Geneaology

[Indiogene]

I have an aunt in Oklahoma with an avid interest in genealogy and she researched my mother's family tree to include ancestors who are famous like Davy Crockett or long lost relatives such as TV comedian Lucille Ball (she turns 100 years old, though she's dead).

The deep interest in geneaology is found even more in Utah, due to the efforts by the Latter-Day Saints church based in Salt Lake City. They continue to fight a connection of the Israelites with North American Indians, according to the Book of Mormon, but the church already debunked the theory as unscientific and full-blooded Native Americans DO NOT have any genetic links with ancient Israel.

Now what about Assyrians, one of the oldest peoples in the world, along with the Basque, the Sami people and southern Indians or Central Asians...the news reporter Nineva Dinha finds out her Assyrian roots definitely go way back to Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey. The Assyrians are a Christian west Semite group, alike the Lebanese Maronites and Hebrews of both Judaic (religious) and non-Judaic origins.

Now I wonder if the Book of Mormon mistaken Asian "Indians" with that of Native American "Indians" or something about Indians produced European peoples, unless the Garden of Eden was located in our Middle West, not the Middle East (just a theory of mine). :-/

Edited August 5, 2011 by DeMikeDe

[Indiogene]

...And I forgotten to mention on my maternal grandmother's side we had relatives from the likes of Sam Houston and Davy...Davy Crockett, both heroes of the Texas Revolution and participants in the battle of the Alamo (Crockett where he was captured and killed) and San Jacinto (Houston was general leading Texans to a victory over Mexico)...and the first lady "Lady Bird Johnson" and comedian Lucille Ball was found on family ancestral records, including a family tree referred to Davy Crockett drawing on the back of the family bible. Sam Houston was also the only president of the Texas Republic (1836-1845) and was against Texas joining the Confederacy after their failed relationship with the pre-civil war Union the republic was admitted as a state 15 years earlier. He was adopted to the Texas branch of the Cherokee nation through Tennessee where he and Crockett came from.

On my half-sister's maternal side (by adoption) she's the great-great-granddaughter of Confederate general Robert E. Lee who's a Virginian by birth and had to choose sides in the final phase of the Civil war (1861-1865) when captured by the Union in an area between Richmond and Washington DC, the union capital across the Potomac, his long time Ulysses Grant being an Union general- the two made a compromise to have the South surrender to the North and both American brothers they felt needed to reunify again. Lee didn't own slaves or freed them out of his disfavor or lack of concern over the slavery issue which caused the civil war.

And finally, the Nord Pas-de-Calais region of France is the homeland of French Revolution leader Robespierre come from Arras, prime minister Alexandre Ribot being from St. Omer (my Dad's hometown) and WWII general-president Charles de Gaulle originally from Lille. Two Latin American revolutionaires went to exile in Boulogne-Sur-Mer (or was it Calais): Jose San Martin and Simon Bolivar, and the historic West Flemish settlement under the Spaniards and Portuguese of Brazil, South America means many distant relatives are possible...but none of the famous "Picards" or "Flemings" are related to my father's family (but we never know).

[Travelling Man]

Beware of looking too much into geneology... you may not like what you find.

My wife's family did their geneology - and found that their namesake was the teacher of Franz Josef, the last of the Habsburg line.

I started doing mine... much to my chagrin.

My step-father's family was a bunch of farmers in Poland prior to coming to the US. My mother's family was a bunch of farmers out of Norway and Sweden. Out of boredom, I started doing my biological father's line as well... and found that his Grandfather (my Great) was a Jew that changed his name to avoid persecution. Two generations further back, I am related to the Josef line of Habsburg Emperors... so my wife's family used to work for my family (now it's reversed!!).

This started me wondering about my biological father - so, with the help of TEH INTERWEBS, I found him, and found that he disavowed any possibility that he was my father. He was so adamant that I paid for DNA testing - and the tech that read the results (over the phone) told me by relating the following:

"Can you see any men around you?"

"Yes"

"There is a better chance that ANY one of them is your father than the person that is on your Birth Certificate."

This means that my mother has been lying to me for almost five decades... and there's no way to ask for the truth without accusing her of being a ****.

Yeah - be careful when you do your geneology. I'm going to have to be content with being the son of a long line of farmers.

[Blue Box]

I agree with the above. I do dabble in trying to trace both my family's roots. For the most part I've went in with a mind set that I probably wouldn't find anything that interesting and I've been right (just regular people in my tree to far nothing big). However, I have found that in one part of my family we have a bunch of people who like to use you for information but do not want to give as much back. I also got used by a closer person to me in the family that said they would hook me up with another person who could give me information in return for copies of pictures but this person never did (Thank god I didn't give this person the actual photos). This side of the family is also the most religious of the two sides too, which I find hilarious (I guess they don't practice what they preach). Moral of the story is be careful who you deal with within the family you never know who will screw you over.

Edited October 10, 2011 by Blue Box

[Indiogene]

My paternal grandmother died last week and she was 87 years old, lived a long life and survived her husband (my grandpa died 6 years ago), so my father is there to meet up with his siblings (my uncle and my aunt) to pay their last tributes.

On my other side of the tree have the surname Schwass, a German family but my aunt researched the mid 19th century family record to find the family never originating from Schwaben (Swabia) like originally thought, but they hailed from the former German province of Silesia now officially part of Poland. It's possible of Slavic ancestry in them were probably Germanized under the Prussian empire...but it all depends on how distant their Polish forebears were.

[Volatile32]

Beware of looking too much into geneology... you may not like what you find.

My wife's family did their geneology - and found that their namesake was the teacher of Franz Josef, the last of the Habsburg line.

I started doing mine... much to my chagrin.

My step-father's family was a bunch of farmers in Poland prior to coming to the US. My mother's family was a bunch of farmers out of Norway and Sweden. Out of boredom, I started doing my biological father's line as well... and found that his Grandfather (my Great) was a Jew that changed his name to avoid persecution. Two generations further back, I am related to the Josef line of Habsburg Emperors... so my wife's family used to work for my family (now it's reversed!!).

This started me wondering about my biological father - so, with the help of TEH INTERWEBS, I found him, and found that he disavowed any possibility that he was my father. He was so adamant that I paid for DNA testing - and the tech that read the results (over the phone) told me by relating the following:

"Can you see any men around you?"

"Yes"

"There is a better chance that ANY one of them is your father than the person that is on your Birth Certificate."

This means that my mother has been lying to me for almost five decades... and there's no way to ask for the truth without accusing her of being a ****.

Yeah - be careful when you do your geneology. I'm going to have to be content with being the son of a long line of farmers.

I hate to hear that about your father. Good luck in your quest if you are still searching. I agree though, that you should be careful with what you find.

My great-grandfathers "dad" passed away in Fort Deleware 5 years before my great-grandfather was born. I have went through every possibility and have come to the conclusion that my great-great-grandmother was a pretty "modern" woman who was married at least three times and possibly lived with several different men. Keep in mind this was in the mid 1800's. When I tried to tell my family this, there was a bit of an outrage over ruining the family name as if it was something that could really be ruined any further than my generation has done.

Edited March 24, 2012 by Lei Ren

[Indiogene]

My father's side of the family explored the possibility of Jewish ancestry, because he was circumcized in post-WW2 France but it turned out he was born in an American military hospital! I have no idea whether or not the paternal side are hiding anything they considered shameful in a country where ancient anti-semitism in the bottom exists, then again racism against minority groups in the US (American Indians among them) would caused many white Americans to hide part-Indian ancestry until recently it was no longer shameful, it became a trend as they say "I was Indian before it was cool".