Posted on 01/18/2009 3:36:53 AM PST by decimon
When we visited Rob Roy MacGregor's grave outside the ruined church in Balquidder, there were floral tributes on his grave tied up in MacGregor tartan ribbon -- from Americans, naturally! The old boy must be laughing himself silly.
If she was plying her trade in a Scots parish (or even an unpaid amateur), the parish records will show where she was "read out of meeting" for fornication. It happened to Robert Burns, and he wrote a poem about it.
Even in the South, such things occurred. I wrote a paper for a historical monthly on the church records of an Alabama Baptist church, and they read folks out of meeting for not only sexual misbehavior, but for drinking to excess, quarreling, and (in the case of my great-uncle) holding a dancing party at his house. He was not only read out of meeting, but it was solemnly recorded in the church records that he was "henceforth to be held as a heathen and a publican." My dad remarked, well, at least he wasn't held as a REpublican . . . .
England's been overrun so many times by so many different groups, there's bound to be a mixed bag when you tot up the DNA.
Same thing happened in Scotland, with the Picts, several different waves from Ireland, the French strain from the Lowlands (big habit of intermarriage with France among the greater families), and of course the Vikings in the North and the Isles.
It's neat that you were able to nail it down through the DNA project.
“There’s probably some shared genetics between the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings, if you go back far enough.”
Yep. Both are just different tribes of Germans.
Thanks for the interesting explanation re Scotts. I am writing a book on early American serial/spree murderers call the Harpe brothers. They apparently came from “Covenentors”. I don’t know if this would be Highlanders or Lowlanders. But they were not the Scots/Irish. People who moved to Ireland from Scotland and thence to the US. At any rate the Covenentors were “loyalists” who fought for the Crown against the “patriots” who fought the American Revolution. The Harpe brothers were said to have ridden with “bloody” Banastre Tarelton and fought the patriots including many Scots/Irish “overmountain boys” at Cowpens and Kings Mountain. I was told that Harper was a varient of Harpe.
My husband considered himself to be almost pure Scottish until his mother told him a French Canadian trapper had married a Cree Indian woman which made him 1/16th Indian. She had hidden this fact for many years because of prejudice against Indians in the mid West. He had very light blue eyes, red hair, very ruddy skin that burned easily, pronounced brow ridges, a long torso, and short legs. He though there was Viking ancestry. After reading some of the other GGG posts, I suspect he had Neanderthal genes. He had a warrior temperment. The paternal line’s name was Aikin. His mother’s line was Carleton, which I have traced back to the late 1700’s in Kentucky and then a move to southern Illinois Do you have any information?
My second son married a woman from Puerto Rico. As she is one of 3 girls, with a famous grandfather, she did not want to loose the family name. When they had my second grandson they asked if they could give him her family surname. I now have three grandchildren with my husbands surname, and one without. I wonder how often this kind of thing happened?
Regarding Ellis Island, in the later 1800’s there was another location used, either for the “better” classes or because EI had not yet been opened. At any rate my German grandparents on my mothers side came in there. I have in my hands an old typescript of a family geneology which is purported to go back to the 11th century. It is in German, so I can’t read it, but I did find my grandmother as being one of the most recent entries. Do you have any idea how I could get together with a scholar who would help translate? The family names included von Gramatski, and Kunkle (sp?)
Are you related to me? I have one of those on my mother's side as well. LOL! Doesn't bother me in the slightest.
If you're near a large college or University, you might want to start with German profs.
Perhaps start with the genealogy surname forums:
http://genforum.genealogy.com/kunkle/
The name von Gramatski probably came from Prussia (wild guess), and probably eastern Prussia at that; my most recent German ancestors came from a town which is now in Poland as a consequence of the post-WWII redrawing of borders by the USSR. Poland was basically knocked eastward into former eastern Germany, with the USSR getting a chunk of former eastern Poland.
For the German stuff, find someone who is fluent in German, probably preferable to get an actual German from Germany. As will Euro-countries in general, Germany standardized its language (using the public schools), probably early in the 20th century. There is some German language stuff among my family’s heirlooms, including (worthless) investment certificates and a colloquial German Bible.
Whoops, I meant “knocked westward”. [blush]
Thanks for the DNA information. Getting ready to order a testing kit and you did a great job explaining it.
Actually Prussia is a very accurate guess. That family owned a thousand acres in what was then East Prussia. They had potato contracts with the army during the Franco/Prussian war in the early 1870’s. Potato blight hit and they had to sell land to buy potatos on the inflated market to meet their contracts. At the end of the war they were down to 20 acres and the buildings. My great or great great grandfather dropped the title von from their name and took a job as a court secretary. William Shirer, I think, in his book on Hitler’s Germany refers to “the impoverished Prussian nobility.” Some relative back then was burgomeister (mayor) of Konigsberg. The area is now called Kaliningrad.
I have a lot of letters written in German sent to my mother by German relatives before and after WWII. The geneology is typed, so should not be too difficult for a German to read.
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