Show us your roots!

[StuW]

I've traced my lines back to the mid 1600's but not much interesting to report apart from my g-g-aunt Lilly. Lilly Martin was a member of the "Dick Kerr Ladies", one of the first ladies football (soccer) teams who put on exhibition matches in WW1 to raise money for wounded soldiers. They ended up travelling to the states to play matches there too.

[Gawdzilla]

No, they were "Prots in the South" according to Grandpa. Whatever that means.

Probably referring to being Protestants in the Southern part of Ireland, which has been mainly Catholic..since...well...forever.

Yeah, I gathered that. I suspect there was something more than the usual hate going on there, Grandpa said they literally walked out of their homes after midnight, each carrying one suitcase and were on the ship before dawn. 

Of course, there's always "the tale grew in the telling." 

No, wait, an Oirish talking bullshit? That NEVER happens.

[robvalue]

Mine seems to have never moved out of Norfolk. Further analysis would probably produce worrying overlaps between branches.

[Alex K]

As I've mentioned elsewhere, the region in south western Germany where I grew up, between today's France and the Rhine river, was devastated by waves of the plague and the 30 years war, and by the mid 1600s, only few inhabitants remained. It was then that the local nobility advertised moving there to abandoned farms, for example in then famine-struck Switzerland. Many heeded their call, and the region was re-settled by a large Swiss population. Hence my last name, in its original swiss spelling, 'Knuchel'.

[Anomalocaris]

My paternal grandmother came to the states from China in the 1920s and married my grandfather.  Her family can appearently trace its line back to about 1700 years.

There were no people of historic significance I am aware of in that time, other than being relatively successful, but still commonplace, local officials and merchants (so I was given to understand) during the 19th century.

I am not clearly aware of the familiar origins of other parts of my family beyond about 1850.

[brewer]

My sister researched ours but I don't remember much of what she said. Mostly German/Penn Dutch. Some How related to president Hayes on fathers side (trying to live that down). She said something about the Mayflower but I doubt that, came from the morons ancestry site. Grand father/mother on mothers side immigrated from Germany post WWI. When grandpa died found american Nazi Bund stuff hidden in the root cellar. Klan shit too.

Based on my behavior there has to be trailer trash in there somewhere but nobody talks about it.

[Dystopia]

I have no idea, but I think both sides of my family are what we call "native portuguese". My dad's side of the family has a darker skin tone and more Sicilian-looking features. My mother's side is whiter with light-colored eyes. I inherited a bit of both, I have dark hair, dark eyes but my original skin tone was very pale - But not my skin is darker due to years of tanning at the beach, 60 days a year.

My last name is very common - My middle name is quite rare and it's actually a name Jewish people adopted to avoid being persecuted, but I can't know for sure if I'm Jewish or not since there's also non-Jewish people with that name.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I've never been particularly interested in genealogy, particularly my own. I've never made an effort to trace anything, but family legend has it that two of my distant cousins were involved in the Easter Rising (1916) and Mam always held that her maternal granddad was a locally well-known distiller of poteen. *shrug*

Boru

[account_inactive]

My sister researched ours but I don't remember much of what she said. Mostly German/Penn Dutch. Some How related to president Hayes on fathers side (trying to live that down). She said something about the Mayflower but I doubt that, came from the morons ancestry site. Grand father/mother on mothers side immigrated from Germany post WWI. When grandpa died found american Nazi Bund stuff hidden in the root cellar. Klan shit too.

Based on my behavior there has to be trailer trash in there somewhere but nobody talks about it.

Dude, that shit must be worth a fortune now.

[brewer]

My sister researched ours but I don't remember much of what she said. Mostly German/Penn Dutch. Some How related to president Hayes on fathers side (trying to live that down). She said something about the Mayflower but I doubt that, came from the morons ancestry site. Grand father/mother on mothers side immigrated from Germany post WWI. When grandpa died found american Nazi Bund stuff hidden in the root cellar. Klan shit too.

Based on my behavior there has to be trailer trash in there somewhere but nobody talks about it.

Dude, that shit must be worth a fortune now.

It's gone. My parents kinda freaked and destroyed it.