How Much Do You Know About Your Ancestry?

[Jem]

Growing up we heard quite a few stories about our ancestors and where we came from. And several family members have done the research to go along with it. And I gotta say, I have a very interesting background.
On my mom's side, I'm mostly Irish with a bit of English (grandfather) and French (grandmother), and on my dad's side, I'm mostly Scottish (both grandmother and grandfather) with a bit of French thrown in the mix.

Now I don't have the exact dates on hand as for when this all took place but here are the cliff notes of some of the cool stuff in my ancestry.

On my maternal mother's side, my family were the founders of "the old section" of the town I grew up in, well... they are the ones who built up the place, owning all the businesses in that area at the time, as well as where they all built theirs and others houses and built the first roads and such.
We are also related to the Dionne quintuplets.

On my paternal mother's side, we had highway/train robbers, and some of them even got shipped to Australia, when that's where you sent your criminals. That side of my family is also decedent of Gypsies!

On my maternal father's side, we come from noble blood and even have our own (Scottish) family crest and plaid.

On my paternal father's side, we had pirates!!!! Enough said! SO COOL!

Anyway, how about all of you?

 

[NY cat man]

My younger brother traced our family back several hundred years, and found that the first of our paternal side came here in 1638, when it was still called New Netherlands. Still on the paternal side, our 3x great grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War, and his elder son in the War of 1812, our great grandfather in the Civil War. Our paternal grandmother was Scots on both sides of her family, and one of her ancestors was executed during the reign of Bloody Mary for rebellion. On our mother's side, not much was found except they came from the region of France near Alsace and Lorraine. Along the way, we have a distant relative who was an author, prominent enough that his name appeared in at least 3 of the New York Times' Sunday crossword puzzles.

 

[Willowy]

On my paternal father's side, we had pirates!!!! Enough said! SO COOL!

I think it's funny how much we romanticize pirates. You wouldn't have liked them if you lived back then!

My brother is the one who's been doing the genealogy thing, so I'm a little short on the details. Apparently my dad's family is a big mystery, except we are related to the author who wrote "The Handmaid's Tale", I think on my grandmother's side. Her side was Scottish and my grandfather's side was mainly Irish.

My moms side is basically what we expected---a big ol' mixup of Welsh, German, French, etc.---except probably my grandpa's mother was Romany ("gypsy") instead of part Native like she told people, because there's no Native in the test results but there are some odd results from Romania and Morocco and I'm not sure how else they got in there.

 

[denice]

I have done no research so just family stories and an ancestry DNA test. My Grandfather on my father's side immigrated from Norway. I know nothing about my Grandmother on that side, she died when my father was 18 months old and my father was raised by an aunt and uncle who lived in a different state. His father actually moved to Canada. There was a lot of German and Irish on my mother's side. I came up as close to 25 percent Native American, there were stories about that on my mother's side. I am from Kansas and everyone in that region has family stories about a Cherokee ancestor. For me it was supposed to have been a Great Grandmother. My father actually looked more Native and there were no stories there. There had to have been some Native on my father's side for the percentage to be so high, it must have been his mother that no one knows anything about.

 

[vyger]

When I was 16 my grandfather died. At home after the funeral my dad said the the guy we had the funeral for was a nice guy but he wasn't his father. So, it turns out almost 100 years ago my dad's mom was married to a guy who was my dad's father. But they didn't stay together, we have no idea why, but back then it was a pretty scandalous thing. And they never got divorced but grandma did take up living with another guy and had 4 more kids with him. Wow, totally scandalous. So it became a big secret that we never knew about. My dad was the only legitimate one. It was never discussed. My dad had his named changed, not legally, they just had him put down the new name everywhere like in school. Remember there were no SS numbers. My grandmother refused to tell my dad any details about his real father. He would ask the other relatives and got bits and pieces. His mom kept it all secret, including his other older brother who had died when he was very little. Yet more secrets. So after my grandmother died and my dad retired he went on a quest to find out more about his dad and his brother. He spent years going many places and he finally tracked down where his brother was buried but he couldn't get any farther than that. But the subject didn't die. After some long conversations with dad about it we went through all the info he had and decided to do some digging. And we went through old census records and ancestry web sites and we uncovered the mystery. We found our real family and it left us all in amazement. I still think the census records were the most amazing but they lead us back through the whole story. It was an adventure for us all. Turns out that the very large family we are a part of has been keeping genealogy records for a long time. In fact back in the 18 hundreds they even published a book on it.
So this is one web site, the family name is Fay.
The Fay Family: Jonathan, Francis and Daniel of Michigan
If you look at the page you see that there were 16 children. #7 of the second wife Fanny Swap is Laura Jane and she had 2 children, Elmer and Jennie. Elmer is my real grandfather and my dads name should be listed under his. So it turns out that we are a lost branch of the Fay family tree.
But the records don't stop there, they go all the way back to John Fay who came from England as a 8 year old boy on a ship named the Speedwell which was the sister ship to the Mayflower and there is a manifest with his name written on it. Turns out the Fays later became good friend with the Whitney's and Eli Whitney, the inverter of the cotton gin and a lot of other things was the son of a Fay mom. So we found the link but the Fays have been keeping the records for generations. And then they traced them all the back to England where it was discovered that the original Fays came from Normandy and that Normandy was settled by Norsemen, decedents of the Vikings. That's a long way to go.
So one of my sisters and I printed out all these web pages and census records and connections and highlighted all the fun connections and took a video camera and filmed it when we sat down with my dad to show him who he was. He was already suffering from some symptoms of dementia but he totally understood what we showed him and his family that day got a whole lot bigger and after years of searching he knew his grandmothers and grandfathers name. And he cried with joy because he had a family and a history.

