How Many Of Y'all Know Your Family History?
Guzzo
8,611 Posts
been working on a paper about my family. Aside from knowing 3 of grandparents (never met the man that helped bring my dad into the world) I wasn't that deep into the family history but that schitt is fascinating. Shits like a forever unfolding box (no pandora) helped me map out my medical history learned about how dysfunctional peoples in my fmaiy were back in the 19th century and how dudes dealt with some serious persecution. Any of y'all got soe amazing family history? SHARE THAT SCHITT!
Comments
but the dude he worked for stole the idea and patented it.
dude, that fukin sux
How are you going about doing this? From your own family records or are you getting outside help tracing everything back?
My grandfather also slapped a Japanese soldier silly for taunting a young Chinese girl when they withdrew after losing. Somehow his troops ended up on the same train as Japanese troops and he wasn't gonna let that guy get away with it.
Now he is a badass who does traditional painting and situps at age 86.
On my mom's side, my grandfather's story is a bit more complex, only because he only revealed so much, and what he revealed is still in a bit of mystery. With him, I can trace things back to my great-grandmother. A lot of Chinese immigration documents to the Hawaiian islands from the second half of the 1800's either didn't exist, or were destroyed, so without that information I wouldn't be able to do that much backtracking without solid names. In terms of my "Omama", the link to Austria is much easier.
What makes my story interesting is that it's not just having two stories, and going as far back as possible. Each of my parents are a mixture of things, three of my grandparents were a mixture of things too, so to be able to trace things one by one is great, and know how one met the other. A hell of a lot of traveling in my family.
There are also two distinct Hawaiian ties in my family, both very different from each other. That has always been important to me, and I want to be able to say this is where I came from, and this is where I am now.
Anyway, they were crazy rich when they moved to Canada (probably after 1905 or 1917, I'm unsure). However, my great-grandmother had a gambling problem. In order to support it and to hide it from the family, she faked all her jewlery. Alas, she lost all of her wealth without telling anyone and when she died the heirs to her wealth where very surprised to find that they were suddenly poor.
They became farmers
only cool story is a great great grandparent was a drummer boy in the civil war, i think on the north side. I recently ran across a scan of the microfilm that showed his widow getting civil war military pension for him like in 1905 - chills ran down my spine - heres a document that proves grandmas old story! that sorta stuff freaks me out. i agree with the endless pandoras box thing.
well I went to the oldest relatives I knew and just asked them very bluntly about family, they were surprisingly even more blunt in their answers (describing both the good & bad characters in our family tree). One of my relatives had a bunch of early photos from the turn of the century and another had a handwritten family tree they worked out a few years ago.
I'm trying to piece my family back to the 18th century but it gets pretty hard to trace around the 1860's. I may have to go to one of those online geneology services if I can't break gound on this thorugh phone calls and visitis
My great grandfather snuck out of the Ukraine in a carriage filled with hay when he was about eighteen. (I'm pretty sure his family was persectued for something, most likely being jewish.) This was about 1900. He moved to a growing small city near Pittsburgh. He made money as a vendor with a cart and eventually earned enough money to open up his own shop and send for his wife back in the Ukraine. Eventually he becomes mayor of the city.
When his son, my grandfather, is fifteen, he goes to Harvard. After graduating at 19, he starts Harvard Law school. This is Prohibition era, and like almost every small city in the country, the town where my great grandfather is mayor is run by the mafia. He had been working to get the mob out of town since he had taken office several years earlier. While my grandfather is at Law school, his father is assasinated. He had been living the American dream, but no one ever tells you can only go so far without running into the real heads of state. And eventually you must deal with them.
My grandfather is forced to come back home and take care of his mother. He has to drop out of Harvard and go to Pitt for law school. Prior to the assasination, my grandpa was more or less being groomed for greatness of some sort or another. He was literally one of the last of a dying breed. One of those people who can read greek, latin, russian and german, who knows Greek history forwards and backwards. But he never had a chance to live up to what he could have been.
Last year I was digging through some old boxes in my house and found my grandpa's wallet. Inside of it were two pictures cut out from the newspaper the day my great grandpa was burried. One was of he and his mom by the grave and the other was of the hit man. When I saw that, I realized how much of a ripple that event left over future generations.
Fortunately I have uncles on both sides of my family that have made researching family history a big part of their retirements.
That makes me a mutt.
^^^^^^^ This is a great story. ^^^^^^^^
My mom never knew her grandparents bc her mom and dad (my maternal grandparents) met in an orphanage in Illinois (my grandparents knew who their parents were, there was just a string of unfortunate/untimely deaths when they were young - pre-penicillan, basically). Because of this, she started getting into genealogy in the late 70s and researching the history she never knew....when my brother and I were growing up this basically meant visiting about every county courthouse and cemetery we thought existed in a six state area on weekends for years....she researched both sides of the family (her own and my dad's) to roughly 1600s, a little further in some lines....it gets spotty at that point, tho, between records being lost and she having to correspond in/decipher French (her side's French, dad's Welsh).
