Does anyone really know their "heritage"?

zzyzzogeton

zzyzzogeton

Joined
Feb 17, 2013
Messages
6,139
Me? I was happily misinformed for nearly 55 years that I was 75% German and 25% English.

Then some well meaning cousin determined that the "English" side is really "English mutt", i.e., Scottish/Irish/English/Welsh.

Oh wait, that German should actually that should be 75% Prussian, since my ancestors came to the US from Prussia as Germany did not exist as a country until the 1870s.

Then, a few years ago, I found out by accident during a late night Internet rabbit hole session, that my last name is actually Wendish. I had never heard of the "Wends". A feed mill in Temple is "Wendland Feeds", which we sold back in the day, but to me, it was just a family name of no import.

I looked up where the Wends came from, and found surprising information on the Inet :):eek::).

Turns out the Wends came from eastern Saxony, the Lusatias (Upper and Lower) and Sileasia (where current Germany, Poland and Czech come together) and that Wendish (the language) is closer to Polish and Czech than German. (Which explains why my grandfather survived WW1:eek:).

And that my last name is actually a Wendish phonetic spelling of the Swedish word for "Christian", e.g., "Kristen".

When I was being asked what I wanted for Christmas this, I put this book on the list

In Search of a Home: Nineteenth-Century Wendish Immigration Paperback – October 29, 2007
by George R. Nielsen

Well, I got it and started reading it this past week, and using the info in that book looked on the Inet for more info and boy howdy, that sure opened a can of worms. :D

Turns out that my branch of the Wends was part of the SECOND Wendish migration to Texas. It seems that when the first Wendish movement occurred in the 1850s, my ancestors "took a wrong turn at Albuqueque" and just like Bugs, ended up in AUSTRALIA. Literally. And my great-great-grandfather was born in Hochkirch, Victoria, AU, 190 miles WEST of Melbourne. The family then moved BACK to Prussia before moving on to Texas, taking a short break in Ireland to bury half their number due to a cholera outbreak before moving on.

So I have gone from being

German/English

to

German/Prussian/Swedish/Czech/Polish/Hungarian/Bohemian/Moravian/English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish/Australian.

Maybe more.:confused:

I think I'll just stick with Texian-American.;)

Anyone else ever find out they were something they thought they weren't??
 
There is a branch of my family tree that stops at the immigration office where my great grandfather landed in Canada. Either didn't think it important or wanted to make a clean break, and we have no info going back past that. Apart from that there is the usual Scandinavian mix, I'm not sure how far back any of the branches of my family have been traced on the rest of Europe, all I know is that England and Sweden were the departing ports. From family legend however at least one of my ancestors (I think that same great grandfather) flipped a coin and Australia was the other option. My wife's family might be connected back to a bunch in europe who pulled the same thing, her half ending up in Australia, the others in Canada. Funny how these things can go.
 
Back before pictures, fingerprints and computers, it was real easy to "disappear if one was running from the past regardless of the reason.

Some were running from a criminal past, others from slavery/serfdom, a bad marriage, debt collector avoidance, , family feuds, even bad blood within families.

Lots of untold stories. And sometimes the government helped. I have a friend whose family came from Poland in the 1850s who tells me that when the family came through Ellis Island, the clerk dropped a bunch of letters from the name because he didn't have enough room on the form and told the father

"This is your new name in America."
 
I've never delved too deep into the rabbit hole. Not sure what I'd find.

I was always told I was Slavic on both sides of the family. After the World Wars, the borders changed so much in those areas that it is hard to tell. If someone wants to go thru my garbage, fish out a napkin with my DNA on it and test it, go for it.

I'm some combo of Czech, Slovak, Russian, Ukrainian. My great grandparents on both sides spoke Russian in the house I was told.

I'm a mutt. That sounds good. Everyone loves a mutt...
 
Family says Scotland, but a search of the family name shows all the variations of the name coming from the area around Leeds and York and one or two from London, so they're probably wrong, but try convincing them of that.

Other than that, Polish, German, Welsh, and probably Midwestern Nation Native American, we're pretty sure Sac and Fox Nation, we might have a name from relocation records, although finding information is pretty hard due to the fact that everyone with that information is dead and they were pretty tight lipped about it when they were around, apparently, whatever happened, it was quite scandalous.
 
Had an experience like this last year. I went my whole life going by two ethnicities (other than plain old American), knew of a little German in the mix but it was a few generations back. Then one day while taking to someone else my father casually reveals his father was not a native of his country (one of my presumed ethnicities) but an immigrant there too. I dug further and found my grandmother's parents were also not native to that country.

