Where did Your Ancestors Originate?

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

9 minutes ago, Wacka said:

 

I doubt it.  A german woman told me my last name sounded Czech. Could be as Poznan is near the Czech border and  Germany owned  the area until WW1 ended.

My mother's father could sense that the winds of war were brewing around 1910 and he was prime cannon fodder age ( born in1888) so he decided to get out of there before the German army drafted him.Came her only knowing a few English words. Had to learn English by talking to people  and reading the  paper (radio and talking movies weren't invented yet) and there were no ESL classes. Did well enough to raise a family of 9 kids while working at Buffalo Forge as a tinsmith.

 

Oddly enough, I did some research into my last name (which doesn't sound Polish at all). Turns out, it's a rather common name in the Posnan area, and ONLY in the Posnan area. This was discovered through a search of parish records in Poland.

 

[Buffalo_Gal]

13 minutes ago, Wacka said:

 

I doubt it.  A german woman told me my last name sounded Czech. Could be as Poznan is near the Czech border and  Germany owned  the area until WW1 ended.

My mother's father could sense that the winds of war were brewing around 1910 and he was prime cannon fodder age ( born in1888) so he decided to get out of there before the German army drafted him.Came her only knowing a few English words. Had to learn English by talking to people  and reading the  paper (radio and talking movies weren't invented yet) and there were no ESL classes. Did well enough to raise a family of 9 kids while working at Buffalo Forge as a tinsmith.

Lot of border swapping back then... one of my g-grandfather's had an Austrian birth certificate due to where the border was at the time. He was a Polish citizen.
 

[Azalin]

My Irish ancestor was born in 1757 in County Down, Ulster, and came to the US when he was 19. I'm 7th generation Scots-Irish with a smattering of Scandinavian & German mixed in.  

[RochesterRob]

25 minutes ago, Wacka said:

 

I doubt it.  A german woman told me my last name sounded Czech. Could be as Poznan is near the Czech border and  Germany owned  the area until WW1 ended.

My mother's father could sense that the winds of war were brewing around 1910 and he was prime cannon fodder age ( born in1888) so he decided to get out of there before the German army drafted him.Came her only knowing a few English words. Had to learn English by talking to people  and reading the  paper (radio and talking movies weren't invented yet) and there were no ESL classes. Did well enough to raise a family of 9 kids while working at Buffalo Forge as a tinsmith.

  You are referring to the Sudetenland where my paternal grandmother came from.  The area she specifically came from is a part of Poland now and we wondered if she was not a little bit Polish even if she was not aware of being so.  She was a teenager when WWI was lost for Germany and her family became dislocated until she came to the US in the 1920's.  She was always tight lipped about the time right after WWI over there which was due to the chaos from different factions vying for power on a local basis.  

[Tiberius]

34 minutes ago, westside2 said:

So you're not a chinese bot? Lol, I kid.

Dad's side unknown. He was orphaned as a child. My mom's are German. Cane over in 1939. They saw the writing on the wall. 

Wow! Just got out in time! Good, we are glad you are here  

[RochesterRob]

19 minutes ago, Azalin said:

My Irish ancestor was born in 1757 in County Down, Ulster, and came to the US when he was 19. I'm 7th generation Scots-Irish with a smattering of Scandinavian & German mixed in.  

  A lot of Scots emigrated to Ireland several centuries ago.  My maternal grandfather's family is one example.  They had been in Ireland for at least a dozen generations before coming to the US and figured any Scot blood was pretty well diluted at that point.  They were from Ulster.  Maternal grandmother traces back to County Cork.

[Tiberius]

13 hours ago, Chris farley said:

 Sicily on moms side.  Swedish and Scottish on dad's 

My buddy is Italian on his fathers side, he was all pissed off when he got his Ancestory .com dna results back and there was very little Italian in him. I told him how Italy had basically been the slave market of Europe 2000 years ago and many Italians are of mixed ancestry. Italy, the first melting pot! 

[RochesterRob]

2 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

My buddy is Italian on his fathers side, he was all pissed off when he got his Ancestory .com dna results back and there was very little Italian in him. I told him how Italy had basically been the slave market of Europe 2000 years ago and many Italians are of mixed ancestry. Italy, the first melting pot! 

  Specifically, Italy was being hit by invasions of barbarians as the Western Roman Empire was going into decline.  My nephew had a similar test result which does show his mom's (my SIL) DNA clearly but less than 5 percent Italian for his dad.  If you are from Wales that is the best chance of being "pure bred."  Anything else and a good chance eastern barbarians or Vikings factor in.

50 minutes ago, westside2 said:

So you're not a chinese bot? Lol, I kid.

Dad's side unknown. He was orphaned as a child. My mom's are German. Cane over in 1939. They saw the writing on the wall. 

  My paternal grandmother was supposed to have gone back to Germany to collect an inheritance worth considerable money in 1939.  Word came back from family over there that the Nazi's had no intentions of letting her leave with that money so she never went.  

[gobilz]

19 hours ago, Motorin' said:

Growing up in WNY, I've had this conversation hundreds of times. This is such a Buffalonian conversation. 

 

It's also such a white conversation.

 

Have any of you guys ever asked any of your black friends this question? 

Please 

[Tiberius]

20 hours ago, Motorin' said:

Growing up in WNY, I've had this conversation hundreds of times. This is such a Buffalonian conversation. 

 

It's also such a white conversation.

 

Have any of you guys ever asked any of your black friends this question? 

Yes, many black people have relatives down south. So not nationality, but many black people talk about the different parts of the south their families moved from. 

[Tommy Callahan]

2 hours ago, Tiberius said:

My buddy is Italian on his fathers side, he was all pissed off when he got his Ancestory .com dna results back and there was very little Italian in him. I told him how Italy had basically been the slave market of Europe 2000 years ago and many Italians are of mixed ancestry. Italy, the first melting pot! 

