MUScoop
MUScoop => The Superbar => Topic started by: GooooMarquette on November 25, 2020, 04:33:32 PM
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On this eve of Thanksgiving...
I did a bunch of ancestry research a year or two ago, and was able to track a couple branches of my family tree to a couple of Revolutionary War veterans. Lots and lots of branches to follow that far back, so that was the best I had at the time.
But a couple weeks ago I got a notice from someone who saw my family tree overlapping with theirs, and suggested a couple of Mayflower connections. I went down branches I hadn't been down before, and sure enough, I am directly descended from 11 Mayflower passengers (all 11th and 12th great-grandparents), and have two other relatives from the voyage.
Anyone else out there have ancestors from the Mayflower or other voyages to 'the new world' around that time period?
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Sorry, no.
My mom has done quite of bit of family genealogy, and apparently, we are descended from royalty: the McAlpin Clan, the most purely Celtic clan in all of Scotland.
(https://media2.giphy.com/media/43JOOvm7SbDbHTKQUm/giphy.gif?cid=ecf05e47lfn2paa89izsz6g4natt08gessbic95bl9gwbkwx&rid=giphy.gif)
I also have an ancestor who was counted in the 1890 census while he was in county jail in Virginia.
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Sorry, no.
My mom has done quite of bit of family genealogy, and apparently, we are descended from royalty: the McAlpin Clan, the most purely Celtic clan in all of Scotland.
(https://media2.giphy.com/media/43JOOvm7SbDbHTKQUm/giphy.gif?cid=ecf05e47lfn2paa89izsz6g4natt08gessbic95bl9gwbkwx&rid=giphy.gif)
I also have an ancestor who was counted in the 1890 census while he was in county jail in Virginia.
So maybe you can explain why you are a descendent of Celtics (pronounced with a ‘k’), but descendants of the Boson basketball team are Celtics (pronounced like an ‘s’). :-\
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So maybe you can explain why you are a descendent of Celtics (pronounced with a ‘k’), but descendants of the Boson basketball team are Celtics (pronounced like an ‘s’). :-\
No idea.
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On this eve of Thanksgiving...
I did a bunch of ancestry research a year or two ago, and was able to track a couple branches of my family tree to a couple of Revolutionary War veterans. Lots and lots of branches to follow that far back, so that was the best I had at the time.
But a couple weeks ago I got a notice from someone who saw my family tree overlapping with theirs, and suggested a couple of Mayflower connections. I went down branches I hadn't been down before, and sure enough, I am directly descended from 11 Mayflower passengers (all 11th and 12th great-grandparents), and have two other relatives from the voyage.
Anyone else out there have ancestors from the Mayflower or other voyages to 'the new world' around that time period?
when my mom retired she got crazy into ancestry (she travels around to do research) and has identified up to six family members who on the Mayflower. She's now a member of the Mayflower Society.
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Out here in Connecticut I've known quite a few who are descended from the Mayflower. My kids said they would always here other students mention in grammar school during presentations near Thanksgiving.
Not related to the Mayflower, but I had a friend retire and him and his wife moved to Plymouth. His son lives in Boston and they wanted to be closer.
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Nm
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Dont get much more white privileged than the Mayflower Society, aina?
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Dont get much more white privileged than the Mayflower Society, aina?
Rich white kids.
But you'll get triggered when someone who doesn't know you say something about you.
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My Mom actually looked into this over the past couple of years. She traced her ancestors on her fathers side back to the mayflower. She just recently became a member of the mayflower society. I haven’t bothered to become a member, maybe someday. Apparently my ancestors didn’t like to move much once they landed in Massachusetts. We’ve been in Boston & Quincy for a few hundred years.
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On this eve of Thanksgiving...
I did a bunch of ancestry research a year or two ago, and was able to track a couple branches of my family tree to a couple of Revolutionary War veterans. Lots and lots of branches to follow that far back, so that was the best I had at the time.
