Show Us Your Pedigree! The Heritage Thread.

[Diamondback]

EDIT: First, let me note I'm American first, ethnic Texas rattlesnake second, all else only after that.

I've been doing some digging myself, and found English, German and possibly Irish roots. Possibly some French *cough*, if family lore is correct about my paternal grandmother (the Texan) being descended from a famous Kentucky/Tennessee rifleman of Alamo fame... (She always liked to try to play the socialite, but was a very no-BS person, so I'm inclined to give her benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise...)

Unfortunately, it's rather difficult since I'm completely estranged from the entire paternal side of my lineage, and virtually so from most of my maternal relatives. (I actually get along better with the cousins and great-aunts/uncles when I go back to visit 'em in Indiana than the ones who live out here near me!)

Lucky thing I'm the research specialist, and they want answers as much as I do, otherwise it wouldn't be happening at all!

 

[Viola]

The post on cooking got me curious about people's heritage so I figured I would ask this.

Well, that would be slightly deceptive on part because while my grandmother is the one who taught me how to cook, and while she taught me a lot of Italian recipes...she just picked them up from growing up in South Philly.lol

Thanks, Bubbie!

She did make a phenomenal sweet kugel, though. I wish mine tasted half as good. She approached all kinds of religious holidays as a chance to feed people until they explode.

-Viola

 

[pretty faythe]

All American Muttette

The five main components that make me up are German, freaky deaky Dutch, Welsh, Scottish, and Potawatomi Indian.

 

[Kimberly]

The surname to my dutch side of the family is Vanderveer. I remember my great grandmother Vanderveer and I always thought she was so glamorous and lady like. This is the side of the family that love antiques, history, etc, so I think I have a lot of their genes in me.

 

[LadyStardust]

If variety is the spice of life...I guess I'd be considered pretty bland! lol

100% Russian, the last one in my family to be so.

 

[Joie DeVive]

I've had my hands full with other hobbies recently, so I haven't been playing around genealogy lately, but I love working with it.

On my paternal side, I'm fully German, though as I understand it they lived in Russia for a while.
The maternal side is in quarters: English, Swiss, Scott, and German. Though a bit of digging is suggesting that the German-Swiss may have just been German...

Fun stuff!

 

[panamag8or]

English on Mom's side, German on Dad's.

I can trace my family's arrival in the colonies to a fellow named Nicholas Spencer, who's heirs, in 1739, sold some land in Virgina to a fellow named Washington, who's grandson, George, built a house called Mt. Vernon on it. Actually, the Spencer and Washington families shared the land as far back as 1674.


Spencer's brother stayed in England to mind the family business there, and many generations later, (Princess) Diana Spencer was born. In a convoluted way, she was my cousin.

My Grandmother has basically traced us back to Adam, and we have some interesting knots in our family tree. Charlemagne, and King Henry VIII (by marriage) are in there, as are many other kings and queens of both England and France.

If Nicholas Spencer had returned to England, I might be British nobility.

 

[Rafter]

Scottish on my father's side.
Austrian on my mother's side.
Good thing it's not the other way around!

My dad was happy to marry a lass whose family heritage was not from the Highlands.
As a child he was a skinny lad, since he had to eat traditional Scottish food, including lots of haggis, which is made from boiling a sheep's organs in its stomach with oats and veggies.

When he married my mom he was in Viennese heaven.....lots of pastries including- my grandmother's specialty Mohr im Hemd (tasty chocolate cake with chocolate sauce and cream), Knoedel (dumplings), Wiener Schnitzel and Palatschinken (pancakes).

Austrian food can be dangerous though- at least, the food will certainly make you look like a dumpling. After a few years of marriage my father was no longer the skinny Scottish lad. He actually looks somewhat like a dumpling!
Viennese food has a lot of calories, but it tastes so good!!

 

[CanadaDoll]

I'm Scottish and Irish, possibly Brittish, we're not sure, on my mummy's side, and Ukrainian on my dad's, however I'm the only person in the family with green eyes and any semblance of red hair which when I chose to dye it all the way red looks all too natural, therefore I call myself more Irish than anything

 

[J. M. Stovall]

Direct line to Bartholomew Stovall, born 24 August 1665 in Surrey England. Came to America at the age of 21, arriving in Virginia in late 1684 on the ship Booth. Bartholomew purchased up to 318 acres next to Deep Creek and the James River in what is now Powhatan County, Virginia.