 

My 23 and me was mostly uneventful and confirmed what I was told and read (my aunt wrote a book tracing them back to Rome in the 1300 's).  but you have a point, as it also showed I have the Y Haplogroup E-M123.  And that's not Sicilian or Italian.  But Ethiopian Levanthian

 

 

 

 

Edited July 9, 2020 by Chris farley

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

Sicily - Syracuse and Messina 

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

....Italy for BOTH SIDES......and they ALL  came through Ellis Island the LEGAL WAY......one set had 4 kids and the other had 9........made it with NO public assistance, welfare et al.....ground it out to succeed, the American way (or used to be)............

[Rob's House]

It depends how far you go back. Most of my ancestry is British, but my great x 10^?? grandfather was a fish.

[realtruelove]

5 hours ago, OldTimeAFLGuy said:

....Italy for BOTH SIDES......and they ALL  came through Ellis Island the LEGAL WAY......one set had 4 kids and the other had 9........made it with NO public assistance, welfare et al.....ground it out to succeed, the American way (or used to be)............

Ground and Pound...

[KD in CA]

On 7/8/2020 at 9:36 AM, Chef Jim said:

My grampa on my dad's side came from Italy.  My dad's mom's parents came from Italy.

 

My grampa on my mom's side family came over on the Fortune which was the second ship to arrive at Plymouth Rock after the Mayflower.  

 

We were late comers....my Dad's mother's side came over on the Arabella in 1630.

 

French faction hightailed it to America just before WW1.

[realtruelove]

Both grandparents on my mom's side came from Sicily via Ellis Island.  Great grandparents on my father's side came from Scotland.  All become citizens the legal way.  My Sicilian grandparents raised 8 children and my grandfather was a barber in downtown Buffalo.  My great grandmother from Scotland had 21 children and my grandfather was her youngest.  My father once said to my great grandmother, "You must have really loved grandpa to have 21 children"  Her response..."I hated the son of a B word."

[transplantbillsfan]

On 7/8/2020 at 10:20 AM, Motorin' said:

Growing up in WNY, I've had this conversation hundreds of times. This is such a Buffalonian conversation. 

 

It's also such a white conversation.

 

Have any of you guys ever asked any of your black friends this question? 

 

Want to know where it's just an AWESOME question to ask?

 

Hawai'i.

 

Wife is Thai, Hawaiian, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish and Indian.

 

Her Mom is an import from Thailand my father in law met and married over there during Vietnam. Her father pulls over much on his Hawaiian genes though HIS Mom looks very Portuguese.

 

I'm just plain ole White. English, Scotch-Irish, Welch, French and Scandinavian.

 

Ancestors go back to the Revolutionary War as I know I'm related to some head of one of the militias in New England who corresponded with George Washington about strategy at that time, but I don't remember his name.

 

My Mom brought it up recently because she said she's been invited multiple times to join DAR, but chose not to.

Edited July 10, 2020 by transplantbillsfan

[LB3]

Scottish, Irish, Italian and Native American.

[SoTier]

On 7/8/2020 at 8:35 PM, Cinga said:

 

Yup! When I was stationed on Okinawa many moons ago it seemed all the orientals hated each other. Korean, Japanese, Filipinos, and Chinese.  I think most of that went back to WWII and before but if there could be racism within a race that would have been proof!

 

And Europeans haven't demonstrated hatred of each other over the last 2000 years?   In the last 106 years, Europeans did their best to annihilate each other twice. 

 

On 7/8/2020 at 9:55 PM, Chris farley said:

 Sicily on moms side.  Swedish and Scottish on dad's 

 

Italian/Swedish is a common mix in the Jamestown area where about 50% of the population have some Swedish ancestry, while Italians have been a major ethnic group in Jamestown since the early 1900s.

 

On 7/9/2020 at 11:02 AM, RochesterRob said:

  A lot of Scots emigrated to Ireland several centuries ago.  My maternal grandfather's family is one example.  They had been in Ireland for at least a dozen generations before coming to the US and figured any Scot blood was pretty well diluted at that point.  They were from Ulster.  Maternal grandmother traces back to County Cork.

 

 

While Lord Protector of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales in the mid-17th century, Oliver Cromwell dispossessed thousands of Irish Catholics and replaced them with Scottish Protestants.   That was all part of the widespread religious warfare throughout Europe in the 17th century, and the source of "The Troubles" that erupted in Northern Ireland in the late 20th century.

 

On 7/9/2020 at 12:27 PM, Tiberius said:

Yes, many black people have relatives down south. So not nationality, but many black people talk about the different parts of the south their families moved from. 

 

Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns is a prize winning book on "the Great Migration", which saw millions of Southern Blacks leave the South for the Northeast, Midwest, and Far West between 1915 and about 1970.    

 

19 hours ago, OldTimeAFLGuy said:

....Italy for BOTH SIDES......and they ALL  came through Ellis Island the LEGAL WAY......one set had 4 kids and the other had 9........made it with NO public assistance, welfare et al.....ground it out to succeed, the American way (or used to be)............

 

So, do you want a medal????   The fact is that until the early 1920s, EVERYBODY who came into the US was LEGAL because there were no laws limiting entry into the US except for illness, disability, or mental incapacity, in which case you were sent back to Europe.  For several decades after the 1920s, the US allowed largely unrestricted immigration into the US from Western Hemisphere countries.  It was only in the 1980s that all those descendants of European immigrants in Cali, Arizona, and Texas began worrying that those brown people from south of the Rio Grande who picked their crops and cleaned their houses for slave-labor wages were staying in the country rather than returning to Mexico and points south.