The Adams family set the trend for family members in the White House…not to mention family members in with the same name in the White House. John Quincy's historical star doesn't shine quite as brightly as his dad's, but he was the most influential contributor to the ideas of the Monroe Doctrine. JQA's father was already a pretty big deal when Adams junior was a child, so his mother Abigail took the lead in raising the kids. The two watched the Battle of Bunker Hill together from a hill in his hometown of Braintree. After the war, in 1778, John Quincy joined his father in France, where he studied at the same school with Benjamin Franklin's grandsons. Adams the Younger spent the next seven years in Europe following his father's diplomatic career, including stints in the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Prussia, and England. When he came back to America, Adams became a lawyer in Boston, but didn't have as much success as his dad. His adolescence in Europe came in handy, though, when Washington appointed him minister to the Netherlands in 1794. You never know when being fluent in French and Dutch will come in handy. From 1797-1801, Adams was the minister to Prussia (now Germany/Poland), then returned to the U.S. and became a state senator for Massachusetts. In 1803, he was elected to Congress, where his formerly staunch Federalist views shifted towards Jefferson's Democratic-Republican ideology. After his support of the Embargo Act of 1807, Adams' party made the rather rude move of appointing his successor long before his term was done, and Adams resigned from the Senate and changed his party affiliation…probably to not many people's surprise.