Who Are You People?
 

German speaking Russians
from a village called Sewald on the Volga River.
Came to the states just before the revolution.

i've sometimes wondered about my ancestry, especially as i get older. But, i know nothing at all beyond my paternal father's last name and my maternal grandmother's maiden name & home town.

i'm no longer in contact with any of my bio-family so i can't ask anyone about it.

Hellow Arwen,fancy u should bring this up.Once I ask my grandpa about our italian herritage and all he ever said for years that we were a bunch of rum runners and moonshiners.I never really belaeved that anyhow so over the years I have found out a fue things.1- His family really dose or did own a winery in italy called Lombard winery.2- He was the younger son but didnt want to deal with other nafarious things in italy nor did he want to wear the cloth.- There is some family connection in NY,Chicago and Cali wich so far I havent gotten hold of anyone from the addresses that are 40 or more years old.3-Most of his side of the family is in the resturant buisness or liquor makeing /sales in some way.Infact a fue of my cousins hear own the Blind Tiger and the Chaicago night club.
On my grams side is a bit sketchy..but I do know she is from gypsy linage in italy so in doing my best to find out more about that.I do know from one of my elder 2sd cousins thet she had several siblings.I have the idea that the family just wanted to stay hidden for lots of reasons...my nose is out of joint big time looking fro ansers.
When they came to the U.S.A. he came thrue the port of New Orleans and she came thrue Ellis island...still more work to do.

I should add the I know even less about my bio fathers side of the family other than.His name and that his mother last name was Roderreigezz(sp?) and that she was from Missippie and has or had family from Smackover Ark.I have ask that side of the family for any info I could get but,no reply at all.

Arwen..I have no idea when the old fart was born,I have my birth certifiacate but all it has is my bio parents name but no age or dob..the thing is 63 yrs old gess they didnt need that info then.I often wonder who I look like,what they were like just so many things..sorta like im missing something and cant find it.But I will check on ancestry.com for more info.I also have there marriage licence but got no more info than what I had.

You can take an educated guess though. Like...It was 19xx when I was born and my dad was probably in his 20's so he was born circa 19xx -20. :)

I love genealogy..

I've lucked out as one of my mother cousins did a tree about ten yrs ago and keeps adding too it..

Lol.. I've also lucked out in the fact that my mother and father's families have been intermarring for a couple generations... (interesting note... the only ones with blood from both families are me and my younger brother ) so, I also have information on my paternal grandmothers family...

Cool Thread!

I have a lot of dead ends in my tree- a Great great grandmother who ran away from her tribe. Which one? We have no idea.

A Grandfather who was adopted. Sort of. No official information on his family of origin.

Oh, wait, and then there is the understanding that my grandmother is actually not my grandmother, but the woman forced to raise my mom- the baby my grandfather brought home after being birthed (and named after) his mistress. It took 40 years, but my grandmother treats my mom like a daughter now. But, then, who was my actual grandmother? What became of her?

My Dads line might be easier to trace, although my Great grandpa hired a company once to do that, and he got ripped off BIG time.

My paternal great grandma just rolls her eyes when I ask questions. She has never understood my want/ my need to KNOW who my ancestors are.

I dont have any understanding of how to begin.

My parents were polish POWs who came to the US after WWII.
They met in a German DP (displaced persons) camp where they married and had my two oldest brothers. They came here in 1952, had a few more kids and the rest is "history".

According to my paternal grandmother's 'Cattle Book' (yes it is a ledger book with 'cattle book' on the front cover...it was used to list livestock way back when, she used it for our family genealogy)........we used to read that thing all the time and ask her questions..........when she died....laughing......my sisters and I got that book and my dad's & uncles' box of marbles (from their childhood) out of her house before anyone else showed up.........funny what is important.........

She has traced us all the way back to the 1600's when my ancestors from England and Ireland (there was an O' in my last name when we were in Ireland....I've seen the documents) first came to this land. I am eligible to be a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.....I was a member as long as my grandmother paid the dues....I refuse to have anything to do with them.

My maternal sides goes back at last to the late 1700's early 1800's (and probably longer considering where they were) to what is now Illinois and Arkansas. My grandmother said her grandmother was 'black dutch' (whatever that means) and Cherokee (half and half).

My maternal grandfather was Scot and Irish.

Parts of my family have been in New Mexico for around 120 years.......both sides.

I have no relationship to being an immigrant.....no connection to Europe at all. My family has been on this land hundreds (and some thousands) of years.

Hi Toughy,

I am also a quarter "black dutch"....and there are a few theories about what that means. Here's a site that lays out the primary theories... happy researching... :rrose:

I am Scots-Irish on my Dads side of Family. Spanish on my Moms side.

I'm half German and half Polish. Both sides emigrated to the US shortly after the US Civil War and homesteaded in Ohio and Michigan, eventually settling in northern Lower Michigan. My German ancestors are listed on a ship passenger log from a ship that left the northern part of Germany, which now is part of Poland (post-WW II). The log is on file at the Michigan Historical Center. My Polish ancestors came from the Poznan region of Poland.

Wickedly weird story. My parents got a call from a guy in NYC once who was doing family tree research. His wife's family had the same last name as my dad's family and traced back to the same area of Germany, but my dad didn't know of any relatives in NYC. He gave the gentleman my name and number, saying I had done some digging around in the state archives here, and may know more. The guy and I compared notes on the phone, and discovered that the ancestors did indeed trace back to the same area of Germany, but we couldn't find a connection. He asked if he could email me some old family photos, and I said sure. Later that night, I checked my email and opened up a photo the guy sent me. It was taken in the late 1800s, and was of the family who first came to NYC from Germany. The family was a mom, dad and a few kids. The dad looked JUST like my dad. I mean, the spitting image. It was freaky!! I emailed the guy back and told him this, and he replied with some more information...that the guy opened a cigar shop in NYC when he emigrated here. My dad is a big time cigar afficionado. To this day, that picture freaks me out.