In short I am a mutt (as we all are, really) but I'll stick with the most recent two ethnicities for peace of mind :D
 
Whenever I see one of those ancestry commercials on TV (a bit frequent last couple of years?), I am always reminded of dog shows for some reason. If we as a society get to the point where such questions are asked regularly, I think I will go with "North Korean" or "Somali", depending on who's asking...
 
In reality, most folks aren't asked a lot about their ancestry on a day-to-day basis. It's not really that important in the big scheme of things.

I run into this type of question more often than most, usually in the form of "What kind of name is that?", when being asked to spell my last name after I say it in response to "What is your last name?" as it is not a name that people run across except in some areas of Texas and a few scattered pockets in around the US.

The conversation usually goes -

Them - What's your last name?

Me - I say my name, occasionally using the pre-Americanized Wendish/Sorbian pronunciation. The Americanized pronunciation comes from a yankee drill sergeant in Georgia during WW1.

Them - How Do you spell that?

Me - "T H A T"

I've actually had people type it in before realizing how I answered. Yes, I can be the south end of a north bound mule.

After spelling my name for real, that's when the question on nationality usually comes up.

I used to say "German". Now to mess with nosiness in a different manner, I'll say

"Wendish"
or
"Lusatian", since most Wends came from Upper or Lower Lusatia
or
"Sorbian", as Lusatia was changed to Sorbia in the early 1800s.

I have also been known to put Wend, Lusatian, Sorbian, Slavic and Luzician (the Luzici was the Slavic tribe the Wends descended from) on documents asking about race or ethnicity. Refer to north bound mule comment. :p
 
I fell into this rabbit hole quite deep a few years ago. You see, both of my parents were adopted, so there was no real knowing WHAT my biological heritage was. For those that think it's not important, imagine having no idea who you are, or where you come from (in the historical sense). My bloodline started, and ended at my parents.

Luckily for me, we have the original birth certificates for both my parents, which allowed me to do some digging on the various genealogy sites. Finding info, and pictures, of biological ancestors was quite an interesting journey. I found blood relatives that actually looked like me. I could see it in the faces, the body types, and even how they carried themselves in photos. And having connected with a few living relatives, the stories of scandle and hushed rumors leading to the births of my parents, and them being given for adoption were fascinating.

More importantly though, it also made me more interested in the history of those who I consider my real family - the grandparents who adopted my mother and father. Their stories are just as, if not more interesting, and include names and faces I've recognized all my life.

It's been quite the road of self discovery. Both emotional and eye opening at the same time.
 
English, Scotch-Irish, Scottish, German and probably a bit of Cherokee somewhere. The Germans may have originally been Dutch or even Norwegians who eventually migrated to the Ruhr Valley.
"American"is not really an ethnicity. It indicates membership a political club with very lax membership standards. :D
 
IMG_0248.PNG My fathers brother Glenn just got his ancestry DNA back. I'd figure mine is similar.
 
Krav, you might be right about it being the same, but you might also be wrong.:D

I saw a story where a set of "identical" triplets had DNA tests run and they came back with slightly different results due to the way DNA splits during reproduction and fertilization.
 
The mail in genetic testing is not very expensive and very informative. I friend of mine that thought he was part American Indian had zero American Indian DNA.
 
Not only that, a lot of the commercially available and affordable tests are flawed (they are not as specific as you would think).

A more thorough and accurate test would be a genome sequence, but that's currently cost prohibitive to most people.
 
I only really know as far back as my grandparents background.

On my father’s side his father is from Hungary. His parents were hungarian jews but owned some apartment buildings in Vienna. (Back then it was the Austro-Hungarian empire) Some of the weirdest photos I’ve seen are my great grandfather in his WW1 Austro hungarian uniform. He looks like a jewish guy in a nazi uniform. (The ww1 uniform was almost identical to the german ww2 one). We know that the last name this part of my family was using was a made up last name. Because of all the pogroms and difficulties the real last name is lost.

My father’s mother’s family was from Minsk in belarus. Also from a jewish family.

My mother’s father’s family is originally from France. His last name Gignac comes from the town in France where his family is from. Apparently his family had some nobility because there is a gignac family crest in the french heraldry.



My mother’s mom is from a large family (12 siblings) in Romania. Despite this they are also a hungarian family. The town they are from was once part of hungary but at some point became part of Romania. (Near transylvania). Their family was also apparently at one point jewish but became secular and lost their religion. By chance my mother met my father and converted back to judaism before marriage.

I also had my DNA tested. I forget what most of it said but I remember my ancient heritage is semetic/egyptian. The jews were captive in Egypt in the bible and the bible says the egyptians are our brothers. Truly seeing that my dna was from egypt/ semetic despite most my family being from Europe really was amazing.
 
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