However, she still works as a genealogist for folks all over the world and started a historical society where my parents are in Indiana. Seriously, tho, if anybody had some random genealogy question hit me up because I might be able to help point you in the right direction. One thing I can definitely say is that a good place to start - outside of talking to all of your living relatives, of course - is to see if you can find a grandparent's bible or equivalent religious text (not sure how to put that, but you know what I'm saying, trying to be inclusive here).....I'm not sure how much this tradition stands, but at one point bibles (if the household had one, etc) often held the family history - people would file birth announcements, newspaper clippings, death notices, etc - in them, and bibles often had (have?) a spot to write down the basic family tree in the back. Great place to start, and from there it's calling county courthouses for birth/wedding/death certificates, etc....another form of digging records, I guess (oof, sorry)....but definitely talk to the folks who are still around bc they can flesh out the story behind all the names and dates.
growing up I was bored to death with all the hours of hanging in the library while mom went through microfilm (altho later on this ended up being a great way to find skate spots in other towns pre-driver's license) but now I'm psyched to know (some of) the history.
i know our whole mexican history has been detailed to WAY back. im not sure how far it goes but i know our last name is de la Torre and not Torres. it was changed when my great great grandfather came up here and had to find work. my uncle Pat and a few relatives in mexico has been researching for 30-40yrs. i saw the tree once and it was huge. my aunt made a copy of the text and its like 30 something pages. pictures dating back to the 1800s and drawings from the 1700s from mexican relatives.
i cant remember the name of the original indian tribe in mexico that we come from but they were headhunters and cannibals... i guess crazy just sits in your genes for hella long...
The picture is actually a marriage certificate. The problem that I have is being able to trace my history from there to now.
It's weird knowing that I have some Native American roots because I honestly don't see it in me or that side of the family.
My dad's side................his family tree is filled with treehouses, vines, and broken branches. There's a TON of nifty things in his family (ie. having to do with the assassinated dictator Trujillo of the Dominican Republic).
My paternal grandfather's ancestor's moved to Canada from Ireland in the 1700's. My paternal grandmother's ancestor's moved to Canada from Scotland at about the same time. Grandma RULED! Took me to see Godzilla movies when I was a kid, took me digging for records at Woolco when I was 8 - she copped David Bowie's "Changes One" - She used to be a follies dancer back inna day, and was related to Scottish nobility.
Grandad worked on the trains and was a writer. He told me that his family were kicked out of Ireland for stealing sheep! My dad and my uncle just released a book of his writings:
Fletch: I'm John.
Gail Stanwyk: Ohhhh, John. John who?
Fletch: John Cock...tos...ton.
Gail Stanwyk: Thats a beautiful name.
Fletch: It's Scotch-Romanian.
Gail Stanwyk: That's an odd combination.
Fletch: So were my parents.
My family from my dad's side is royalty.
Dahomey kingdom (now called Benin) my grand-fateh was nominated for king (now its like a british type symbolic royalty) but passed it to his brother
Talking to a prince bitches...
Family pic(unesco document)
I will soon go and visit the kingdom (i saw a documentary on it
Peace
My mom's family came to San Francisco from Ireland during the potato famine, I m a 5th generation San Franciscan on her side and I've seen the list of relatives go back, very interesting.
Yeah, Moist was saying you've had madmen in you.
dude... you sent me a text msg telling me this? this is the ultimate form of soulstrut nerdery... sending someone a text telling them that they zinged you on soulstrut... theres some fucking next level of dork youve just opened the door to. have fun in there by yourself...
freal though... give me the artco record mexican.
Damn, and here I was planning to PM you every week with updates on how many times my zing was viewed in relation to the current sales numbers of the Dangerdoom and Bun B CD's.
Besides, I think a higher form of SoulStrut nerdery is immediately signing BACK on to SoulStrut to view a zing you were just text-messaged about. The real question is...do either of these qualify for the postmodern graemlin?
Herm
P.S. I gave the Artco 45 to Sadat X.
fuckin racist...
both of my folks were born in syria, although they aren't syrian or even arabic. they both moved to a tiny village in lebanon when they were young, and that's where they met. pops got accepted to UCLA and got a student visa. they were actually planning on going back to lebanon after pops got his PHD, but after my sister and i were born, they decided to stay in los angeles. i often think what would've been if i were to grow up in lebanon...
to those of you lucky enough to have grandparents around (or just have living grandparents in general), cherish them! talk to them as much as you can, they probably have amazing stories to tell.