Ancestry

[Merkin]

Just one time. Only paid once, got my ancestry info, and for the most part never went back although your DNA account remains active.

[azgreg]

I might have to give that a try then.

[CalStateTempe]

How do they get your DNA?

[scumdevils86]

you spit in a tube and shake it up and mail it back

[azgreg]

How do they get your DNA?

http://dna.ancestry.com/" target="_blank

[CalStateTempe]

So what your saying is no brazzers?

[BigSkyCatinMT]

My sister traced, Ethan Allen of the Green Mountain Boys on dads side. Followed Joseph Smith and Brigham Young eventually to Utah (Ethan didn't, children eventually did). That's why there are Ethan Allen furniture stores there. Brother born in Provo. English and Dutch.

Mom's side - both her parents left Germany at different times, between the World Wars. Met in Kansas, married, moved to the plains of Idaho and bred like bunnies. Great grandad, who I met like twice origionally came from Leningrad Russia, through Berlin and then to the U.S. following his son. It is my hope to make it to Ellis Island to see their names before I'm over.

[azgreg]

I very much want to visit Ellis Island some day.

[pc in NM]

I've found the databases (easily) accessible through ancestry.com to be infinitely more valuable than the DNA database; there is so much available data that one has to become really good at critical analysis to not over-endorse possible matches....

... and the latter is almost totally dependent upon how well developed (and how many generations deep) both your and the other person who shares some DNA probability with you happen to already have documented....

[Merkin]

My ancestors came over in 1882, so they never saw Ellis Island except to pass it by.

https://familysearch.org/" target="_blank is free.

It's run by the Mormons and came out of their plan to baptize all the dead people into the LDS faith.

The census information is there, my ancestor:

Event Type Census
Event Date 1910
Event Place Elmdale, Morrison, Minnesota, United States
Gender Male
Age 66
Marital Status Married
Race White
Race (Original) White
Relationship to Head of Household Head
Relationship to Head of Household (Original) Head
Birth Year (Estimated) 1844
Birthplace Germany
Immigration Year 1882
Father's Birthplace Germany
Mother's Birthplace Germany
Sheet Letter A
Sheet Number 26

Unfortunately (or fortunately) the churches in Eastern Europe stopped the Mo's from scanning their birth and baptism records. The area of Germany my ancestor came from was given to the Poles after the war, and the German speaking occupants given 24 hours to leave.

[Chicat]

Was that Gunther Von Merkin? Of the Schöneberg Von Merkins?

[CalStateTempe]

Has anyone ever worked with a professional genealogist?

I’d like know what year my ancestor nationalized.

Apparently Giovanni CST was the John Smith of Italy emigrating to Arizona in the early 1990s. I’ve so far identified my great grandfather but like 8 Arizonans named John Giovanni CST nationalized between 1897 and 1910.

I found the ship manifest...pretty bad ass, came with his mother, his mother in law, and new bride (great grandmomma) 6 years his younger (23-17) arriving sept 2 1900 on Ellis island.

Living in a primary estrogen household (wife and two toddler daughters with mom in law always over), I feel for the guy, I bet it was a hell of a road trip from Italy with that crew! Lol

[ProfessorFate]

Here is how my new sis found me. We thought maybe it was one of my mom's brothers that hooked up with her, but comparing our DNA history, we only matched on my dad's side, not my mom's.

That 1st cousin blond is a cousin on my mom's said, and not on her list. Don't know the other blond.

Hey Merk, is the one at the top with "Close family - 1st cousins" your half-sister?

[Merkin]

Here is how my new sis found me. We thought maybe it was one of my mom's brothers that hooked up with her, but comparing our DNA history, we only matched on my dad's side, not my mom's.

That 1st cousin blond is a cousin on my mom's said, and not on her list. Don't know the other blond.

Hey Merk, is the one at the top with "Close family - 1st cousins" your half-sister?

Yea, the top one. Her daughter actually lives in Phoenix, although she lives in Ohio where she has lived her whole life. They come down to Tucson to see my dad and the rest of my family around Christmas time.

[scumdevils86]

So as a quarantine hobby and as a way to distract myself from current events I've jumped back into a lot of genealogy research.

Found out my dad had a half brother that died as a baby that he was never told about.

My dad's great Grandma on his dad's side popped out at least 12 kids that lived over a period of 28 years from age 21 in 1888 to age 49 in 1916.

My mom's grandpa on her dad's side supported his family in Lompoc in the 30s with some kind of modern sounding multi level marketing scheme.

Possibly uncovered the identity of my wife's biological grandfather that she never has met.