But a couple weeks ago I got a notice from someone who saw my family tree overlapping with theirs, and suggested a couple of Mayflower connections. I went down branches I hadn't been down before, and sure enough, I am directly descended from 11 Mayflower passengers (all 11th and 12th great-grandparents), and have two other relatives from the voyage.
Anyone else out there have ancestors from the Mayflower or other voyages to 'the new world' around that time period?
When the Mayflower landed, my Dad's side mostly was either German agrarian peasants or Irish potato pickers. My Mom's side was somewhere in Northeastern Britain near York doing whatever they did or in Bordeaux, France waiting to board a ship for the Canadian Maritime provinces.
So nope, no Puritan here.
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My Mom actually looked into this over the past couple of years. She traced her ancestors on her fathers side back to the mayflower. She just recently became a member of the mayflower society. I haven’t bothered to become a member, maybe someday. Apparently my ancestors didn’t like to move much once they landed in Massachusetts. We’ve been in Boston & Quincy for a few hundred years.
My ancestors made one big move about 8 or 9 generations back: from the East into Southwest Wisconsin. Since then, we have stayed mostly in the upper Midwest.
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None of my ancestors were on American soil earlier than about 1880.
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I've done genealogy for ~20 years off and on. One thing .. it takes just one mistake on a tree to screw it up .. and once you've made that mistake, others follow your research over and over, repeating the mistake forever.
Your average family tree sleuth is eager to expand their tree and not analytical enough to ensure high confidence connections .. so when you look to add tree members from matches on other family trees .. it's like intermingling your COVID bubbles. You have no idea where they've been.
.. I do recommend the AncestryDNA thing .. I think it's on sale this month for $50 .. I did it last year*, and bought one for my wife this time around. Upon submission, they give you a 90 day subscription for $1, which I jumped on. (Otherwise it's $20/month.)
(* I am 72% Arby's.)
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Dont get much more white privileged than the Mayflower Society, aina?
Tell me about it. I probably don’t get into MU with out it, I get out of speeding tickets by dropping that little nugget of information, I get free NE Hazy IPA’s wherever I go, yeah, it’s a sweet life having my mother being part of a society most people don’t know exists and holds no power whatsoever. 8-)
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That is pretty cool. I am curious, at that point I'd call you about as ethnically "white American" as you can be. When you were younger would you still break it down saying "I'm this % x, y, z" or would you say "I'm American"? because after this many centuries I'd say you're one of the people who can claim to be ancestrally American.
Also weird question to everybody but at what point do you think you would say you're American not "(insert ethnicity)-American"?
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I've done genealogy for ~20 years off and on. One thing .. it takes just one mistake on a tree to screw it up .. and once you've made that mistake, others follow your research over and over, repeating the mistake forever.
Your average family tree sleuth is eager to expand their tree and not analytical enough to ensure high confidence connections .. so when you look to add tree members from matches on other family trees .. it's like intermingling your COVID bubbles. You have no idea where they've been.
.. I do recommend the AncestryDNA thing .. I think it's on sale this month for $50 .. I did it last year*, and bought one for my wife this time around. Upon submission, they give you a 90 day subscription for $1, which I jumped on. (Otherwise it's $20/month.)
(* I am 72% Arby's.)
Agreed. I was skeptical at first, but the Mayflower Society (and other organizations) have professional genealogists who have verified lineage information to get you from the original passengers to a couple of generations ago. These are some pretty well-worn paths. In my case, it led to my great grandfather, and it is pretty easy to show the line from him to me.
You are right, though...and I remain skeptical of some of the information I found on my mom's side that appeared to lead back to the Scottish royal family. Not gonna claim that one without the help of a genealogist....
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Scoop is so incestuous. This proves it, genetically. Cheeks is related directly to 49 posters here, for example
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One relative (my mom’s uncle) did a years long genealogy project and established a direct link to Byron Kilbourn, one of the founders of Milwaukee and for whom Kilbourn Avenue is named. That was a really cool thing for a MU grad to learn.
