Ethnicities and Family Genealogy

[Dauphin]

I'm descended from Moses. Not the Moses* of course, just a guy called Moses from the 1840s.

*and its a patrilineal relation so he shares my surname.

[Ecthy]

That sure makes for a cool name

Nowadays you could become a star rapper with a name like that

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Winston
No offense or anything. But I have to say I'm skeptical about all those claims of tracing back to the 12th-13th century. There's more to establishing a link to ancestry than just the similarity of names, or hailing from a certain region. If you want to be taken serious, there has to be a positive, verifiable linkage between "offspring" and "parent" ancestors for each step you move back in time, something which is not easily accomplished for most families.

My deceased father spent years and years tracing our family roots, and only ever got to 1657 (year of death) - for one single ancestor, and he was not able to establish any linkage further back. Despite having access to all available publicly archived records in the relevant area. All other "traces" ended several generations "before" (that is, more recently than) 1657. And again this is not at all unusual, or exceptional. It's the way it goes for most families outside nobility and the like.

I agree.

Most of that stuff is nothing but self-agrandizing bull****. Not to say that anyone is intentionally lying, but these myths get passed on in families and are never actually verified. It always seems to be based on the work of "an uncle" who "researched it".

Like you said, ouside of nobility there is very little chance that records would exist of anyone's ancestors aside from the occasional ship manifest - which itself is unlikely before the 18th century.

LIARS!

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
Like you said, ouside of nobility there is very little chance that records would exist of anyone's ancestors aside from the occasional ship manifest - which itself is unlikely before the 18th century.

At least in France (and I guess it's the same in most Catholic European countries), the catholic Church has held archives on births, marriages and deaths for ages.

[Cort Haus]

To paraphrase the Hoover line, don't the Mormons have a file on everyone?

[GePap]

On my father's side, French and Italian.

On my mothers side, no idea. A genetic hodgepot.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by rah
Can't go too far back in my family.
50% Italian
25% German
25% Irish.

So when I got married I asked my wife to see how thin it was going to be sliced for our children and her answer surprised me.

50% Italian
25% German
25% Irish.

Quite the coincidence.

that's scary

[Theseus]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
QOTMs family has a tradition that they are descended from the medieval torah scholar Rashi. As Rashi had numerous grandchildren, and they were prominent (which in the circumstances of the time means they probably had plenty of descendants) its not at all improbable - ive never asked them how they trace it - I presume they trace directly to some relatively prominent 19th c rabbi, who in turn has an "accepted" geneology back to Rashi. Its my understanding thats its traditional that Rashi had descent from the line of King David, (though i havent found details on this).

Hey cousin-in-law!!

We are supposedly descended from Rashi too!

Entire family is Russian Jewish, all from an area between Minsk and Pinsk. Very strong family tradition (and some evidence) that, as LOTM referenced, the entire family traces back through France <- Spain <- Italy <- [something fuzzy, either Greece or Turkey] <- Israel.

Who knows...

I do have a funny story of more recent vintage though:

So, my greatgrandfather comes over from Russia around 1889-90. Doesn;t have a proper last name, so he gets named for his town, Podolsky.

[On a separate note, there are a gazillion great stories about him... the best one is that some chick was so in love with him that she had him PUT IN JAIL for breach of promise that he would marry her, a total lie meant to blackmail him into doing so. He didn't.]

Anyway, so now the family is named Podolsky. Come 1919, the Bolsheviks take over Russia, and he decides it's a bad idea to sound like a Russian. Decides to change the name.

Well, he and my grandfather agree that it should be changed to Podos. His other two sons, my great-uncles, vehemently disagree on the spelling. This goes on for about six months... huge family fights that actually never really healed. One of'em decides on Podus, and the other decides on Podis. All legally change their names.

So now, there's this sprawl of Pod*s progeny running around... all three versions are artificially manufactured, so any Pod*s is definitely in the clan.

Every once in a while a meet one... and they don;t all know the story! Couple of years ago, I had to set up a family conference call to prove it to a guy I met in LA!

So be on the lookout for anybody named Pod*s (all warmongers, btw).

[Sikander]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Cousin!

Finally, some family I actually like!

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Starchild


You've obviously never dealt with a Scottish grandmother before. She sounds fairly tame as they go.

The ones from Glasgow stab you then ask how your day was.

Well of course we had it toof.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by rah
Can't go too far back in my family.
50% Italian
25% German
25% Irish.

So when I got married I asked my wife to see how thin it was going to be sliced for our children and her answer surprised me.

50% Italian
25% German
25% Irish.

Quite the coincidence.

Brothers marrying sisters.

[Dinner]

1/2 Scottish, 3/8 English, 1/8 French-Canadian. The Scottish portion has some Irish in there some where due to my grandmother's maiden name being of Irish origin however she was from Scotland and all of her relatives as far back as she'd ever heard where Scots so they must have traveled from Ireland to Scotland a long time ago. The French Canadian part traveled from France to Canada by the time of the 1588 Royal French Census in New France and I have a family tree full of lots of French sounding names on that side but who knows if any of them were part native American. I understand there was a bunch of white guys taking Indian wives back in those days due to there being a shortage of white chicks in New France.

[Solly]

3/4 Yorkshire, 1/4 Welsh

[Winston]

Originally posted by Sikander


Well of course we had it toof.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Theseus


Hey cousin-in-law!!

We are supposedly descended from Rashi too!

Entire family is Russian Jewish, all from an area between Minsk and Pinsk. Very strong family tradition (and some evidence) that, as LOTM referenced, the entire family traces back through France <- Spain <- Italy <- [something fuzzy, either Greece or Turkey] <- Israel.

Who knows...

I do have a funny story of more recent vintage though:

So, my greatgrandfather comes over from Russia around 1889-90. Doesn;t have a proper last name, so he gets named for his town, Podolsky.

[On a separate note, there are a gazillion great stories about him... the best one is that some chick was so in love with him that she had him PUT IN JAIL for breach of promise that he would marry her, a total lie meant to blackmail him into doing so. He didn't.]

Anyway, so now the family is named Podolsky. Come 1919, the Bolsheviks take over Russia, and he decides it's a bad idea to sound like a Russian. Decides to change the name.

Well, he and my grandfather agree that it should be changed to Podos. His other two sons, my great-uncles, vehemently disagree on the spelling. This goes on for about six months... huge family fights that actually never really healed. One of'em decides on Podus, and the other decides on Podis. All legally change their names.

So now, there's this sprawl of Pod*s progeny running around... all three versions are artificially manufactured, so any Pod*s is definitely in the clan.

Every once in a while a meet one... and they don;t all know the story! Couple of years ago, I had to set up a family conference call to prove it to a guy I met in LA!

So be on the lookout for anybody named Pod*s (all warmongers, btw).

Let us know when your family ever changes the name AGAIN.