Goes on and on. Also, I've had updates to my DNA results. I'm even whiter than it said a couple years ago.



Has anyone seen the PBS show Finding Your Roots? I like it because of a lot of the focus is on black family history and how hard it is to find with how awful this country has been for generations. Same thing for families of Jewish descent from eastern Europe.

[KaibabKat]

Was able to get this far back on fathers side:

Ca. 1320 – Meijns Meijnszn van der vliet (father) born at De Lier (?), Nederland, and Dochter (aka N.N.) Coppaertsdr Van Dorp (mother born 1294) were the parents of Coppaert Meynsensv (V.D. Vliet). Meijns van der vliet died ca. 1360.
(Dochter Coppaertsdr Van Dorp is a direct descendant of Dirk van Voorne, born about 1000 in the Netherlands).

[Alieberman]

Has anyone seen the PBS show Finding Your Roots? I like it because of a lot of the focus is on black family history and how hard it is to find with how awful this country has been for generations. Same thing for families of Jewish descent from eastern Europe.

That's a great show and my jaw drops every time they find a bill of sale from slave owner to slave owner to discover someone's family history. It's crazy

[OriginalAZ]

I did 23 and me a few years ago and I'm 98.9% Central and South Asian and 0.5% Western Asian and North African. My initial results a few years ago said 2% European and 0.8% Finnish. I was excited about that but a few years later now it's gone.
I am very disappointed in my ancestors for not being more diverse. I didn't even break the trend. Maybe I should talk to my wife about it. It's never too late.

[Merkin]

I am about as white bread as they come, but am very proud of my parents and siblings, even the Trumpsters (my 3 brothers) since our children don't seem to have any 'obvious' racial biases (outside of their parents supporting a racist). My daughter married a man who is part Puerto Rican, and they have 2 beautiful brown eyed children. I have another niece by one of my sisters married to an African American, with the cutest son you have ever seen. I call them a JC Penney family since they should be models in their catalog. My oldest brother's daughter married a man with a Korean mother, and my youngest brother has a daughter with a long term relationship with a man with Japanese and Latino parents.

My DNA:

[Longhorned]

Those results are why I capitalize "Black" but never capitalize "white" unless I start a sentence with it.

Being white is a mixture of lots of peoples, becoming both an assumed default and the opposite of what it means to have an ethnicity.

Being Black means you're part of a heritage that created one of the most recognizable and amazing cultures in the history of humanity, in spite of whites doing everything in their unearned and undeserved power to stop it.

When a white person like me wants to admire a culture, they have to look to the accomplishments of Mexicans, modern Harlem or New Orleans, medieval Italians, early modern Dutch, the French revolutionaries, and being a portion of the amazing World War II Americans, etc.

Otherwise, we're mixed bags of flesh with no cause for any pride associated with "whiteness." To have white pride is to be a complete fucking idiot, in addition to being evil.

[scumdevils86]

Those results are why I capitalize "Black" but never capitalize "white" unless I start a sentence with it.

Being white is a mixture of lots of peoples, becoming both an assumed default and the opposite of what it means to have an ethnicity.

Being Black means you're part of a heritage that created one of the most recognizable and amazing cultures in the history of humanity, in spite of whites doing everything in their unearned and undeserved power to stop it.

When a white person like me wants to admire a culture, they have to look to the accomplishments of Mexicans, modern Harlem or New Orleans, medieval Italians, early modern Dutch, the French revolutionaries, and being a portion of the amazing World War II Americans, etc.

Otherwise, we're mixed bags of flesh with no cause for any pride associated with "whiteness." To have white pride is to be a complete fucking idiot, in addition to being evil.

I quite enjoyed this.

[pc in NM]

Those results are why I capitalize "Black" but never capitalize "white" unless I start a sentence with it.

Being white is a mixture of lots of peoples, becoming both an assumed default and the opposite of what it means to have an ethnicity.

Being Black means you're part of a heritage that created one of the most recognizable and amazing cultures in the history of humanity, in spite of whites doing everything in their unearned and undeserved power to stop it.

When a white person like me wants to admire a culture, they have to look to the accomplishments of 20th century Harlem or New Orleans, medieval Italians, early modern Dutch, the French revolutionaries, and being a portion of the amazing World War II Americans, etc.

Otherwise, we're mixed bags of flesh with no cause for any pride associated with "whiteness." To have white pride is to be a complete fucking idiot, in addition to being evil.

“white” is a “social construction”...

People of my heritage - the Irish - were not “white” in the 1800’s USA, and were pitted against African-Americans in competition for cheap labor. Similar transitions occurred with Spanish, Italian and other national groups...