The Fay Family
The Fay Family: Passenger List of the Speedwell

 

[Elphaba09]

My paternal grandmother was Choctaw. She married an Irish immigrant, my grandfather who died when my father was very young. Obviously, I did not know him, but I spent a great deal of time with my grandma and her second husband. She died when I was 13. She taught us some Choctaw words and stories. My father looks more Choctaw than Irish. I have my paternal grandma's nose, cheekbones, and forehead. (Thankfully, by the time my grandma was born, her tribe had long ended the practice of head binding!)

My paternal grandfather was technically from Ireland, but his side actually goes back to the Ramsays of Dalhousie in Scotland. They supported Robert the Bruce and signed the Declaration of Arbroath. (The current clan chief us James Ramsay, some very distant relative.) Our Irish crest is a raven/crow, and our Scottish one is a unicorn.

I acknowledge my Choctaw side, but, I am not a Choctaw. I was not brought up in any tribe. I have relatives who live on reservations and who are "real" Choctaw. I love what my grandmother passed down to us, though.

My mother did not talk to her family, but I do know that both her parents were first-generation Americans born to Irish immigrants and a German. (Both her mother's parents were Irish, but her paternal Irish grandma married a German.)

I do not talk to anyone in my family except one of my three sisters. Apparently, one of my other sisters had a DNA test done. No real surprises, other than a little Scandinavian and French DNA. The Scandinavian DNA may be from Vikings that came to Scotland. That is just speculation, though. Of course, the DNA kits are not completely accurate. My sister said that our other sister who had the test done wanted all of us to do it. There really is no point.

The funny thing is that my husband's maternal grandmother is big into genealogy. She traces their Scottish side to the Wallace Clan is linked to Robert the Bruce. Also, a lot of my grandfather's side settled in West Virginia, where my grandparents met. Her family knew my family. She remembered going with her parents to visit family in WV. At some point, they visited an Irish family in the area. She hung out with my great-uncle. Haha! I mentioned their last name a couple of years ago and she asked me if I was related to someone with a pretty unique first name. It was him!

 

[denice]

I acknowledge my Choctaw side, but, I am not a Choctaw. I was not brought up in any tribe.

I don't identify as Native American. I got the test done as a curiosity thing because of being told for years that I had a Cherokee ancestor as many were told. Turns out I think it was just a story, I don't believe that there was Cherokee on my mothers side by the percentage. I think it was the grandmother on my father's side. He was the one that looked Native. His parents were in the northern Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin area, he was born in 1913. He moved to Kansas when he was 18 months old to be raised by an aunt and uncle. She probably wasn't Cherokee. There are Native Americans in that area particularly Minnesota but they aren't Cherokee.

 

[Talien]

My paternal Grandfather was 100% Serbian and my maternal Grandfather was 100% Polish. One cousin on my maternal side and my paternal Grandmother did quite a bit of genealogy research and there's a scattering of western European ancestry, including a line to William the Conqueror.

I'm not really all that interested though so I never took a real close look at any of the material. I know there's a family crest on my paternal side but no idea what it looks like.

 

[Mother Dragon]

Most of my family tree were hanged from it..

 

[Mia6]

Most of my family tree were hanged from it..

?

 

[Mia6]

Maternal grandmother born in Yugoslavia
Maternal grandfather born in Lithuania

Paternal grandmother born in the US to a British immigrant
Paternal grandfather born in the US to a German immigrant

 

[Mia6]

My paternal Grandfather was 100% Serbian and my maternal Grandfather was 100% Polish. One cousin on my maternal side and my paternal Grandmother did quite a bit of genealogy research and there's a scattering of western European ancestry, including a line to William the Conqueror.

I'm not really all that interested though so I never took a real close look at any of the material. I know there's a family crest on my paternal side but no idea what it looks like.

So you're related to William the Conqueror?? So intriguing. Have you seen the crest?

