Talk about your family history!

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I enjoy reading family histories.

It's sad how little I know about my own. I had a membership to Ancestry a couple of years ago and managed to trace my dad's side of the family back a couple of centuries. If those records are reliable, my dad's side of the family came to Massachusetts from England in the 1600s and eventually made it to Texas (where most of my family that I know of resides).

I only know bits and pieces of my mom's. At a family reunion last year, I learned that I am related to Sam Houston, and my maternal great-grandfather was Jewish, and he kept it a secret until right before he died. Also, my maternal great-great grandmother was 100% Choctaw, and she married a white man.

There are also rumors on my dad's side of the family that we're related to Willie Nelson, but until I can get confirmation, then for now I only consider it hearsay.

Okay, here it goes:

On my mom's side: both my grandparents were born in Germany. (my grandfather was born in the Philippines, but Germany was his native country). He emigrated from Germany to Canada sometime in the 1940s, followed by my grandmother a few years later.

On my dads side: my great-great grandparents were born in the Ukraine. The living conditions were really bad, 3 of their kids died prior to 1900. They came to Canada in 1903 to start a new, better life.

Mother's side = Wales going way back
Father's = Germany and England/Ireland

Father's side came to Oz as a convict (well, the man; he met a free settler chick)
Mother's moved out to Oz in the...late sixties? Close enough anyway

My father's side of the family first came to America during the great famine in Ireland. One of my ancestors' husbands came to Boston to find work, so he could send money back to the family. He did this, but, after a while, they stopped hearing from him.

They found out he had taken another wife and started a new family in the US. Two of her brothers came over to America to hunt him down, do him some bodily harm and drag him back to Ireland. They never found him, but liked it here and decided to stay.

I'm descended from one of the brothers who came to hunt down their brother-in-law. So, yeah, they immigrated for spite and vengeance. And, if you ever meet that side of my family, you'll know where they got it from.

Dads side:
Mostly just Polish cottage people, nothing unusual in the area he was rised in. However one of his ancestors (mother side) a few generation back was a Tatar that decided to stay and start a family there. That's why I have slightly yellow skin(you can't tell the difference unless I get tanned - my tan gets yellow-brown, not pink or pink-brown like the most of white people around me) and unusual shape of nose.

Moms side:
Grandpa side - people that worked for a rich German family as house helpers. But he also got some French roots and I have some distant cousins in the France.
Grandma side - they used to be Polish nobility till end of the 19th century but then my grand-grand something mother committed a mesalliance and lost all the grounds she owned.

I know only my mom's family (I don't know my father): they have lived in this region of Poland I live in, since at least the late 18th century - this is at least what my cousin managed to discover during her research on our family's history. The most distant relative she managed to reach to, was born in the late 18th century in the same village my grandparents lived in.

Most of my ancestors, on both sides of my family tree, have been Māori people living in the same area of New Zealand for centuries, although my father's mother comes from a different part of the country. My mother's mother is one of the few remaining full-blooded Māori still alive today; there are a few others on my father's side, too.

But both of my parents also have ancestors that migrated to New Zealand from Europe. My father has ancestors from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland who migrated during the 19th century, some of them before New Zealand had even become part of the old British Empire. Like my Irish ancestor, who was originally a convict sent to Australia. He was eventually paroled and later founded a small town in New Zealand's deep south.

I'm not sure about the European ancestors on my mother's side, since I don't have much information about them beyond my mother's grandparents. A couple of my aunts do, though, so I'll have to ask them for a copy of my mother's side of the family tree.

One of my cousin is an unofficial expert in genealogy and found all my ancestors, both mother and father side, back to late 1600s.

Briefly so far I have found out I have English, Scottish, Irish, Swiss, French, and Native American ancestors. I even have pictures of some of them.

Dad's side:
His great-grandparents immigrated from Spain to Mexico during the Spanish Civil War. The reason being that they were Basque and the Franco regime hated the Basques. His mother's family is the standard Mestizo Mexican.

Mom's side:
Mostly German and Irish immigrants that came to the US in the 1800s.

When I did family research the surprising thing I found was Yankees.And Puritans at that.
I'm descended from Clement Corbin and Dorcas Buckmaster(Buckminster of the Massachesuts Bay Colony)they arrived in 1629,Rodger "the immigrant"Eastman,most Eastman families are descended from him.Johann Andriess Sharp(Scherp)from the Dutch colonies in New York.
Mitchell's from PA,the house is still standing in a park there.Traced several back to 1500's in the British isles.Ulster mostly and a female named Grace Argriff from Edinbourgh,I cannot find any inf on that surname.I found several of the grave sights and records to where they lived.One relative was from Essex.Co Mass firing the with trials.They fought in every war,some unjust like King Phillips War.In one branch records only appeared right before the Cherokee removal,the name taken was one that the Native people seemed to pick as there "white" surname.I checked into this with Lost Cherokee of the Ozarks.Im Scotch -
Irish,Welsh,English,Dutch,German and Native American

^ Awesome pictures! I love looking at old headstones.

My mother's side: Eastern European Jews. My maternal grandmother arrived in the US in 1910, at the age of 6. They were from Minsk, which was either part of Russia or Poland--I'm not sure. My maternal grandfather died in 1946. I know nothing about him or his ancestors, except his name. Previous to my grandparents' generation--very obscure--probably poor urban dwellers who were poor peasants before they came into the city. Being Jewish, there were no "baptismal records." Probably no way to trace these people.

My father's side: Dutch Catholic, German, English, maybe a little Irish. They were people involved in business; they had some money. I can trace them back to the 18th century. They primarily immigrated to the US between 1820-1840. Some were "leading citizens" of Grand Rapids, Michigan; a building was named after them in the downtown area. They lost a considerable amount of money in various "panics" of the 19th century. They became "respectably" middle class.

My father's side of the family was of Irish descent, they came to Britain in the early 20th century from Cork and settled in Liverpool.

My paternal grandfather was a member of the IRA (Irish Republican Army) in the 1940s, and was, it seems, involved in some of their activities in mainland Britain.

My mother's family was not well off at all. She left school aged 14 to work in the cotton mills near Manchester. Her family and their ancestors appear to have worked in that industry for several decades, though at one point they ran the village fish-and-chip shop.

One ancestor was apparently a wealthy mill owner in the 19th century, but he gambled away his business and all the rest of his fortune in card games!