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I've done genealogy for ~20 years off and on. One thing .. it takes just one mistake on a tree to screw it up .. and once you've made that mistake, others follow your research over and over, repeating the mistake forever.
Your average family tree sleuth is eager to expand their tree and not analytical enough to ensure high confidence connections .. so when you look to add tree members from matches on other family trees .. it's like intermingling your COVID bubbles. You have no idea where they've been.
.. I do recommend the AncestryDNA thing .. I think it's on sale this month for $50 .. I did it last year*, and bought one for my wife this time around. Upon submission, they give you a 90 day subscription for $1, which I jumped on. (Otherwise it's $20/month.)
(* I am 72% Arby's.)
I did the Ancestry DNA and it was fascinating. I have a German last name and my family played up our German roots most of my Dad's life. Even though my Dad's family was German, Irish and Norwegian. My Mother's was French and British. I used to say I bled out all the Irish blood by the time I was three.
Turns out, I am 55 percent British and 35 percent Irish. The remaining 10 percent is a residual mix, the most notable of which is Italian. We assumed some pizza guy made it over the Alps and was swallowed into the family.
My daughter is 21 percent Jewish.
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I'm a typical mix. My 25% French-Canadian ancestors arrived in 1634 in Quebec during the Percheron Immigration and meet Champlain himself.
My 25% Polish side arrived in the 1790's and my big fat Italian side arrived in the 1920s.
I've done Ancestry.com. The results matched mostly as expected. (although 3% Greek must come from the Sicilian branch.)
The one thing I find interesting is who takes the test. I can count hundreds upon hundreds of matching French-Canadian relatives but only 10 or so on the Italian side and the same on the Polish side. I'm surprised to show no matches in Europe either. Seems like none of the Italian or Polish descended want to take the test? Don't know if it's a cultural thing?
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All of my grandparents came from the part of Poland ruled by Austria before WWI. To no great surprise, I tested at 98% Eastern European-which apparently was a higher percentage than people actually living there currently....
They’ve refined it somewhat as they get more data, but the basic percentage is still there.
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I'm a typical mix. My 25% French-Canadian ancestors arrived in 1634 in Quebec during the Percheron Immigration and meet Champlain himself.
My 25% Polish side arrived in the 1790's and my big fat Italian side arrived in the 1920s.
I've done Ancestry.com. The results matched mostly as expected. (although 3% Greek must come from the Sicilian branch.)
The one thing I find interesting is who takes the test. I can count hundreds upon hundreds of matching French-Canadian relatives but only 10 or so on the Italian side and the same on the Polish side. I'm surprised to show no matches in Europe either. Seems like none of the Italian or Polish descended want to take the test? Don't know if it's a cultural thing?
It's been very difficult to get these tests to be popular in Europe. Because so many people there have been in that country for so many generations there no point. All of my cousins in Ireland view them as a waste of time because they can walk to a cemetery and find they're surname on graves going back to the Middle Ages.
There's the finding family argument but to quote my cousin's response to me asking about dating in in the tiny Irish town my mom's from, where our family is related to everyone, "after second cousin you pretty much just ignore it". So there's definitely less incentive to do those till they offer a lot more medical information
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I am fairly certain I am not a Mayflower descendant but find the whole Ancestry DNA science fascinating.
I got the Ancestry DNA test maybe 2 or 3 years ago, and there's been changes in my Ancestry DNA profile each time it's updated. I think the first time I got the results, it said I was like 11% Scandinavian. Then the next time my results were updated, the results were 0% Scandinavian but some Portuguese was added. For brief periods my DNA showed Spanish, Portuguese, Lithuanian/Baltic, and Greece.
