Finding Your Roots and Heritage
Sun_Fortune
1,374 Posts
I just just watched like all five hours of that program on PBS -- I just blanked on what its called. i think its called African American Lives, where the Hravard guy traces like Chris Tucker's and Oprah's roots through genealogy and genetics back through the states and into Africa. Since SS is in an emotional mood today, I was emotional through the whole thing. Anyone ever trace their lineage and history through genetic testing? Im fascinated by it. Can anybody trace their genealog back a long time? I can only trace my ancestors back like a hundred and fifty years. I have no clue where it is I come from. Watching Chris Tucker return to the area where his ancestors were kidnapped was more than amazing. I want to find my ancestral village.
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I'm half Chinese and can trace my mother's famiy back 6 generations to when we first came over here from China on both my grandmother and grandfather's side. Of all coincidences, both my grandparents met at Cal during WWII and had the same last name and for the same reasons, the immigration board screwed up our family names because Chinese put their last name first.
I had to do a geneology report a few months back and traced my fathers side of the family back to my great grandparents (1870's and my mothers side up to my great grandparents. mid 19th century)
It's much harder to do this than one might think.
For my moms side it was tough since the only people not to die in the holocaust were my grandparents who have since passed on. My fathers side was a little easier since some of his fam lives in town but still, could only trace it back a little more than a century
thats a cool story and one that seems to be fairly common (their names getting changed.). Can you trace what part of China your maternal side comes from? My family names have been changed on countless occasions. So it makes it very difficult to trace anything with certainty. Also, on my Dad's side, his fahther' family split off with the main line over a religious or marriage thing. His Mom died when he was 4 so her whole family history is essentially unknowable. My mom's father's side escaped from Czarist Russia about 100 years ago. So not much is known there. As a jew, Im a bit interested to find out exactly who my people are. What tribe so to speak. Or if they even were around Israel at any point in time, or were converts at some point. It gets confusing because Im sure the races that exist today are not the same ones that existed thousands of years ago.
I went to Ellis Island last summer and tried to trace my dad's side, which is Polish/Russian and came over sometime around my great-grandparents. There were like 600 Kleins and I didn't have enough info to narrow it down. But if you know the facts you can see the actual passenger manifest. You can also search the records online: www.ellisisland.org
My mom and both my grandparents were born in Cuba, but according to my grandmother can be traced back to the Canary Islands and Africa if you go back far enough.
My mother's side is easier than my father's: her father came directly from northern Italy and her mother from Sicily (actually her parents emigrated from there)> My mom has been to Italy and visited her cousins. Interesting thing: when mt grandfather's extended family came over some of them were listed as DeCarlo, some as DiCarlo, so half our family has different last names.
My dad's side is English and German, been here for a long time, although he's never been very forthcoming with the details.
Would love to go back in history and see what I could find out. Used to date a woman in college whose uncle had a book that had the genealogy of the family back to about 500 years bound in book format....it was pretty amazing.
The idea that DNA analysis could do away with a century of name changes, bureacracy, lost records and lost memories is
I got into my family history at the beginning of college when I had to do a research paper on it. I lucked out though because my mom, uncle and grandfather were all family historians so most of the work was already done for me. I just had to read what they wrote about it. I also lucked out because I grew up around my great grandparents, both of which who were born in China.
I know the villages of all my ancestors and have pictures of most of them as well. My grandmother's father came from Toison, China. My grandfather's dad was Hakka. can't remember his village though, but it was also in Guangdong, China, which almost all Cantonese speaking Chinese come from.
I actually found a lot of cool stuff. My great uncle was the first Chinese American Superior Court Judge. I had a great great uncle who was the first Chinese American to play pro-ball for a minor league Bay Area team before we had the Giants and A's. I had another great great uncle who was in a vaudeville act on the West Coast. My grandfather's dad worked for the Chinese mafia in Vallejo and paid off the police and mayor to not bust gambling joints during the Depression and WWII. We're also one of the oldest Chinese American families in America having come over in the 1880s.
My mom is half Chinese (hakka) and Okinawan; my grandpa is 3rd generation Chinese-in-Hawaii, and my grandma is second generation, also originally from Hawaii. The Okinawan side changed their name to avoid prejudice from mainland Japanese immigrants in Hawaii - I didn't know we were Okinawan until I was in high school.
My pops is mostly English with a lil' bit of everything else thrown in, the family came out west in the early 1850's like many others.
Essentially, the two sides of my family both slowly circumnavigated the globe in opposite directions and met half way to produce... me. The weight of history can be stagering when you think about it that way.
My parents were from a town in Finland that no longer seems to exist.
I went there looking for it, but alas no-one had heard of it. I'm now under the idea that it was a misprint or a misheard name.
It says Viibiri in my records at the Aust Births Deaths & Marriages registrar (a friend worked there & looked it up for me). I was told I had Karelian features in Finland so that gives me a clue...
