Posted on 01/18/2009 3:36:53 AM PST by decimon
I see that you are in Texas. That was once frontier country. Men once went into such territories with prostitutes following. Those prostitutes are in family trees. Has that turned up in your research?
And likely picked up the new family name, no? Outside of royalty, I don't think surnames were as cherished in the past as they are now.
Hard to believe too, but the guy was an MD.
Physician, heal thyself.
I’m the family genealogist & had my brother do an Y-dna (paternal) test & we found out that my dad’s side was R1a & Jewish. No one was aware of it & in checking Ashkenazi Jews I found that they are at an increased risk of having colon cancer. I regret not knowing this information way back in the 70’s as my father died at age 54 of colon cancer in 1981. Having this information was too late for my family but maybe it will help someone in the future.
I stay cranky because Me boomerang won't come back, I have to take a cold 'tater and wait and then I have to sleep at the end of the bed.
My mom was from the South and was heavily into the genealogy bit. On our living room wall we had two frames with coats of arms in them, denoting that we came from some great European bloodline. We heard about that day and night until we were SICK of that stuff.
One day my brother called me and said that he did some digging on his own and found that one of our relatives on her side was hung as a horse thief. I felt better about our bloodline after that - we were, after all, just regular folks.
As a sidebar, my dad got off the boat from Germany back in the '20s. He claimed he had enough of "class", having been with a bunch of "von this and von that" at the naval academy and thought them all cretins - just living off their heritage. He loved America because "You start with a clean slate. They don't care who or what you were in the Old Country - they want to see what YOU can do."
I don't know that that's still true. Now you are what credentials you've accumulated.
Here’s something else. If some ancestor came in through Ellis Island then there are records at ellisislandfoundation.org. There may be similar sites for other immigration cities but I don’t know.
80% of the Jewish immigrants to the US are the Ashkenazi variety.
As a group, they have the highest IQ's in the world.
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A bunch of my cousins are no blood relation at all, because their grandparents adopted a boy whose parents both died of the 'flu. His dad was a doctor and caught it tending his patients, and his mom caught it from him. My relations had no children of their own, so they just adopted him and I'm not sure it was ever in any official record.
I know his original birth name and have a note to that effect in my genealogy research, but it's not generally known outside the immediate family, and nobody really cares from a personal standpoint.
Another branch of the family has 2-3 instances of taking in children whose parents had died, much further back than 1918. That information could easily be lost in a century or two.
Point is, records were a lot looser back then, and many have been lost, so don't assume your ancestors were engaging in any hanky-panky. They may have been doing a noble deed instead.
Naturally she was somebody famous -- a Roman courtesan I think but I can't remember which one.
I pointed out that her Latin was faulty and that everybody was always somebody famous, nobody was ever just a slave who pulled the fan cord in the triclinium.
Of course, that was when I was an Episcopalian. I haven't met anybody quite that silly in the Catholic choir . . . .
But if everybody who said their ancestor was one of General Lee's honor guard had actually HAD an ancestor there, the South would have won the war by sheer numbers. And don't even get me started on all the people who claim their ancestor was one of George Washington's personal bodyguard, or Bonnie Prince Charlie . . . .
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If you know how European heraldry works, nobody's entitled to those armorial bearings but the eldest son and his lineal descendants in the primary line. Who mostly didn't emigrate, because they had no reason to . . . .
About the only exception to this is the Scottish clan system -- descendants who can trace to the clan territory are entitled to use the crest of the clan coat of arms only, encircled with a strap and buckle to show that they are clansmen, not direct lineal descendants. But that is unique to the clan system.
The Italian nobility didn't follow the rule of primogeniture, but most don't even use their titles any more. Devaluation by overwhelming supply and very little demand . . . .
The things you related in those posts are just what I’ve had in mind. Thanks.
If I could know who were my ancestors then I’d of course be interested but, like Popeye, I am what I am and that’s all what I am.
It's a little more difficult to do in the South, because people are a little obsessive about genealogy (she says, glancing up at the shelf with 9 notebooks full of genealogy) . . . although it's a great secret weapon for kids who get picked on in school. My daughter went to a prep school where most of the kids had a lot more money than we do, but she could always shut the mean girls up by pointing out that SHE was descended from the brother of a Signer (we are Old Blood and Not Much Money, but that trumps No Blood and New Money any day of the week when the girls begin putting on airs.)
And it can also be useful for instilling manners. As Florence King's aunt whispered to her in Southern Ladies and Gentlemen, "Remember your grandmother was a Talbot!" (or a Byrd, or somebody. Don't exactly recall which family.)
My grandfather and my great-aunt were the only children of a lady who unfortunately died of early-onset Alzheimer's back in the days before anybody knew what it was. What's more, she was the youngest child of a very large family, and her parents and many of her oldest siblings were long dead by the time her children were of an age to take an interest in such things.
When my great-aunt was a very elderly lady, long after my grandfather had died, I was talking with her one day about genealogy, and she related all these facts to me and said rather plaintively that she didn't even know her grandfather's name. "Well, Aunt Ruth," I said, "I think I can fix that. Just give me a couple of weeks . . . ."
I hit the National and State Archives like a linebacker - I was between jobs and had plenty of time to spend. I came up with my great-grandfather's name, his birthplace, the names of his brothers and sisters and his wife's brothers and sisters, and the names of all his children. I found out just about every place he lived (or at least owned land) and where he was buried.
My great-aunt was SO happy -- she confirmed the names of some of his children and remembered visiting them in South Carolina when she was a very small girl. She said, "You've given me back my family!" I was glad I was able to do that favor for her before she died.
My 5x great grandfather was a MacGregor (the Mafia of Scotland) who left Scotland one jump ahead of the law and changed his name when he got here (or before he left - at one point in Scotland they tried to fix the problem by outlawing the name MacGregor -- kind of like the Atlanta city fathers trying to solve the crime problem on Stewart Avenue by renaming it Metropolitan Parkway).
And one of my Civil War ancestors was accused of stealing a horse -- although he denied it and nothing ever came of it. He said he found it loose on the battlefield, and he probably did. Another of my Civil War ancestors actually DID steal horses -- in one of his letters he remarked to his wife, "I didn't let the captain see the horse this time." Although maybe he figured he had just as much right to it as the captain . . . .
“About the only exception to this is the Scottish clan system — descendants who can trace to the clan territory are entitled to use the crest of the clan coat of arms only, encircled with a strap and buckle to show that they are clansmen, not direct lineal descendants. But that is unique to the clan system.”
Septs included in this practice? (Like Sterrett, a sept of Clan Douglas)
also spelled Sterritt, Starratt, Starrat, Sterret, and several others.
From village in Ayreshire called Stair, thence to County Derry, thence New England, thence Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Minnesota, California.
My mother’s maiden name—truly Scottish origin.
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