications director; and that she is a longtime board member of the corporate’s charitable basis.

Ms. Rush couldn’t instantly be reached for remark for this merchandise.

Ms. Rush’s ancestors on the Titanic are maybe greatest recognized for his or her tragic love story. Survivors of the catastrophe recalled seeing Isidor Straus refuse a seat on a lifeboat when girls and kids had been nonetheless ready to flee the sinking liner. Ida Straus, his spouse of 4 many years, declared that she wouldn’t go away her husband, and the 2 had been seen standing arm in arm on the Titanic’s deck because the ship went down.

A fictionalized model of the Strauses’ story was immortalized in popular culture by the director James Cameron, whose 1997 movie concerning the catastrophe features a poignant shot of an older couple embracing in mattress because the waters rise round their cabin.

Ms. Rush is descended from one of many Strauses’ daughters, Minnie, who married Dr. Richard Weil in 1905. Their son, Richard Weil Jr., later served as president of Macy’s New York, and his son, Dr. Richard Weil III, is Ms. Rush’s father, based on Joan Adler, the manager director of the Straus Historical Society.

Isidor Straus’s physique was discovered at sea roughly two weeks after the Titanic sank, New York Times archives present. Ida Straus’s stays have by no means been recovered.