3 years later, the Scandinavian stuff is back with 5% Norway and 2% Sweden and the Spanish, Portuguese, Lithuania/Baltic, and Greek are gone completely. Oh well, it was fun claiming I was Greek for awhile there. :)
Truth be told, the only places I have known ancestors from are Germany, France, and Luxembourg, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the distant Scandinavia DNA is correct as I am the typical Blonde (at least when I had hair it was blonde) Blue eyed fair skinned type.
It would have been fun to have known all my ancestors who came to the US in the 1800s and find out what their reasons were, it's something that I will never know completely. Pretty cool for those who know their ancestors were on the Mayflower and planted roots here and started something amazing.
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It's been very difficult to get these tests to be popular in Europe. Because so many people there have been in that country for so many generations there no point. All of my cousins in Ireland view them as a waste of time because they can walk to a cemetery and find they're surname on graves going back to the Middle Ages.
There's the finding family argument but to quote my cousin's response to me asking about dating in in the tiny Irish town my mom's from, where our family is related to everyone, "after second cousin you pretty much just ignore it". So there's definitely less incentive to do those till they offer a lot more medical information
My wife, who is from Poland, did it as she received as a gift.
No surprise, it came back 97% Eastern European. The 3% was Finnish which was interesting in only that I work for a Finnish company
My Finnish friends said way back when Finland was part of the Kingdom of Sweden and the Swedish king would draft the Finns to do the dirty work when war happened.
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I'm a typical mix. My 25% French-Canadian ancestors arrived in 1634 in Quebec during the Percheron Immigration and meet Champlain himself.
My 25% Polish side arrived in the 1790's and my big fat Italian side arrived in the 1920s.
I've done Ancestry.com. The results matched mostly as expected. (although 3% Greek must come from the Sicilian branch.)
The one thing I find interesting is who takes the test. I can count hundreds upon hundreds of matching French-Canadian relatives but only 10 or so on the Italian side and the same on the Polish side. I'm surprised to show no matches in Europe either. Seems like none of the Italian or Polish descended want to take the test? Don't know if it's a cultural thing?
This is a guess but I'm married to a full blooded Italian and know several full blooded Pollacks Poles. I think both of those cultures have more of an expectation to marry someone from within the tribe. While that's becoming less and less common, it's possible that there just simply isn't a need to take the test because they already know the results are going to be 90%+ one heritage.
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I am fairly certain I am not a Mayflower descendant but find the whole Ancestry DNA science fascinating.
I got the Ancestry DNA test maybe 2 or 3 years ago, and there's been changes in my Ancestry DNA profile each time it's updated. I think the first time I got the results, it said I was like 11% Scandinavian. Then the next time my results were updated, the results were 0% Scandinavian but some Portuguese was added. For brief periods my DNA showed Spanish, Portuguese, Lithuanian/Baltic, and Greece.
3 years later, the Scandinavian stuff is back with 5% Norway and 2% Sweden and the Spanish, Portuguese, Lithuania/Baltic, and Greek are gone completely. Oh well, it was fun claiming I was Greek for awhile there. :)
Truth be told, the only places I have known ancestors from are Germany, France, and Luxembourg, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the distant Scandinavia DNA is correct as I am the typical Blonde (at least when I had hair it was blonde) Blue eyed fair skinned type.
It would have been fun to have known all my ancestors who came to the US in the 1800s and find out what their reasons were, it's something that I will never know completely. Pretty cool for those who know their ancestors were on the Mayflower and planted roots here and started something amazing.
Remember that Sweden fought a war in what is now Poland and Lithuania.
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Remember that Sweden fought a war in what is now Poland and Lithuania.
The Czarna Madonna painting you see in every Polish church has a slash mark from a Swedish soldier.
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This is a guess but I'm married to a full blooded Italian and know several full blooded Pollacks. I think both of those cultures have more of an expectation to marry someone from within the tribe. While that's becoming less and less common, it's possible that there just simply isn't a need to take the test because they already know the results are going to be 90%+ one heritage.
