Discoveries.

[Bereta_Eder]

I just found out I'm a descendant of some Italian barons or something.

Allegendly they stayed in the Ionian islands when they were under Italian control in the 16th century or so and married Greeks then moved down to the Peloponese where they accumulated even more wealth untill it was all stolen by a manipulative relative of theirs while they were at the hospital. Their mansion is now a national protected museum. Their line goes all the way back to the Crusaders (Imran you were right!!!! ) That's from my mother's side.

The strange thing is that from my father's side the story has some similarities. I already know that my great great grandmother or something from my father's side run away from her family - some rich Italians royals who also lived in the Ionian islands - since she was madly in love with a poor Greek boy and her family didn't approve of the marriage (yeah a real cinderella story). So they run away and got married, with her losing all rights to the quite considerable fortune of her father (****).

Strange... both my mother's and father's side have to do with Italy...

I wonder if I can go back to where they lived and claim some acres of land or something. Propably not.

[Solver]

Next thing we'll all be calling you Your Highness .

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Solver
Next thing we'll all be calling you Your Highness .

I thought Starchild was Apolyton's "Your Highness?"

[Solver]

He's Your Starness .

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Solver
He's Your Starness .

oh

[Q Classic]

ah, so we're both aristocracy, eh, paik? i'm a decendent of the andong kims, which were probably the most powerful clan during the 19th century of the yi dynasty.

we're better than these common rabble, eh?

[Al B. Sure!]

how do you people even know your family history past your great great grandfather? how could you possibly manage to find such info? i don't know anyone who can trace it past half-way through the 19th century

[mrmitchell]

Albert Speer, Europeans keep lots of family records...also, Europe was civilised for several hundred years. In America, it would be a lot harder to trace back to your great-great-grandfather because of lack of records, immigration, and simply moving around too much. European families were more likely to stay around for a while.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
how do you people even know your family history past your great great grandfather? how could you possibly manage to find such info? i don't know anyone who can trace it past half-way through the 19th century

One of my older friends has basic family info back to ancestors in England of the 1600's.

[Al B. Sure!]

mrmitchell:

yeah i figured that... white people lost all contact with the old country when they immigrated between the mid 19th century and the mid 20th (and they often changed names making **** harder)... black people obviously wouldn't know their family history before 1865... so makes sense

[CorpusScorpius]

Re: Discoveries.

Originally posted by paiktis22
I wonder if I can go back to where they lived and claim some acres of land or something. Propably not.

How far removed are you? It would be an interesting read if you could post your history.

I doubt you can claim anything...........unless you were the last living heir.......

[geeslaka]

Telling paiktis to go kill all his relatives....

[Ted Striker]

how about a fate worse than death

PLUCKING THEIR BACK HAIRS OUT ONE AT A TIME!!!

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
how do you people even know your family history past your great great grandfather? how could you possibly manage to find such info? i don't know anyone who can trace it past half-way through the 19th century

Well apparently word of mouth is still strong in remote places away from the urban centres . What happened was that my grandmother and part of her family left when she 11 months old from that place in the Peloponese. She hasn't ever gone back untill this summer.

When she told people there her maiden name they, mainly elder people of 85 years old or more, informed her of the details. She was born in that mansion that is now a museum, that much she knew.

Luckily the museum itself is dedicated to her family so they have already done the research and traced back the roots of this "house". Before the Peloponese they were at the Ionian islands and they, themselves, were the descendants of a Crusader, the name of which eludes me at present. Even before that they were nobles living in Italy, where that last name also exists.

They sort of treated her like a local god when she went there with my mother when they found out who she was. Apparently half the small city has the name of my grandmother's maiden name. The people took them away from the hotel they were staying and invited them (actually they wouldn't take no for an answer from what they told me) to stay at their houses, payed everything for them and they became the topic of conversation for the whole small city. It was the first time someone from that family ever visited this place they said.

We also have now a very old picture of my grandmother's grandmother, my great great grandmother. She looks aristocratic like, for sure and very beautiful. In that picture she doesn't wear the traditional scarf on the head that most women of that time wore but a different type of garment that looks a lot more refined. If I had a scanner I'd post it.

[Bereta_Eder]

About my father's side story, in the island where his father was born, which BTW I have visited and was surprised to see half of the street names of its capital having my last name, the story of that rich girl abandoning all her riches and of that poor boy not counting the dangers involved and them both running away and getting married is well known there. Must have made an impression. Again, surprisingly enough as far as coincidences go, there is also a room at the museum there dedicated to some old relative of mine from my father's side. Allegendly he was a minister of Justice or something in very old times. They had a portrait of him on the wall. Rather stern looking.