 

[panamag8or]

The earliest arrival into this country was Isaac Allerton, who sailed on the Mayflower.

OMG!

In Nicholas Spencer's will, which I just discovered online, he bequeathed Isaac Allerton (along with George Washington's Great-Grandfather) 40 shillings each to purchase a mourning ring. He also gave Col. Allerton his horse, named Hector.

Seems you owe me a horse.lol

eta: the Isaac Allerton in my ancestor's will is the son of the Isaac Allerton that Genius is referring to, but still....

 

[Chanfan]

Well, by any account, I'm a mutt.

When I asked my parents (waaaaay back in Jr. High, for a class project), they said - English, Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Dutch, Russian, German, Japanese, Aleutian Indian.

Now that they are no longer around to ask, I've been digging. I've been able to trace lots of English - in once case, if no mistakes have been made, back to a little before 1066, when an ancestor was granted property after Hastings. Haven't clearly found any of the purported Irish, Welsh, Scottish.

Russian certainly - have a pair of brothers, apparently distantly related to royalty from Austria, who emigrated to Russia. Part of that line involves Alaska, parts of the family moving back to Russia when the purchase went through, and marrying a relative of a Russian Orthodox Saint (we until lately had an icon gifted by him for their wedding). Also one of that line was born on a boat, somewhat prematurely, and was kept alive by being placed in bread dough in an open oven. While I assume this line is where the Aleutian Indian is supposed to come from, haven't documented it yet.

I also know one relative near the turn of the century married a lady in Hiroshima (hence the Japanese), and they ran a tea farm in China. We had quite a bit of stuff from China as a result, and somewhere have a photo album of the boxer rebellion.

Otherwise, still digging. It's fun stuff, tho! Found out about a relative that died from a road rage incident (driving a carriage too fast after getting annoyed at another traveler). My Mother's side has a good black sheep, "Bones" Remmer, a fellow with gangster ties who owned the Cal-Neva lodge in Tahoe for a while (later owned by Sinatra).

 

[Dr Doran]

Irish, German, French, a little Welsh. "Doran" means "exile" in Gaelic. I have always thought it was a cool name. There are many Dorans in the USA and Ireland (originally spelled O'Dearain, I believe) as well as a County Doran in Ireland, and most Americans accent the latter syllable and most Irish the former. I usually accent the latter but once in a while the former and I consider it correct either way. We don't know anything about the German side. I am half French in that my mother's father came to Canada from France in 1907 at the age of 14 with his parents, leaving at least one sibling behind who had children; we are still friends with the French side of the family, send them emails, visit them, etc. and the resemblance of one of them to my sister who just passed away is uncanny. I almost married a French girl years ago; that would have been interesting, as I would have probably moved to France as I find the language easy and I like the people and the country, so this branch of the family would have moved full circle. But instead I married a Pole, and have no Polish relatives except for hers, at all. My mother's mother was french-Canadian, originally French. My estranged brother has traced a fair amount of our distant Doran relatives on the east coast and my mother still speaks to relatives of her dead mother and father all over Canada and the USA.

 

[52Styleline]

Maternal: My Great Grandfather was born in Schleswig-Holstein when it was part of Denmark. When he was young, the Prussians marched through and took the area away from Denmark. So he was either German or Danish depending upon how you look at it. Great Grandmother was German, born in Lubek. Grandparents both born in Germany and I ended up with their blue eyes and fair skin

Paternal: All from the Border area of Scotland. No tartan, no bagpipes..they were farmers and spent their free time stealing cattle from the English.

 

[Adelaidey]

German
Lithuanian
Czechoslovakian
Russian
Argentine
Croatian
Swedish


I'm a mutt, what can I say?

 

[MKL]

Anglo-Saxon from both sides running in my veins. I got the blue eyes and blond hair (of what is left).

 

[Pilotguy299]

mixed

English (Manchester) from my father's side, and German (Passau) from my mother's.

 

[katiemakeup]

Mostly Irish & German... but due to adoption on both grandparent's sides rumor has it there's a bit of French and English.

 

[fourstarbanner]

Dad's side, I'm mostly German. Mom's side, however, my grandpa used to tell me we're Welsh, Irish, and Scotch (he would then hold up his liquor glass to show us where we kept the Scotch part of our family )

 

[Rockapin-up]

I'm also a mutt. I'm Mexican German Irish Welsh Scottish, French and then some