CALLING Thomas1. Turns out WE MAY BE RELATED!! OMG!!!

[Hunter's Rest]

Thomas1
I am sitting in my quiet Virginia farmhouse looking thru some letters my grandfather's sent to me for safekeeping – and it occurs to me that we must be related.
His father, George Curry, moved from his sheep and cattle farm in the Scottish border country (east, I believe) to Ohio's rich farmland around 1810. There he continued with crops and sheep and cattle (Charolais) and enjoyed racing trotters and pacers and light harness horses.
His brother and father's name was Thomas, his grandfather was John, his mother was Agnes. In the letters (dozens from and to George Curry in the US, to and from his Scottish relatives) they refer to so many names and places (Tully, Duncan, Borthick, Walter, the Kilham Kye, Cornhill, Yetholm School, Westnewton, Alexander Ross, Lenalhill, etc. etc.)
I WONDER IF YOU AND I ARE RELATED????? I see from your most excellent website that your last name is most certainly not Curry, but I wonder if you recognize any of the names or places, or have any Curry's in the woodpile, as it were.
Your knowledge sounds so very like what my people did (and do still today). Tell me about what you might know of this.
PS It is my mother's father from whom I get the Scotch blood (it's all Burke and very much Irish on my dad's side.) My mom was born a Curry.

Betsy Burke Parker -- Hunter's Rest

[LexInVA]

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

[Hunter's Rest]

Oh, dear. Did I trod a toe? Lex - I am a country mouse by all definitions (a SCOTTISH country mouse, turns out!), and I sincerely don't know what you mean by 'unrated ...' etc. ????

[Rancher]

Oh, dear. Did I trod a toe? Lex - I am a country mouse by all definitions (a SCOTTISH country mouse, turns out!), and I sincerely don't know what you mean by 'unrated ...' etc. ????

That's her signature! All she was giving you was shocked faces. You did nothing wrong.

[equinelaw]

That's his sig line. Its not a message to you:) His only comment was:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::e ek::eek: because its so cool and surprising!

[twofatponies]

COTH doubles as a genealogy research forum!! :D

[2 tbs]

Oh, dear. Did I trod a toe? Lex - I am a country mouse by all definitions (a SCOTTISH country mouse, turns out!), and I sincerely don't know what you mean by 'unrated ...' etc. ????

I think the :eek:'s are meant along with :D's :yes: :yes: As in holy moly, wowzers, neato etc :D I'm also :eek: and :D cuz I think it's super neat to find family (or possible family ;) ) especially in a place like CoTH!

The uncut, uncalled for, unrated thing is the signature as in they are all those things :winkgrin:

[Hunter's Rest]

Ahhhh, I see now. Whew. (I thought I'd made some bumble-fumble onto someone's favorite uncle or something. :o) God. Still, wicked cool, to find some long lost cousin on here. Are there famous cases of this already????????!!

[LexInVA]

I'm related to Snoopy. I'm one of his several hundred illegitimate love children conceived during the original four season run of Knight Rider. :D

[Pony Person]

I'm related to Snoopy. I'm one of his several hundred illegitimate love children conceived during the original four season run of Knight Rider. :D
:lol::lol::lol:

[pharmgirl]

I'm related to Snoopy. I'm one of his several hundred illegitimate love children conceived during the original four season run of Knight Rider. :D

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

So, does that mean you know snoop's true identity? ;):D

[LexInVA]

He has gone by many names over the years...Shake Tiller, Michael Knight, Mitch Buchannon, and "Boner", just to name a few. But you might know him better as....David. (http://www.davidhasselhoff.com)

[goeslikestink]

I'm related to Snoopy. I'm one of his several hundred illegitimate love children conceived during the original four season run of Knight Rider. :D

haha very funny iam probably related to a few americans well in fact i know i am

but then we all would be if you think about it so no biggy

david who-- haha

[shawneeAcres]

Ya know Sh*t just happens! LOL (just kidding!) I HATE to think of who I might be related to! However, my mothers family is very well documented to have been a "founding family" of Tennessee long before D. Boone ever even thought about going there. We're "old school" Murcan's!! :lol:

[Foxtrot's]

"Sarkozy", who posts here, is related to a certain prominent French politician.