All of the Polish immigrants my wife knows are married to other Polish immigrants except her. When we get invited to gatherings my kids affectionitnally refer to a get-together with the "Polish Mafia".
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In my parents generation, everyone married someone else from the Polish community. Not so for the next generation.
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This is a guess but I'm married to a full blooded Italian and know several full blooded Pollacks. I think both of those cultures have more of an expectation to marry someone from within the tribe. While that's becoming less and less common, it's possible that there just simply isn't a need to take the test because they already know the results are going to be 90%+ one heritage.
Pollacks? That's an insult, you know.
(Hey wades, I'm not triggered, just helping a fellow out with the PC terms, hey.)
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Pollacks? That's an insult, you know.
(Hey wades, I'm not triggered, just helping a fellow out with the PC terms, hey.)
Maybe he meant Sydney Pollack and was doing a chico-esque name drop?
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My wife, who is from Poland, did it as she received as a gift.
No surprise, it came back 97% Eastern European. The 3% was Finnish which was interesting in only that I work for a Finnish company
My Finnish friends said way back when Finland was part of the Kingdom of Sweden and the Swedish king would draft the Finns to do the dirty work when war happened.
My mom was of 100% Finnish ancestry. She'd ask if we were finished with our meal...at 6, it was so funny to me to respond "I'm only half Finnish mom".
I heard many Finn stories around my grandpa's table, including his farm neighbors describe how they came from a town far away from the others back in the old country. In college I travelled through the same towns in NW Finland. But...A local cemetery bore all of the same last names as Grandpa's neighbors in Finlayson MN.
Turns out...They were only Kilometers apart in the old country... likely, travel by foot made the distances seem greater to their memory. A Swedish land broker, Johan Finlayson, sold many families on a mass migration/land buy to Finlayson MN in the 1870's. Finn neighbors there became Finn neighbors here.
Finn surnames track the land feature of the family home example ; Kukkula (hill). The rest of Scandinavia, pre 1900, took the surname by dads first name Hansen, Anderson, Jensen...resulting in differing/confusing surnames every generation. Of course, as ancestry buffs note ... much of the rest of Europe used land features (Hill, Ford,etc) or professions (Schneider, Mueller, Cooper).
DNA tracking has improved the tracking of actual chains and sometimes surprised/corrected those whose surname history misled them to believe in other origins/connections
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My mom was of 100% Finnish ancestry. She'd ask if we were finished with our meal...at 6, it was so funny to me to respond "I'm only half Finnish mom".
I heard many Finn stories around my grandpa's table, including his farm neighbors describe how they came from a town far away from the others back in the old country. In college I travelled through the same towns in NW Finland. But...A local cemetery bore all of the same last names as Grandpa's neighbors in Finlayson MN.
Turns out...They were only Kilometers apart in the old country... likely, travel by foot made the distances seem greater to their memory. A Swedish land broker, Johan Finlayson, sold many families on a mass migration/land buy to Finlayson MN in the 1870's. Finn neighbors there became Finn neighbors here.
Finn surnames track the land feature of the family home example ; Kukkula (hill). The rest of Scandinavia, pre 1900, took the surname by dads first name Hansen, Anderson, Jensen...resulting in differing/confusing surnames every generation. Of course, as ancestry buffs note ... much of the rest of Europe used land features (Hill, Ford,etc) or professions (Schneider, Mueller, Cooper).
DNA tracking has improved the tracking of actual chains and sometimes surprised/corrected those whose surname history misled them to believe in other origins/connections
Cool houwarrior.
I'm actually learning Finnish on Duolingo. Maybe I get a transfer option in the future which I've been told is possible.
