It Came From Eastern Europe

[shake_the_stars]

This will be brief, as X-chan is here and in any case I don't want to spend Easter weekend on the Int0rbuttz, but we were talking about my father's people. X-chan has been doing the genealogy on that side, which so far has eluded me, and I asked if she'd been able to find out anything about Great-Grandpa's parents, which is where the line ends

Comments

[samanosukesgirl]

Explains your love for everything Russian!!

All right, probably just ONE reason.

What I do know with mine: English, French (on both sides, waaaaay back on my Father's side, though), Irish, Native American. On the Irish side, I'm of blue blood descent. On my Dad's way back French side, there be some royalty, too.

I should do something to remedy that.

As far as I know, I don't have any Asian in me (unless we factor in the Pimp Himself, Genghis Khan and his Equally Pimping Sons, maybe?), and as for other Latin? Dunno.

[shake_the_stars]

My fondness for Russian history predates my discovery of my heritage :D I always figured that was the one country we WEREN'T from.

Mom's folks are mostly Irish, German, and English (there's a little French in us, but our ancestors left in 1066). My great-grandfather thought we might have Native ancestry but I've never been able to confirm or deny it. (Incidentally, the scuttlebutt was that some of my Irish ancestors used to own a castle but I have no idea how true that is.)

Grandma is probably English and/or Scotch-Irish (that's what I'd guess from her maiden name and the part of the state where she's from, anyway), but my father's paternal antecedents are straight-up EAST EUROPEAN NIGHTMARE MIXTURE, cut with generous amounts of Ashkenazim. FEAR THE SLAV.

[serena_b]

I've been doing genealogy research on my family off and on since high school. My paternal grandfather's family is something of a mystery to me. In the census records it says that his father's country of origin was Austria-Hungary. But I also have a copy of his papers from when he became a citizen and it says his country of origin was Rumania (that spelling, which is an alternate spelling of Romania). I know they were members of the Russian Orthodox Church...and on my grandpa's sister's baptismal record it lists country of origin for her parents as Urgorsk Kingdom...? The only Urgorsk I can find is in what's now the Ukraine.

So...yeah. It's a mystery. I think in part because Europe's boundaries have changed so much over the last hundred years.

Maybe we have some ancient ancestors in common, lol. Wouldn't that be funny. (Even weirder coincidence, I think my great-grandparents lived in PA for a while before moving to Baltimore...because that's where the church was at that my great-aunt was baptized.)

[shake_the_stars]

I know, Europe is crazy fucked-up like that XD I had that problem trying to track my own great-great-grandparents and family; since they were Jewish, their passports were not infrequently marked "Hebrew" in addition to whatever their national origin was. Like, you know, that supersedes everything else. DO NOT TRUST THESE PEOPLE!!! (Actually, you shouldn't trust my family, but not for that reason.) So we might be related way back, I dunno, but I don't know what the odds are XD

[serena_b]

I have some speculation that perhaps some of my ancestors from that region were Jewish, but I've yet to find proof

[shake_the_stars]

My mom's folks were here when we were colonies, too - I started with one of the "dead ends" on our family tree and was able to get quite a lot of information going backwards on WorldConnect (admittedly, it isn't real research, but it's a start). I about fell out of my chair when I saw "freeman of Massachusetts Bay" on someone's entry; the first thing that popped into my head was OH MY GOD, THEY WERE NOT CATHOLIC. (If there's one word that describes lolmom's family, it's "Catholic".)

Also, of one of my ancestors, someone felt the need to record that she was present when a Goodwife Knapp was hanged for witchcraft in the 1600s. (We have some Knapps back in the family, though this particular Goodwife Knapp doesn't seem to be among them.) I have no idea why. I was kind of pleased when I read The Devil in the Shape of a Woman later and found a reference to said Goodwife Knapp in a footnote, though :D