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Have you dug into your Ancestry or DNA-ancestry? If yes: has the journey changed you?
I started digging almost a year ago, and wow what a journey.
A year ago I considered myself a typical American European mutt, not knowing or thinking about it.
Researching part-time I now know I come from a long line (5-9 generation) of good Americans, ranging from a great-great grandfather who immigrated as a farmer/peasant in 1846 from Prussia to my 9th great grandfather that was born in 1620 England and died in 1656 Maryland, US.
And although it is really cool knowing that and that in the 120+ pedigree ancestors their where no slave owners, those who fight for the union army and some in the US revolutionary war, those facts did not change me. But instead I learn that you don’t have to be a great leader and that being part of great historical events is magnificent. Or I could say being good is better than being great, that is to say it better to be a peasant that is part of a tyrant’s downfall, then a great general serving a tyrant.
Don Anderson 20+
For me I have found a productive mental exercise, I have researched history much more than I ever had, I tried to live a honorable life, but now do to my journey I learn of the nine noble virtues and it helped me defined myself and it has been a boost to myself image. So I’m still the same person, but I have been enhanced.
A year ago before I started this journey I had no idea what is was getting myself into, only did it because of one of those celebrity ancestry shows, as always I needed a good gift idea for my parents, and because I don’t know how much more time I have to get family history from them.
As more and more documents get scanned and transcribed, and DNA improves, I’m sure researching will get easier and more reviling. So I will not say rush out and start, but instead go ahead record the stories from your family you can, because you never know when those who know them will be gone.
Colleen Steen 500+
Don Anderson 20+
Hopefully you’re not like my sister, who doubts I could have really found out what I have. To think of it the last time I talk to her about our ancestry I was only 5 generations back, and now that I have branches going back 14 generations I don’t foresee her believing what I have found.
Colleen Steen 500+
We, who do not laboriously research the information, can still appreciate the journey.
Some of my grandparents originally had "O" before the name too, and somewhere along the way the "O" got dropped. Ireland is a pretty small country....ya never know....we COULD be related. Anyway, if we want to take it WAY back....we're all related:>)
Don Anderson 20+
My known Irish ancestry has surnames Hart, Maher, and Martin from Kilkenny, Ireland; with a Thomas J Hart coming to America in 1815 at the age of 17, possible to work on the Erie Canal. (A large number of Catholics were unemployed in Ireland at the time and American contractors often placed advertisements for workers in Ireland at the same time)
Considering the Irish hate for the British at the time it is interesting that 1829 he married Elizabeth Layton, who was a 3rd generation American from England.
Also interesting is that my mother has a 3% uncertain DNA result, making me wonder if my ancestry includes a clan that died off in Ireland during the potato famine.
I figure that or it’s Neanderthal DNA. ;)
Muhammad Aizat Zainal Alam 30+
Random Chance 30+
I used to ask my parents who I was. What nationality, where did they come from,
the origin of our last name. I did this for years.
They would never tell me. So I finally stopped asking.
Now I don't want to know.
It became more important to me in how I am in this world, not who or what I come from.
I had already been raised as a Catholic, with a black mark on my soul, burdened with Original Sin, and no way
that either of those could ever be erased, so as far as that story goes, I would be going to Hell for
all eternity, no matter what good I would or might do in this life. That was a given as far as the Catholic teachings
I was subject to.
I have spent the last 30 years in the body of a leaf, blown, drifted and carried by forces much more powerful than I and forces that don't pretend to love and cherish me, but treat me like any other leaf.
According to a little bit of research I did before letting it all go, I supposedly have my ancestor ensconced at the top of the Cheops Pyramid.
None of it means anything or changes anything, or me for that matter.
I still am who I am in this world and life, not where I may or may not come from.
I suppose I come from a tree.
Don Anderson 20+
Interesting, we have some similarities and yet totally different views of them.
I to was raised Catholic, but in my teens turned away from the church. Mainly because I did not buy that life was just a pass/fail test. And for the past 30 years I have been on my own spiritual journey to find the real meaning of life. I view the much more powerful forces/experiences as lessons that have lead me to my spiritual growth.
Aslo;
My ancestors include a Henry Schaffer born in 1814 in Hannover, Germany and Bernard Hillen born in 1818 in Ochtrup, Germany formally Prussia. Not far from your Hamburg, Germany and likely have the same Scandinavian/Germanic DNA ancestry. And what I have learned from my Viking ancestry was that they were great craftsmen and lived by the nine noble virtues. I love crafting and without knowing them I have been living by the nine noble virtues, and now impress them as a way of life.
P.S. I think you will find the results interesting if you do a web search for “chance surname”.
Also I have to say that I did not find my ancestry telling until I went back past 4 generations.
Random Chance 30+
I suppose I left something out, as I ran out of characters.
Well, I don't know for sure if I ran out of characters,but I usually do as my fingers scramble over the keyboard.
The reason knowing my ancestry means nothing to me, nor would it change anything about me, or change anything in my life, is that all I am, is who I am, when and where I am, with anyone in this life.
The reason for that is because I never had "me" to begin with, thus I never had me during my lifetime. Whoever I was, was destroyed by the time I was 3 years of age and I knew without a doubt by the time I was 5 years of age, that I was a completely f_ _ _ ed up person.
Unraveling that only showed me the answer. The why. I never had me, still don't and will not.
I do not know who I am. All I know is that all I am, is who I am, when and where I am, with anyone in this life.
And the truth of that is, it isn't me.
Grace Greene 10+
george lockwood 20+
Don Anderson 20+
So although I will strive to be an innovator, I will be happy with my life if I’m just an early adopter.