 

[Mia6]

Gosh, my family tree is so boring compared to all of your's. My cousin Jack, ( Dr. John Dressler), is a published author. He wrote a book on Haydn, the composer, but that is the most interesting family fact.

 

[Lari]

Maternal grandmother born in Yugoslavia
Maternal grandfather born in Lithuania

Paternal grandmother born in the US to a British immigrant
Paternal grandfather born in the US to a German immigrant

But do you know where in Yugoslavia? Because I remember as a child saying that's where some of my family was from and being corrected that they were Croatian. Even when they were stuck as one country, everyone knew what they were.

My dad's mom's family is Croatian, and some cousin actually traced one line back to Italy in the mid 1700s when that Italian first migrated across the Adriatic to Croatia. Most people on that side were fishermen/sailors.

My dad's dad was Slovak for the most part. Someone was adopted so we don't know who their parents are and if they're Slovak, too.

Someone on my dad's side of the family supposedly helped work on the Suez canal when it was being built.

On my mom's side, my great great Irish grandmother was seeing and predicting when people would die as a child. No one liked that, so they sent her to the US to live with a priest cousin or something. Her daughter, Jewel, was married to a Texan and was told by doctors she was barren. Then there was an altercation with workers down there in Texas, her husband was shot and killed and I believe she was shot as well, came back up to IL where she married my great-grandfather and went on to have ten children, of which my grandfather was number three.

My mom's mom's side was German/Polish/Bohemian/Eastern European as well.

The only surprise on our DNA test was Scandinavian, which we still don't understand. We also got a bit of Iberian Peninsula, and a tiny bit of Middle Eastern, but it was basically all European and the regions we expected.

Man, I write too much.

 

[muffy]

All I know is that I am Italian and German on my father's side and Scottish and Cherokee on my mother's side.

 

[Jem]

One thing in my recent past that I find both heart breaking and romantic, is the story of my grandparents.
My grandmother's mother passed away when she was still very young. Her father, from what I gather, was not a nice man. And when my great grandmother passed away, my grandmother was sent away to live out her youth in a convent. Lets just say she did not fair well in the convent, she was a bit of a spitfire! She was beaten on multiple occasions and one of her punishments was even having her head shaved. Well, when she was 15, she met my grandfather. At the time that they met, she did not speak english, and my grandfather could not speak french, yet they still found a way. My grandmother loved to sing, and my grandfather was extremely talented with singing and the guitar. I have a picture of them sitting under a tree in a park, my grandfather playing guitar and both of them look to be singing (she is said to be 16 and my grandfather would have been 19).
Anyway, after just a short time, they ran away together! My grandmother had her first child at 16, and they had 7 in total. My grandfather passed shortly after their 60th wedding anniversary.
What we did not find out until arrangements were being done for my grandfather, was that my grandparents weren't actually married!! My grandmother actually took my mother aside and told her only a few days after the funeral. She was worried what everyone would think of them (her). Of course, NOBODY gave a hoot, and even teased her a bit about her "scandalous affair"!
Even in their last year together, you could still see the love they had for each other.

 

[GaryT]

My family has done geneology and traced my family's roots back to about the 1600s. I am mostly Irish with a bit of dutch and England thrown in. So, I am mostly descended from the British Isles.

 

[Graceful-Lily]

When people see me, they probably think, "Oh, well... you're black!" Technically, I am but there is so much more.

I don't know everything about my ancestors in great detail but I know that my great-grand parents on both my parents side were from many different places all over the world. They were also mixed race themselves.

I know of there being Cuban, Irish, Israeli, and some other ancestory. I hear stories about my great-grand parents all the time.

My last name is Irish apparently (Meggie). Not sure about this as it is a very uncommon last name and everyone who I have met with it has been related to me in some way or another.

 

[Talien]

So you're related to William the Conqueror?? So intriguing. Have you seen the crest?

I never really looked into the crest, I thought it was an interesting link but I've never cared much for the past. Well, aside from learning from the mistakes of others so I don't waste time repeating them.

 

[susanm9006]

Growing up I was immersed in my mother’s Sicilian side but knew almost nothing about my father’s family. His mom died when he was a baby and he was raised by his stepfather. So about 45 years ago I started tracing his family tree. On his mom’s side it was pretty fascinating, since there were two Mayflower ancestors and all were early settlers from Scotland and England.

I didn’t discover his dads side until I did my DNA because all I had was a name and no info. Turned out another granddaughter of this man did her test the same time as me and my family info exploded from there. His father came from German people who settled in New York before the revolution. They intermarried with Native Americans and former slaves and immigrated to Wisconsin in the 1830’s with the Brothertown tribes. The Brothertown people were “allowed” to sell their New York land and buy Wisconsin land because of their assistance in the Revolution. On that side I am 7 percent black, 5% Native American and the rest German.

If you have not done your DNA it is so worth it. It not only tells you what ethnic groups you are from but also connects you will family members.