I had to go to HQ in Pori for training back in 2018. Very cool visit especially with it occuring in June. If anyone makes it to Helsinki for a visit I recommend a 20 minute ferry ride out to Suomenlinna. Swedes built as a fortress to protect against the Russians. Now the island is a beautiful national park, with the fortress, walking trails, great views and the Finnish National Military Museum. My co-worker missed the trip out to the island because he was too hungover.
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My mom was of 100% Finnish ancestry. She'd ask if we were finished with our meal...at 6, it was so funny to me to respond "I'm only half Finnish mom".
I heard many Finn stories around my grandpa's table, including his farm neighbors describe how they came from a town far away from the others back in the old country. In college I travelled through the same towns in NW Finland. But...A local cemetery bore all of the same last names as Grandpa's neighbors in Finlayson MN.
Turns out...They were only Kilometers apart in the old country... likely, travel by foot made the distances seem greater to their memory. A Swedish land broker, Johan Finlayson, sold many families on a mass migration/land buy to Finlayson MN in the 1870's. Finn neighbors there became Finn neighbors here.
Finn surnames track the land feature of the family home example ; Kukkula (hill). The rest of Scandinavia, pre 1900, took the surname by dads first name Hansen, Anderson, Jensen...resulting in differing/confusing surnames every generation. Of course, as ancestry buffs note ... much of the rest of Europe used land features (Hill, Ford,etc) or professions (Schneider, Mueller, Cooper).
DNA tracking has improved the tracking of actual chains and sometimes surprised/corrected those whose surname history misled them to believe in other origins/connections
I used to work with a Finlander when I interned in Superior, WI in college. guy’s name was Bronco Skudsted. I kid you not.
In NW Wisconsin, they tell Finlander jokes. And, for years, there was a chartered Finnair flight to Duluth to link the old and new country.
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Pollacks? That's an insult, you know.
(Hey wades, I'm not triggered, just helping a fellow out with the PC terms, hey.)
Honestly didn't know. Thank you for pointing it out.
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In Polish the Polish word for Polish man is Polack and Polish women is Polacka.
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I used to work with a Finlander when I interned in Superior, WI in college. guy’s name was Bronco Skudsted. I kid you not.
In NW Wisconsin, they tell Finlander jokes. And, for years, there was a chartered Finnair flight to Duluth to link the old and new country.
Finn jokes are told like Polish jokes (or as TAMU knows-- Aggie jokes are like 'Pollack' jokes- lol)
......Here are some told me by Finn folk'
Toivo was passing a store with Lutefisk hanging in the doorway. When offered some,... Toivo responds..." No Tanks I stepped in dat stooff once and dat was nuff fur me."
Toivo returns from ice fishing with his catch in the basket at his side. Fritz, the smart German, challenges Toivo ..."If I guess how many fish you got in there, can I have half of them?"...
. Toivo out wits him (Finn style)...."Tell you vat if you guess how many fish I goot in here Fritz, you can have both of dem. "
A horse Crupper is a leather strap wrapped around a horse tail to, among things, lift the tail up and away while it sh&^ts. Only five years old and walking with my Finn Grandpa through the farm sheds, I am asked ...Chimmy you know what dat ees? ....No Grandpa....Why any horse's ass knows whut dat ees, Chimmy. .....I blushed...My devout Luteren Finn grandpa said his first and only swear word to me. I have a Crupper hanging in my Den today. Good times
When Grandma died in the 80s, we were allowed to take a few things . I like memories, not things. Besides the Crupper, I grabbed a round piece of wood traversed by two wood planks about a foot long . Think of a roundshape O and X nailed in the middle. I got it home and redwood painted it pretty. I proudly gave it to my wife as "Grandma's pot warmer pad" Faithfully my wife put the "pad" out with our Thanksgiving feasts for 3-4 years. In year five leave it to my visiting brother to ruin my private Finn joke when he blurted out to her ....
"Why do you have Grandma's outhouse seathole cover on this table?"
......Not sure my wife has ever forgiven me for that one.
..but I still chuckle.
BTW the Iron range area had lots of strong kids named Bronco.
