# Family history



## SarahNorthman (Nov 19, 2014)

Lately genealogy has been an even bigger deal than ever before in my family. Though I wonder about its accuracy, mama has been having everyone do those DNA things through ancestry.com to see what percentages of different nationalities we are (think that 23andme thing). It is a fascinating journey to say the least! I have always known more about mama's side of the family, it has been ingrained in us since childhood, though I am having a lot of fun learning even more about it! I think I have a greater appreciation for it now that I am older. Finally the confusion I always had about my great grandpas has been cleared up! I always knew that great grandma was married three times, but as a child I think the concepts of step parents just made no sense to me. I also learned that great grandma and great grandpa Moore were married far longer than I thought they were, using mainly dates on a photograph I have and the dates for the battle of Peleliu. I am not sure if this is what caused my great grandma to move the family to America, but I kind of think the dates line up.








While I do love learning about my mama's paternal side of the family I am enjoying learning more about her maternal side of the family too, as well as my fathers side of the family. I do not know much about either. If those DNA things are accurate then my grandmas family was purely European. Which has been interesting to read the literature the DNA thing has provided on the different regions. We are still waiting on the results from my dads side of the family, but from what I am seeing in my results most of it is from Central Asia, Iberian Peninsula, Southern Europe, and Native American.

This is turning out to be a very interesting project so far! I think it is important to know where you come from!


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## ldiat (Jan 27, 2016)

i would like to view my family history fathers side, but i do think my grand parents dropped 1 or 2 letters out of my last name. so can only go back to them and both of them passed before i was born.


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## SarahNorthman (Nov 19, 2014)

ldiat said:


> i would like to view my family history fathers side, but i do think my grand parents dropped 1 or 2 letters out of my last name. so can only go back to them and both of them passed before i was born.


That is where talking to any relatives on that side of the family comes in. Talk to the oldest remaining ones and pick their brains. If you want answers you have to ask questions. It is not easy work, but it can be done.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

My left Cornwell and Wales in 1843, good thing to much too cold there..........


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## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

Switzerland on my father's side, England / Scotland on my mother's. We did a little digging genealogicaly, and found that I was the direct descendant of Mr. John Hooper, Bishop of Worcester and Gloucester. He was one of the fellows, if you follow English history, that was burnt at the stake by Mary I . This particularly gruesome death is detailed in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, and merits the most meagre of footnotes in _The Oxford History of the British Monarchy_. Oh well...


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

My ancestors left Africa about 100,000 years ago and likely settled somewhere in Europe. No family photos remain, unfortunately.


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## Judith (Nov 11, 2015)

I can only go back to my Great Great Grandparents. As I am Jewish, it is difficult to do as a lot of records were destroyed during Pogram times!! I do know that my ancestors on both sides were from Russia and Lithuania!!


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## znapschatz (Feb 28, 2016)

Of any history earlier than my grandparents, I know little or nothing, other than that my mother's side hailed from Odessa, Russia, and my father's from Lithuania by way of Warsaw. Teenage Grandma fled Russia with a price on her head after the failed 1905 revolution. She wound up a foundation garment maker in New Jersey and had two girls, one of them my mother. Grandma was widowed young, remarried and moved to Cleveland, OH. In Poland, my 12 year old father got fixated on America and was so fanatical on the subject that he persuaded his family to emigrate to the US. They wound up in Cleveland, as well.

Like her mother, in her teens and early twenties, Mommy was a Commie. She helped organize the CIO, handing out leaflets at plant gates during shift changes, leading strikes, braving tear gas and mounted police. With all that, she had a cheerful, open disposition, and was loved by all, including people who were on the other side of things. Also, despite her militancy, she was very much the peace maker. One story was when a social gathering of her comrades was invaded by some tough guys looking for trouble, she put a lively dance record on the phonograph, grabbed the biggest and most dangerous looking of them, dragged him out to the floor and started dancing with him. With the tension broken, instead of a brawl there was a party.

While Mom was fighting the power in Cleveland, Dad was on cavalry maneuvers at Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he served as one of the last horse soldiers. Back in Cleveland, he was a member of his neighborhood Republican club, and in the first election in which he was eligible to vote, cast his ballot for Herbert Hoover. But Dad, a super patriot, carried his politics lightly. He believed certain things, and didn't find it necessary to impose them on others, and he tolerated radicals because he thought the very idea of socialism taking root in America was absurd. Occasionally, he liked to hang out at the union hall that served as a gathering place for the local lefties because he liked the women. Compared to others in his regular social group, he found them more "lively," the meaning of which he never explained (and I never asked.) Like just about everyone else, he was smitten by my sunny, vivacious mother, and remained so for the rest of his life.

Dad would accompany Mom to sites where violence was a possibility to protect her. In those days, Dad was a pretty tough street fighter and was sometimes on the union's "Education Committee;" that is, the guys who "teach" strikebreakers not to scab (three decades later in Los Angeles, I met a guy who knew him then. He told me how once Pops and a dozen other "committeemen" beat up 200 scabs during a Republic Steel strike, something my father had never shared with me.)

