Genealogy?

[bobbysocks]

my grandfather died shortly after the mini series "Roots" aired. after the funeral all my great aunts and family was around so we started talking about our history and was able to get back to a town in the sudatenland called steinschonau. it was know for its glass and my GFs father and GF were glass cutters and porcelin painters. they came over to the us just before 1900 but left a lot of relatives over there. they sent care packages of coffee. lard, bacon grease, and sugar to germany during their recesstion. my one uncle and cousin went back another hundred years or more. we always suspected we had jewish blood since our family crest had 3 stars of david on it but my sister went and got a DNA test done. we are 80 some % eastern european, ~15% from the british isles and traces of this and that....not a single DNA strand of hebrew tho.

 

[pbehn]

Be careful what you wish for. I had an English Catholic friend who was proud of his Irish roots and railed against all aspects of British history. He went to search out his roots and found his ancestors worked for the Protestant landlord and were "obliged" to leave.

 

[nuuumannn]

Well I'll admit it - as well as having extensive family roots from Puerto Rico to Spain, I have found a massive trail that goes through Spain, FRANCE, Italy, present day Iraq (Sephardic Jews) Russia, Sweden and Norway! (at least according to Ancestry.com)

Jeepers, Joe, you could represent the UN all on your lonesome!

Being a product of colonialism, I'm truly a mongrel (by nature, too). On my mother's side, there's English, Scottish and American - my great grandmother met an American sailor who came to New Zealand during WW1, so legend has it, but the best bit on mum's side is the native New Zealand back story; my grandmother had a secret lover who used to cross the river when her husband went off to work on the farm and lo and behold, she had three little Maori kids! All the photos of the period show my grandmother's pasty white kids and these three little dark ones!

My dad's father's side is more tangible; our relatives came to New Zealand in the late 1800s from deepest darkest Essex and I have a living descendant in Billericay, although I've never met said relative. His mother's side is a little more murky; she was of Eastern European descent and once Dad believed she was Polish, or even Scandinavian, Swedish perhaps, but before he died, he became convinced she was from Czech origin. No one knows more...

According to my cousin, she is related to Louis Bleriot; his wife, mother or sister, not sure which female relative moved to New Zealand sometime and one of the offspring married my uncle (one of the dark ones) and spawned my cousin Maddy. They both live in Australia.

 

[at6]

I have "puppy papers" on my paternal side with lineage to 1760 in Buncombe county N.C. On my maternal side my grandmother told me that were related to Calvin Coolidge and we were descended from Pocahontas. My great grandfather come from Sweden somewhere around 1900 and changed his name so that he could get his mail. My ancestry is mostly made of Swedes, English, Irish, Scots, Germans, Native Americans,and very little Italian somewhere in the wood pile. There were other things that she told me that I should have written because I can't remember it all now.