Who Are You People?

[JustJo]

Originally Posted by Toughy

My grandmother said her grandmother was 'black dutch' (whatever that means) and Cherokee (half and half).

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...

[Arwen]

Originally Posted by JustJo

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...

Very cool as I am Black Irish (which means somewhere waaay down the line I probably have a Moorish ancestor.)

[Cowboi]

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

[Hack]

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

[Diva]

This is a great thread!

I have a double whammy in that I am adopted.

My adoptive Dad's cousin did a major research project on his side of the family and it is in book form. It goes up to his great great grandparents and fortunately, I have it from there.

Unfortunately, I can't find that book!!!!

I have my Mom's side back to my great~great grandparents.

I know my birth mother's name and some of her relatives ~ I actually have pictures of my bio great grandparents (Arwen, you may have seen them on the wall in the Girl Room) who came across the pond from Ireland. I have my birth father's name only.

I would like to get started ~ if only for my daughter's benefit. And I'd also like to do her father's side, too, as I know he won't.

It's a fascinating subject to be sure! Thanks for this thread!

[Corkey]

Who am I...a hot mess with mutt tendencies.

[Sparkle]

I spent quite a lot of time recording family history in the year before my grandmother died. I am so glad I did, it was really wonderful time she and I spent together.

This thread reminded me that I should really make the time to spend with my other grandmother, as well. Thanks!

Most of my lineage is from the United States going back until the late 1700/early 1800s. It is said that one line was among the passengers on the first Mayflower (I've not seen the evidence of that though).

I can trace about 7-generations on American soil; and it wasn't until my mother's generation that anyone moved away from the very small region in Upstate New York that they settled after immigrating.

I've have had some interesting stories arise from the research we did:

I have a great Aunt who was an ex-pat and spent the 'Belle Epoque' years in her apartment on the Left Bank in Paris. She was independently wealthy and never married, and there is a good chance (though it is unconfirmed) that she was a lesbian. I have a portrait of her, a book of her travel photos and a few pieces of the art she collected.

One of my great Grandmothers was a "mail-order bride" from Austria. She was "bought" by my great Grandfather after his first wife died and was brought over to the States - they had three children together.

A truly tragic (but fascinating) story came up. In the early 1920s my great Grandfather had a wife and four small children and one on the way, he also had a long term lover with whom he was unwilling to part. They ran away together deserting their respective families twice; both times their families tracked them down and dragged them back. The third time they ran away - they had made a murder/suicide pact. He shot her and then himself.

Which is horrific and tragic, and in the course of our research we found that there was an endemic of murder/suicides in that particular period of time. There was four other cases cited in local papers within a two year period.

[Apocalipstic]

I tried it, but I am adopted and muy birth parents were not marries and when I try to enter their information it tries to say they have to be married...I was so excited about it but I don't think I fit the Mormon profile. I kept hearing the word "Bastard" in my head as I tried to find out about my heritage.

I do think Geneology and History are so incredibly cool!

[Toughy]

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.

[firie]

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."

[Rockinonahigh]

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.

[Arwen]

Originally Posted by Toughy

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.

Gotcha. I tell people I am hopelessly Euro-centric in my genetics. Nary a Native American aka Aboriginal in my background.

I can point to a Cole Younger in my tree but have no proof that he was the actual bandit.

My great-great-great grandfather helped found the Democratic party of Travis county (this is not something to be proud of if you know political history) and I am apparently a part of the Austin pioneer families. W00t.

Okay, so that does tickle me a bit because it's kinda cool to be able to drive somewhere and see the ruins of his home.

[pajama]

Great thread Arwen.

I'm not that into the geneology, but my Dad sure was. He traced our lineage back to the 1500s in England. Apparently Bartholemew S. came over as an indentured servant and is the only registered S. to come through Elis Island.

[Random]

Originally Posted by Arwen

Gotcha. I tell people I am hopelessly Euro-centric in my genetics. Nary a Native American aka Aboriginal in my background.

I can point to a Cole Younger in my tree but have no proof that he was the actual bandit.

My great-great-great grandfather helped found the Democratic party of Travis county (this is not something to be proud of if you know political history) and I am apparently a part of the Austin pioneer families. W00t.

Okay, so that does tickle me a bit because it's kinda cool to be able to drive somewhere and see the ruins of his home.

HAH

If he was cole from the Younger gang then our great great somethings ran together... how funny...