All eventually became “white”, and in the case of most Irish Catholics, with a vengeance....

[Merkin]

People of my heritage - the Irish - were not “white” in the 1800’s USA, and were pitted against African-Americans in competition for cheap labor. Similar transitions occurred with Spanish, Italian and other national groups...

All eventually became “white”, and in the case of most Irish Catholics, with a vengeance....

I recall reading about that years ago. The Irish actually contributed greatly to racism against African Americans since they were competing for the same jobs.

Anyone not a WASP could not get a good job, including southern Italians which had their own racial census category for some time. Paddy, the stereotypical Irish NYPD cop, was one of the few jobs a Catholic could get, back when being a cop was not a good profession. The Italians and Irish were forced into NYC ghettos since they could not get housing elsewhere. Jews of course were treated very similarly in terms of housing and jobs. African Americans were obviously treated worst of all. Treatment of Asians in California was also awful. We all know about the Japanese Americans during WW2, but the Chinese building the railroads were also denied housing and good jobs. Along with an immigration act targeting Chinese.

[pc in NM]

People of my heritage - the Irish - were not “white” in the 1800’s USA, and were pitted against African-Americans in competition for cheap labor. Similar transitions occurred with Spanish, Italian and other national groups...

All eventually became “white”, and in the case of most Irish Catholics, with a vengeance....

I recall reading about that years ago. The Irish actually contributed greatly to racism against African Americans since they were competing for the same jobs.

Anyone not a WASP could not get a good job, including southern Italians which had their own racial census category for some time. Paddy, the stereotypical Irish NYPD cop, was one of the few jobs a Catholic could get, back when being a cop was not a good profession. The Italians and Irish were forced into NYC ghettos since they could not get housing elsewhere. Jews of course were treated very similarly in terms of housing and jobs. African Americans were obviously treated worst of all. Treatment of Asians in California was also awful. We all know about the Japanese Americans during WW2, but the Chinese building the railroads were also denied housing and good jobs. Along with an immigration act targeting Chinese.

I highly recommend "How the Irish Became White" as a worthy, well-documented, and very readable account of this history...



And this commentary on the author is worth the time:

Noel Ignatiev’s Long Fight Against Whiteness

By Jay Caspian Kang
November 15, 2019

Noel Ignatiev.

In 1995, Noel Ignatiev, a recent graduate of the doctoral program in history at Harvard, published his dissertation with Routledge, an academic press. Many such books appear, then disappear, subsumed into the endless paper shuffling of the academic credentialling process. But Ignatiev was not a typical graduate student, and his book, “How the Irish Became White,” was not meant to stay within the academy. A fifty-four-year-old Marxist radical, Ignatiev had come to the academy after two decades of work in steel mills and factories. The provocative argument at the center of his book—that whiteness was not a biological fact but rather a social construction with boundaries that shifted over time—had emerged, in large part, out of his observations of how workers from every conceivable background had interacted on the factory floor. Ignatiev wasn’t merely describing these dynamics; he wanted to change them. If whiteness could be created, it could also be destroyed.

“How the Irish Became White” quickly broke out of the academic-publishing bubble. Writing in the Washington Post, the historian Nell Irvin Painter called it “the most interesting history book of 1995.” Mumia Abu-Jamal, the activist and death-row inmate, provided an enthusiastic back-cover blurb. Today, many of the ideas Ignatiev proposed or refined—about the nature of whiteness, and about the racial dynamics that unfold among immigrant workers—are taken for granted in classrooms; they influence films, literature, and art. But Ignatiev found it hard to accept the academic rewards that came with his book’s success. Committed to radicalism, he spent much of his time in academia doing what he had done on the factory floor: publishing leaflets and zines about the possibilities of revolutionary change.

Read it all - https://www.newyorker.com/news/postscri ... -whiteness" target="_blank

[CalStateTempe]

So I’m getting back into my Italian citizenship “jute sanguinis” search.

My great grandfather was a bad ass - left Italy at 15, came to Bisbee to work the mines, arrived in 1893, got naturalized in 1897, then returned to home town in the foothills near Turin, to meet, and married my great grandmother in summer of 1900, then sails back in fall of 1900 (with his MIL in tow) to settle down in Bisbee and give birth to my Grandfather in 1902.

Goes on to be a postmaster and head of the Italian miners union. Was a delegate to the bull moose party for Teddy Roosevelt, for the state of Arizona. Was involved in local politics for Bisbee from the 1910s till his death in 1940. Made 6 trips home to Italy over his lifetime.