Jake

Thanks Jo .....laughin.....I think the 'whatever that means' certainly holds true.........

Arwen........by connection I meant my family has been in the US for generations....I am 300+ years removed from Europe. It's hard to think of my family as immigrants to this country.....I am a US American.....hard to see any connection other than family members LEFT Europe. I've been to Berlin and Amsterdam and felt no connection to the land or people. My connection is to this land.....mostly to New Mexico and west/panhandle Texas.

Since I am mostly Scot-Irish, perhaps I might feel a connection to Ireland/Scotland if I ever go there.

I grew up with the understanding that my grandfather's family (maternal) was "Black Irish." Interestingly, most of the people in his family were/are blonde and blue-eyed and "Black Irish" was always discussed as a condition of poverty, like so poor you were constantly dirty, and so blackened by dirt/soot, and my grandfather was quite ashamed of that because he grew up quite poor.

I have read a bit about it, because it has always intrigued me. No one, apparently, can quite pin down exactly where it started or why, and it is sometimes pejoratively linked to poverty and so a classist slur (association to the potato famine (black potatoes/black death)) or to shanty towns, or to the very poor immigrants coming into the US as a result of the famine, but also to phenotype (African, Native American, French, Jewish, Caribbean, and even Spanish), and with the exception of the "Spanish/Irish" phenotype, was generally thought to be a racist slur, and a product of the entrenched racial discrimination carried over from English sentiment to the US toward the Irish as "savages" along with Africans and Native Americans--some Irish were enslaved and shipped to parts of Africa by the English (there is some speculation that the name came from the Irish that actually stayed on the continent, but it also seems unlikely). Most of what I have read seems to suggest, however, that the actual usage of "Black Irish" is a purely American phenomenon, and that the Irish don't really use the reference, and that it might have connections to where the Irish found themselves in early African and Native American slave history in the US.

There are very romanticized stories that "Black Irish" came from a mix of Irish and elite Spanish blood, an attempt in folklore by the Irish to step up in the world a bit, and so perhaps they actually fabricated a very glorious event at one point in history, where a ship in the Spanish Armada wrecked into the coast of Eire and Irish ladies felt awful for the worn Spanish warriors, and so nursed them, and then had their children, and thus you have the link to darkened hair and eyes so associated with these mythical phenotypes of "Black Irish"; this, and other variations of the Spanish connection, to most scholars, is complete myth.

The whole topic is something I have been interested in for some time. Here is a neat look at some of the theories out there, link here.

I am now going to read the links about "Black Dutch" because I have never heard of that before and must know if this phrase is as curious in history as "Black Irish."

When I was growing up I found out that in my grandpa lineage was a story about the black italians in our family,many pictures of gramps show him as very dark.I ask once when I was a kid about that cause one of my play mates made comment about it,then I was told we had moorish line of decent from the 600's ad on his side of the family.

Some of my friends in the kitchen thread were talking geneaology and looking for this thread, so I came in to give it a big BUMP! :)

yes!
 

Hi everyone,how ya been?Hear lately I have been geting some emails from my life .com...seem like a whole bunch of folks are looking for someone with my name..even my x.Bad vibes with that one.Anyone ever hear about mylife .com?
I havent till they poped up in my emails.

My family (both mother and father side) are Acadian. On my father's side they traced back to the first Acadian settlers in the 1600s in Grande Pre, Nova Scotia. And farther back to France. We've survived the Grande Deportation and I believe I have some distant cousins in Louisiana (Cajuns).

Nope I didnt sign up or ask for then to contact me,but on the first email it had on it my xhubby(nut case) was looking for me,this thing is comeing from yahoo.com.If the old fart really was looking for me all he has to do is go to the place my son works then sugest J get me to call...not that I would.

So, I've recently become aware of a couple of those "skeletons".

We are somehow related to ( maternal grandmother's side) the White's of West Virginia. ( re: The wild and wonderful white's of west va). I am also the great great neice of Devil Anse Hatfield ( yes of Hatfield/McCoy feud).

I joined ancestry.com for the free membership to see what else I could find, but will try to hook up with my Aunt who has been tracing at least my maternal grandparent's roots and see what all she has dug up. I know part of my grandmothers family are Melungeon, and part I may never know as her parents were killed for being a "mixed" couple. I will hopefully find more of my grand dad's family and then I will begin looking more on my Dad's side.

What I do know so far on my Dad's side, is his father is Scot with lines back to Robert the Bruce and his mother was Dane and Polish. It may take a few years to track them and I may never be able to find them all, but it should prove very interesting!

Cool thread idea!

Thanks! :) :bunchflowers:

When you want to try ancestry I recommend your local library. Most libraries also have geneaology groups that will help you get started. My father is a geneaology nut. To the point of our trip to London was spent in the reading room of the British Museum and a couple of private libraries. But then again my family was started by a minor noble getting a holding courtesy of William the Conqueror. Now we are delving into my mother's side which is full of skeletons and founding families. A good way to search family records is through the Latter Day Saints and if you transcribe census or draft cards you get unprecedented access to their extensive records for free.

i am supposedly related to the Hatfields. My geneology is all appalachian all the way back on both sides. There is one family member who was an early settler of Perry Co, Kentucky. i love this story about him that i found on the internet. This is in the 1790's when he was scouting around to find a place to settle in Kentucky:

i love the brave explorers, one about to leave without his buddy and the other -- my ancestor -- running from the Indian he spotted. i just love it that this is the only story that survives about him.

Thanks Martina!

I love those stories also.

Thank you for sharing that!