.... Often traced back to Bronko Nagurski ....the pride of Bemidji High was a College(U of Minnesota) and Pro football Hall of famer( Chi Bears), who wrestled professionally back when it was still a real sport
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The rest of Scandinavia, pre 1900, took the surname by dads first name Hansen, Anderson, Jensen...resulting in differing/confusing surnames every generation.
Iceland still does this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_name
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Iceland still does this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_name
Iceland also has an app to help people figure out if they’re related when they start dating.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/icelands-incest-prevention-app-gets-people-to-bump-their-phones-before-bumping-in-bed
Sleeping with a relative is more of an issue in Iceland than most other territories due to the country’s small size—Iceland has just 320,000 residents, compared with more than 300 million people in the U.S.—as well as the lack of immigration and the peculiar way that surnames are constructed in the country.
Your surname is not passed down through the generations as it is in most Western cultures. Instead, your surname is your mother or father’s first name, with the word “son” or “dottir” suffixed.
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I don’t know my descendants as they were murdered in a genocide and all the records were kept in churches that were destroyed . I wonder what they were like.
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I don’t know my descendants as they were murdered in a genocide and all the records were kept in churches that were destroyed . I wonder what they were like.
Armenian?
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Quite a number of interesting stories. I have spent a lot of time researching on Ancestry and after finding ancestors I learned about the history of their locations to better understand their lives and why they left their native countries.
Poland was divided up by Germany, Austria and Russia for about 130 years (1792-1919). The Russians and Germans tried to stamp out the Polish language and Germany got a head start on developing WW2 concentration camps with their extreme suppression of all freedoms. Poles, likely including my great grandfather, were considered stupid because they were illiterate. When even basic education is prohibited, this is what happens. Poland's history over the last few centuries is an absolute nightmare. The Russians prohibited Polish men from higher education and all women were prohibited. Marie Sklodowska Curie left Warsaw to go to college in Paris. She hated the Russians and walked to the center of Warsaw every day just to spit on the statue the Russians erected to honor themselves. She named one of the elements she discovered Polonium to honor her homeland.
My Italian boss enjoyed telling me "dumb pollack" jokes (pre politically correct times) so once I asked him "did you hear the one about the pollack who greased his car?" He laughed. "No! Tell me". I replied "He ran over an Italian." His expression quickly changed. Then he said "You know what happens when you mess with an Italian? You end up in the trunk of a car!" He never told me any more stupid jokes after my greased car joke.
On my mother's side, I learned, much to my surprise, that some of our ancestors were wealthy and powerful people in England. When I began to tell my sister about their coziness with the monarchy (several captains of the King's Guards), she said "I don't care about all that. I just want to know where is the money? Gone. Long gone.
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One of my great grandfathers was an orphan who was put on a boat from somewhere German. He was adopted by a German family and renamed. He ended dying pretty young, right after my mom was born and never wanted to talk about it. My mom did a bunch of research a few years ago and could never figure out who he was or where he came from.
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My wife%u2019s father%u2019s family had a similar story. Came from Ireland, near Waterford, and found their way to SW Wisconsin during the potato famine. There s almost nothing written about her family as her great-great grandfather also was an orphan.
We found a church north of Waterford where there supposedly was a relative. Walked the cemetery and looked for the grave but the stone they used as markers falls apart after about 100 years.
Funny part was we were in the town of Ring, where my father in laws family departed for America. Stopped into a pub there and sat down for a drink. After a couple of beers, we left and I remarked to my wife I thought the bartender was attractive.
She looked at me, almost startled, and said, you damn well should have.... the woman looks just like I did at her age! She actually did.
Ya never know.
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I don’t know my ...descendants ....as they were murdered in a genocide and all the records were kept in churches that were destroyed . I wonder what they were like.
How were you able to predict such a dystopian future for your descendants, and that, in the future, we will store records in churches?