Well, eventually they married. Mom continued doing political things while Dad stuck to business. They never argued about politics.
Age took care of the rest, and here I am to tell the tale.

I can't find the misplaced photos of my mother from the mid-1930s, but here's my Dad in the cavalry.


It wasn't so much the military part he was interested in, but the horses. He loved them, and as a 
Depression era young man, this was his access.


Sitting on one reason you don't see much cavalry around anymore.


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

English on my mother's side
Polish on my dads.
I have tried to follow my dads history
I know, roughly, were he was born and the date, unfortunately, apart from a sister that lived in Belgium the rest of his family perished during WW2
So I have hit a dead end.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

cwarchc said:


> English on my mother's side
> Polish on my dads.
> I have tried to follow my dads history
> I know, roughly, were he was born and the date, unfortunately, apart from a sister that lived in Belgium the rest of his family perished during WW2
> So I have hit a dead end.


What a shame. I wish I could claim some Polish relatives but unfortunately not.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I have a family history on my mother's side. My mother's maiden name traces back to Germany sometime around 1800. There is one on my father's side but my family's copy was lost, so I only have a little info such as that four brothers came to America from Austria in the 1860s. Both my mother's maiden name and my last name are German. There are some other nationalities mixed in but I recall that I should be about 3/4 German.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

It is very likely that my surname does not represent a legitimate direct bloodline, and that I fly a false flag. It appears that my paternal great-grandfather was the offspring of an unsanctioned union between a man of another surname and a woman unknown, perhaps a family servant, milkmaid, "other woman". This male child was then sent to live in the home of the father's wife's brother, his brother-in-law, who with his wife, raised the child as his own and thus gave my great-grandfather the surname he bore and I now bear. Adds a bit of spice to my background. Genealogy: fascinating stuff!


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## SarahNorthman (Nov 19, 2014)

Strange Magic said:


> It is very likely that my surname does not represent a legitimate direct bloodline, and that I fly a false flag. It appears that my paternal great-grandfather was the offspring of an unsanctioned union between a man of another surname and a woman unknown, perhaps a family servant, milkmaid, "other woman". This male child was then sent to live in the home of the father's wife's brother, his brother-in-law, who with his wife, raised the child as his own and thus gave my great-grandfather the surname he bore and I now bear. Adds a bit of spice to my background. Genealogy: fascinating stuff!


Very interesting!


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Let me add that my great-grandfather bore proudly as his middle name the surname of his biological father--evidently it was not a well-kept secret at the time--and that an uncle of mine also was given that same surname as his middle name. It transpires that adultery was not entirely unknown in the 1800s (shock and disbelief!); the father of my great-grandfather's sire was himself charged with fornication--it ran in the family for a while, it seems. I myself am without sin.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I got some interesting, some tragic stories on both sides of my family.

We got a legend from my dad's side of the family, about 2 brothers back in the late 1700s who lived in Oulu, when there was a small revolution that took place, presumably against Sweden. The 2 brothers fled being captured and went south to the Karelian region, where they supposedly got refuge with the Russians and were given some property. But one of the brothers decided to go back to Oulu because they had some buried money on their property. He went alone... and never came back. That little treasure is was never recovered (not much of a treasure though, they were just working class). The other brother who lived is my distant ancestor.

In early 1890s, I had a distant relative who came to the US for work! This I learned the last time I went to Finland from my grand-uncle. This relative only stayed for little while though because he got traumatized from being robbed down in the South, and he returned to Finland. Took 75 years later for the family to return once again, where we've stayed!

On my mother's side, old Viking roots in southern Finland, and then some from Sweden. My family line from Sweden had musicians (not pros or anything but still)! One even played violin! I'm pretty sure that's where I got my talent from.


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## SarahNorthman (Nov 19, 2014)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> I got some interesting, some tragic stories on both sides of my family.
> 
> We got a legend from my dad's side of the family, about 2 brothers back in the late 1700s who lived in Oulu, when there was a small revolution that took place, presumably against Sweden. The 2 brothers fled being captured and went south to the Karelian region, where they supposedly got refuge with the Russians and were given some property. But one of the brothers decided to go back to Oulu because they had some buried money on their property. He went alone... and never came back. That little treasure is was never recovered (not much of a treasure though, they were just working class). The other brother who lived is my distant ancestor.
> 
> ...


Ah! I have some old long lost Finnish roots as well!


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

My mom's side of the family is from county Clare in Ireland. We have had the Church do biographies of some of our ancestors in the 19th century (lot of doctors, musicians, and clergy in the family). Then in the 1980s, a distant relative was doing research and found they were related to us and they shared all the papers they had with us and we with them. 

My mom has been to Ireland and found the graves of some of our ancestors 

the documents and diaries and letters and all go back about 400 years. My mom has all of the papers now that grandma is gone. They fill an entire file cabinet. 