Adds a bit of mystery to my life anyway. One day I might look for it the legal way.
its pretty fascinating any way i look at it.
Heavy. It sounds like that quest has already led you to some interesting places, hopefully you'll find the answers you're looking for in the end.
My dad's cousin just sent me a paternal family tree which was cool because it had hair and eye color and heights listed for the past 5 generations. I had always wondered why I was relatively tall compared to my Dad and Grandfather (who were both 5' 8") but saw that my grandfather's brothers were all tall.
The Skip Gates documentary was really interesting. The genetics thing really blows open doors for people who have no oral or written family trees.
holy crap thats cool. familytreeraer
ive traced both sides of my fam back to the generation that came over, with pretty good info as to what city they came from when they came over. now im trying to figure out how to pursure this farther without actually having to make the special trip to germany. i signed up on ancestry.com to do the census checking thing, and it was a real trip to see the names and who was living in the household in 1880, 1890 etc.. its like "theres her parents, but where is she - oh yeah, she wouldnt be on this one because she wasnt born until 1891", and shit like that.
the one cool thing i can find is that i had a great great grandfather who was a drummer boy in the civil war. and that was the last instance of musicality in my family till me! haha
my one grandfather was a real hoarder, i discovered stuff like his grandmothers birth certificate (handwritten in german, 1833) in his papers and stuff when we had to clean out their house. i guess im keeping the hoarding alive. but also trying to write up a history and scan all the old pix and stuff, to share with the other descendants. One more project on the endless pile!
I'm half English & half North African. The English side of my family is complicated enough but I just found out last year that my African grandmother was actually half Turkish & half Jewish!
So now I'm Arab, Jewish, English & Turkish, that's quite a volotile mix!
Wooah dude... How you feeling now?
All you need is to marry a girl who's part Cypriot/Greek, Irish & Kurdish... Then have some kids...
Holy crap... They'd be at war with themselves.
You'd best book a good supply of nannys for the future...
There is actually a part Irish Gypsy on the English side but its pretty far back!
Yeah it's strange being made up of a whole load of different races that have conflict with each other, It certainly keeps you openminded, I find myself seeing all sides & doing alot of fence sitting when it comes to world affairs. It's particularly noticeable in todays climate for example over the recent mohamed cartoons, I really felt for both sides of the debate.
I did not find out until I was 20 that I had 3 half sisters & a brother (I'm now 31) & it has only been this last year that I've been able to spend time with them, It's the best thing that's ever happened to me. It's through them that I've started to find out these little bits of family history like about the Jewish/Turkish thing.
Apparently one of my dads teachers found out about the Jewish connection & singled him out in class for ridicule - he wasn't a pure arab like his classmates. I think he keeps it secret. My dad doesn't even know that I know about it.
I was pleased to find out, I'd spent 30 years believing I was one thing only find out I was another. I'm proud of all the nationalities. I think it makes you stronger.
The town is probably Viipuri as suggested above.
It still exists but it was left on the Russian side of the border during Second World War. No wonder you couldn't find it in Finland. Strange that nobody here couldn't make the connection as the town is very well known.
I'll share my story. After college, I was in the typical drunken-fuck up rut, and needed something to do. I was working as a high-end baker, and dug the work, but just was not living right. One day, bored, I started researching the history of my name, Gareth, and the family history of Welsh cousins named Gareth. I'd always known that Sir Gareth was a part of the King Arthur stories as the knight of the kitchen. Drunk English major? Baker? Kitchen knight? So, I decided to ride my bike across Scotland/England/Wales following the path of Sir Gareth of Orkney. Along the way, I would meet up with the cousin I was named for, and find out I was named after...a Welsh language Soap-Opera star. But, I also found the cemetery where my ancestors were buried, the homes they were born in, the slate mines where they worked before they came over to America. It was some seriously powerful stuff, and really helped me straighten my shit out. Not to mention the 1,500 miles I put in on the bike, but it wasn't supposed to be easy.
So, godspeed in your journeys. What you'll learn is worth all the hardwork.
He is from senegal but his mom is a berbere from algeria. My grandpops though from benin is from the behanzin royal family of Dahomey
You're talking to a prince batches... Fo real the current king (think royal family of britain famous but no power) is my grandpops's brother they have a kingdom in the forest that I must visit. Saw a whole documentary on the family and it was fascinating.
Mom's side is some scottish descent (Warren clan) Quebec connection
Oh my gosh. Are you serious...?
Wow dudes. Thanks Luthor & WLAD...
I just had a chill up my spine... Fucking wierd shit...
All this time they had written it down incorrectly. The wierd thing is that some people thought it was in Russsia, so I tried to searching online that way, but obviously with the wrong spelling...
Fuck I just looked through Google & it is in Karelia...Rssian Karelia. but known as Vyborg... Its all making sense...
No wonder some woman in Helsinki said I looked Karelian...
Kind of annoys me now that no-one picked up on it while I was there, but shit happens I guess.