An average story, but to me, awesome. To think what travel was like in those days and I’m totally romanticizing it, but I’d like to think he had a spirit of adventure and dedication to the civic good which makes me proud. I see those traits in my family to this day.

Here’s the kicker, because he naturalized in 1897, his line is a no go for me due to the 1912 rule.

However because he married my great grandmother in Italy before returning, Italian law states that she never gave up her citizenship and her US citizenship is “involuntary” (captive spouse idea) per the 1948 rule, and can still be passed to her children born in the us.

Unclear if she ever naturalized. And she kept her last name after marriage! Pretty cool IMO.

So because of great grandma, I’m still eligible, I think!

[RichardCranium]

What's the "1912 rule"?

Was he involved in the Bisbee Deportation of 1917 Wikipedia Bisbee Deportation

Was he involved in the Bisbee Riot of 1919? Wikipedia Bisbee Riot

[84Cat]

So I’m getting back into my Italian citizenship “jute sanguinis” search.

My great grandfather was a bad ass - left Italy at 15, came to Bisbee to work the mines, arrived in 1893, got naturalized in 1897, then returned to home town in the foothills near Turin, to meet, and married my great grandmother in summer of 1900, then sails back in fall of 1900 (with his MIL in tow) to settle down in Bisbee and give birth to my Grandfather in 1902.

Goes on to be a postmaster and head of the Italian miners union. Was a delegate to the bull moose party for Teddy Roosevelt, for the state of Arizona. Was involved in local politics for Bisbee from the 1910s till his death in 1940. Made 6 trips home to Italy over his lifetime.

An average story, but to me, awesome. To think what travel was like in those days and I’m totally romanticizing it, but I’d like to think he had a spirit of adventure and dedication to the civic good which makes me proud. I see those traits in my family to this day.

Here’s the kicker, because he naturalized in 1897, his line is a no go for me due to the 1912 rule.

However because he married my great grandmother in Italy before returning, Italian law states that she never gave up her citizenship and her US citizenship is “involuntary” (captive spouse idea) per the 1948 rule, and can still be passed to her children born in the us.

Unclear if she ever naturalized. And she kept her last name after marriage! Pretty cool IMO.

So because of great grandma, I’m still eligible, I think!

This guy got his Italian citizenship recently through his family. He has a few posts about the process. Took him 3 years to complete it

https://www.traipsingabout.com/p/faqs-a ... itizenship

[gronk4heisman]

So I’m getting back into my Italian citizenship “jute sanguinis” search.

My great grandfather was a bad ass - left Italy at 15, came to Bisbee to work the mines, arrived in 1893, got naturalized in 1897, then returned to home town in the foothills near Turin, to meet, and married my great grandmother in summer of 1900, then sails back in fall of 1900 (with his MIL in tow) to settle down in Bisbee and give birth to my Grandfather in 1902.

Goes on to be a postmaster and head of the Italian miners union. Was a delegate to the bull moose party for Teddy Roosevelt, for the state of Arizona. Was involved in local politics for Bisbee from the 1910s till his death in 1940. Made 6 trips home to Italy over his lifetime.

An average story, but to me, awesome. To think what travel was like in those days and I’m totally romanticizing it, but I’d like to think he had a spirit of adventure and dedication to the civic good which makes me proud. I see those traits in my family to this day.

Here’s the kicker, because he naturalized in 1897, his line is a no go for me due to the 1912 rule.

However because he married my great grandmother in Italy before returning, Italian law states that she never gave up her citizenship and her US citizenship is “involuntary” (captive spouse idea) per the 1948 rule, and can still be passed to her children born in the us.

Unclear if she ever naturalized. And she kept her last name after marriage! Pretty cool IMO.

So because of great grandma, I’m still eligible, I think!

I am following the same process, luckily my great grandfather never naturalized.

[Alieberman]

My 2 son's and I are in the middle of gaining our Austrian citizenships through their Jewish Austrian Citizen descendant program. We just passed our FBI background check.

This process has been very interesting in figuring out the exact timeline of my grandparents escape. (They never talked about their lives pre- immigration to the United States.... even to their son - my father). We were able to track down their immigration papers and found out they got out of Austria about a month before Kristallnacht. Truly amazing.

We are all going on a European trip over the summer- focusing on Austria.... It should be fairly emotional.

[Merkin]

Amazing stories.

I saw a few weeks ago this Italian village will pay you to live there if you can work remotely.

My ancestry is Prussian, but think they ended the right to return in the 60s. Not that I could ever leave California.