I actually know the names and occupations of most of my ancestors that lived in America. we've been here since the War of 1812 when John Doyle, an Irish sea captain and privateer ran the Royal Navy blockade. The English branded him a pirate, and so he sold his ship in Philadelphia and went from being a wanted man on the high seas to an Irishman standing in downtown Philly with a pocket absolutely full of cash. He was father to a daughter who married my great-great-great granddad James Ryan.

anyway, I used to hang out with my Irish grandma and ask her about the relatives I never had a chance to know. I got to hear all the stories that nobody else had time for and so I can put a lot of context to the collection of documents we have.

this is how families used to keep their histories, the young folks listened to grandma's stories and the head of the family looked after the family papers.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

I have traced my paternal grandfather's ancestry back to the extent that illegitimacy will allow; my mother has done the same for her mother's family. We know a bit about the other two branches of the family, but I will do more research after I retire.

My father's father's family can be traced back to a parish in northern Aberdeenshire (Scotland) in the late 18th century, but I doubt that the family name originated there - there are high concentrations of that name in south central Scotland but especially in north-east England. They were tenant farmers but an ancestor of mine worked for the railways in the nearest town by the mid 19th century, and his descendants moved to Aberdeen in the 1890s.

My father's mother's family were associated with the Aberdeenshire village of Banchory (now more or less a commuter suburb of Aberdeen) but the family name, Ross, is Highland, from the county of Ross and Cromarty, north of Inverness.

My mother's mother's family originates in the village of Crathie next to Balmoral Castle estate, and I still have relatives there. The unusual name may have more distant connections to the Inverness area, though my father used to tease my mother that they were a band of Irish tinkers (for which there is no evidence!)

My mother's father's family came to Aberdeen from the Banffshire fishing port of Macduff and the surrounding countryside, very close to the origin of my paternal grandfather's people, and seem to have been fisher-families and crofters (no royalty, burnt or otherwise, in my family, i can tell you!) They seem to have come to the city in the late 19th century too. The family name is Scandinavian in distant origin, we are told, but as no-one has delved more deeply, we can't make a stab as to where it's from within Scandinavia. It is widespread in Lewis and Harris, in the outer Hebrides, but also east Banffshire and north-west Aberdeenshire.

Branches of both my parents' families emigrated to various parts of Canada from the 1930's onwards, and to England, me amongst them.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Between us, Mrs Pat and I have a majority of Irish, a slice each of Dutch and Russian and a pinch of English. Oh, and one of our (adopted) sons is New Zealand Pakeha. So when people start grumbling about migrants coming over here taking 'our' jobs, we both tend to get a little heated!


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## ldiat (Jan 27, 2016)

SarahNorthman said:


> That is where talking to any relatives on that side of the family comes in. Talk to the oldest remaining ones and pick their brains. If you want answers you have to ask questions. It is not easy work, but it can be done.


you are correct....one thing.. all aunts uncles have passed away. all my 1st cousins are on my dads sisters side so there last name is not the same. my dads brothers had no kids. when i pass the name goes with me as i have no kids, whats interesting to note here is i have found some people with almost the same last name as mine but 1 letter on face book ...but one just does not answer my questions and the other does not even respond. mother side is different as i do have some distant relatives in poland


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Generation after generation my father's family was connected with fishing on the Dutch 'Zuiderzee' (the former inland sea) in 'botters' as shown on the photo above.









My mother's family was connected with the handicraft of cap making.

Within my father's family there exists a miraculous orally transmitted shipwrecking story, from which their oldest traceable ancestor was saved.....


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## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

On my father's side, nearly all members of my family are (relatively speaking) newcomers to America. My great-grandfather was from Denmark. He came through Ellis Island and settled in Brooklyn, NY. I've visited my Danish relatives a few times. Now they live in Copenhagen, but I understand that we were originally from Jutland. I also have many German relatives, mostly from the south, near Munich. The family name is Pollinger, which I understand is fairly common in that part of Germany. My German-American ancestors also came to America during the early 20th century.

On my mother's side, our family extends much further back in American history. My mom claims that one of our direct descendants was the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony. Another, again based on her research, was an Aid-de-Camp to General George Washington during the French and Indian War. Apparently, his relationship with Washington led to some land in present-day southwestern Pennsylvania being granted to my ancestor. This was near Fort Necessity, where he'd served with Washington during the war. So our family had been in the area a long time. I was born in that region too -- in Uniontown, south of Pittsburgh.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

Danish heritage on my Dads side ... Irish and German on Moms side. 

My Grandfather was one of three boys who migrated to America with his parents ... the other two remained in Denmark which is where my 2nd cousin resides today. 

Grandfather had joined the armed services and was sent to England - he was scheduled to return by ship in April of 1912. One hour before sailing time his orders were rescinded and he put to shore until further notice. Those 60 minutes are directly related to my Dads existence on earth and later mine, lastly my Son.


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