Holy shit... This is freaking me out...
A friggin clerical misspelling has led me in all the wrong directions..
I come on the Strut & get schooled about where i'm from...
I don't know, you might think i'm overreacting, but its' pretty damn freaky for me.
Viibiri & Viipuri are pretty damn close & the fact that it is more commonly known as Vyborg, therefore being disguised & now a part of Russia seems like a pretty reasonable answer to why I couldn't find it.
Looks like I'll have to get back over there next year...& to Russia.
Yet my mothers nationality is Finnish on my birth certificate. How does that work...?
This is amazing...
Thanks again guys... I kind of stopped asking & got defeated at one point.
Thanks for this thread. Its some life changing information...
I can't even speak any Suomi either. Which sux...
and Gibla, Kitchen & PCMR... & the rest..
I'm feeling your joy at discovering these things... Its amazing in how rewarding it is to know where you are from....
I don't know much about my family's roots but I'm interested in finding out. You can go out and pay someone to investigate your heritage, right? If so, does anyone know of any good agencies and whatnot.
I've been lucky enough to have recent ancestors who really did their research. Growing up, we were always told that we were Cajun, which is true for the most part. For those that don't know, "Cajun" is a bastardization of the word "Acadian," as in Acadia, Nova Scotia. As Wikipedia says:
The Cajuns as a distinct ethnic group[/b]
It is relatively uncontroversial to consider the Cajuns a distinct ethnic group. The distinction between the Cajuns and other people in and around Louisiana is generally agreed to by both the Cajuns themselves and others. Their descent from displaced Acadians, their retention in significant measure of a unique form of the French language, and numerous distinct cultural customs distinguish them as an ethnic group. Many (though by no means all) Cajuns live in communities relatively separate from other Louisianans. Also, some identify themselves as Cajun culturally though they may have non-Acadian ancestry.
As with most other contemporary Americans, many Cajuns are assimilated into the wider society and live more in a contemporary American culture than in a distinctly Cajun culture.
This definitely applies to me. While my mom's side (Bodin) can easily be traced back to the original French-Acadians who were kicked out of Nova Scotia in 1755, my dad's side is a little different. My paternal grandmother was a Gonsoulin, and she traced our tree back to Emil Gonsoulin, who came to Louisiana directly from France in 1701 as a surveyor for the government. In 1760, 50 or so families from Southern Spain came to Louisiana and founded the town of NEW Iberia. Many changed their names to sound more French (so "V*llatoro" got altered to "Via*or" as evidenced by the "town founders" plaque in downtown New Iberia). But if you've ever spent time in Acadiana (Southwestern Louisiana), you'll soon see that most people there consider themselves Cajun--even if their last name is Romero, Seguara, or Schexneider.
The only other branch in my family is from Holland. My mom's grandfather stowed away on a ship illegally when he was 16 and changed his name from Hans Christian Mulder to Chris Jackson (!) when he got here. So now I have white first cousins named Randy and Michael Jackson.
As part of her history PhD, my wife is currently translating her grandmother's journals from Portuguese. Her family history is much easier to trace: Her father is third-generation Portuguese-American with ancestors from the mainland. Her mom was conceived in the Azores, but born in California. I went to the Azores with her a few years ago and the entire village of Santo Amaro on Pico is her family. Like, 300 aunts, uncles and cousins of some degree. It's pretty crazy.
my father's dad came over from manchester in the 40's and i've never really researched that side of the family.
the most interesting sides are both of my grandmothers.. they both have long long rural nova scotian roots.. my mom's grandmother was very very mysterious, forgerd dates on her own birth certificate, never told my mom anything abotut the family history etc etc.. it wasnt till after she died that she found alot of these things out.. including her real age and such.. it's pretty likely that that side of the family had some sort of "scandal" ie intermixing with the local natives way way back in the 18th century that even she felt some sort of need to conceal...
I would be pretty interested in getting my DNA tested to answer some of these questions..
Strut can change lives on so many levels.
Russians occupied Viipuri in 1944. If your mother was born before that and if she was living in Viipuri during the war, she must have been relocated to some other part of Finland by then.
R*ss, what's the difference between Cajun and Creole?
Good story, BTW.
And I didn't really have a good answer, so I went back to Wikipedia:
Not so clear, as it turns out. I suppose that all Cajuns are Creole, but not vice versa. When it comes to cooking, I've always thought of the difference in terms of tomatoes, meaning that, to me, most Louisiana dishes with tomatoes in them are Creole as opposed to Cajun.
But let's not turn this into a "okra and tomatoes" vs. "real gumbo" thread. (No okra or tomatoes in my gumbo, plaese.)
I should also point out that I'm a second-generation Texan and that I've never lived in Louisiana. But Port Arthur is about 40 miles from the border and, in some ways, more LA than TX.
I need to take my ass back to school.
Thanks man.
My gumbo game is on smash. Por favor beleebit.