[talkofthetown]

Whoa! :eek: That is so cool, I'm interested to see if it's really true....Thomas, where are you?!?! :lol:

[HungarianHippo]

you think there's a family relation because the letter refers to some place names and a few exceedingly common first names? What am I missing

[dressagetraks]

I'm related to George Washington, distantly and in a very indirect way, but a more exciting piece of news to me is that I recently found out that my great-great uncle (if I'm getting that right - great-great grandfather's brother?) bred and raised TWH! :D:cool:

And all these years, my family has told me that nobody else in the family ever had the horse bug. :lol:

[Pony Person]

I'm a pirate! Related to Sir Francis Drake.:) And I'm related to someone who was invited to join the mafia, but he turned it down. Both on my mom's side.:cool:

[Silver Snaffles]

I got you all beat.

My great uncle owned a big bank.
My other great uncle was was career bank robber.

He robbed my other Great Uncles bank!
:eek: Got caught did time for it and everything. The family secret!

[Pony Person]

I got you all beat.

My great uncle owned a big bank.
My other great uncle was was career bank robber.

He robbed my other Great Uncles bank!
:eek: Got caught did time for it and everything. The family secret!
Wow!:lol: Awesome!:lol:

[Wanderluster]

I am both an artist and politician by relation to Thomas Hart Benton. My grandmother was a Benton and apparently my cousin painted the ceilings in the Getty Mansion now the villa in Malibu. I can't draw stick figures FYI.
Oh six degrees of separation... I am Scottish by descent of the Cummins clan (pronounced coomins) not Cummings which is English.
It is fun to find out ancestry but very murky in the UK where there are some small land masses and lots of people moving about. I've been informed that there are Irish Cummins as well, so there goes the neighborhood. :D I think it's fun to find out where your gene pool is spread throughout... I am kind of wishing that you and Thomas are related.

[Coreene]

I've got you all beat: I'm related to Aunt Esther!!!

[seeuatx]

My mother's side of the family can trace one line back to HenryVII... wrong side of the blanket of course, and another line back to the Stuarts (again with the illegitimate thing). Both lines had the added misfortune of finding themselves of the wrong side of just about every war between then and WWI (Cromwell, 1715, 1745, American Rev., Civil War...)

[2 tbs]

I've got you all beat: I'm related to Aunt Esther!!!


:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

[Calvincrowe]

For all you Canadians, my 3xGreat Uncle is the Metis Rebellion leader, Louis Riel... but I'm a history nerd, so that is a big deal to me..

[Janet]

I think Anyplace figured out that we are related.

My great aunt was the well known Scottish Nationalist Wendy Wood- but SHE WASN'T SCOTTISH.

[sk_pacer]

For all you Canadians, my 3xGreat Uncle is the Metis Rebellion leader, Louis Riel... but I'm a history nerd, so that is a big deal to me..

You may want to plan a trip to Regina, Saskatchewan and check out the statue of Louis Riel and perhaps time the trip to watch the play "The Trial of Louis Riel". Statue is impressive, never saw the play, but it has been running for years and years.

[00Jumper]

I am child of pirate heritage too, Pony Person. ;) Not Drake, just some Chesapeake Bay pirates during the Civil War and before.

Also, distantly to Thomas Edison. :D You may all thank me for the lightbulb, yes, yes, thanks very much.

And the dark secret of the family (not so secret now, I guess, haha!) is Martha "Patty" Cannon, a Delmarva murderer and all around horrible person. I'm trying to decide if it's an upgrade from the person family lore used to say was in our heritage but was later proven to be false: Lizzie Borden. :eek: Either way, it was just through a childless marriage, so thank goodness for that, I guess.

[pintopiaffe]

Growing up, I always understood that my Grandfather's father (or grandfather?) in Ireland used to breed ponies. That must've been where I got it from. (even though I'm adopted.) It was only as I grew into a young adult that one time I asked about it, and was mildly corrected... he didn't *raise* ponies, he used to PLAY the ponies. :uhoh: :lol:

I am distantly related to the President of Ireland. Same surname, spelled the same, from the same small town in the same County.

Then again, I'm adopted. I could quite possibly be Anastasia.

Or, erm, well... probably not. :no:

[goeslikestink]

I'm related to George Washington, distantly and in a very indirect way, but a more exciting piece of news to me is that I recently found out that my great-great uncle (if I'm getting that right - great-great grandfather's brother?) bred and raised TWH! :D:cool:

And all these years, my family has told me that nobody else in the family ever had the horse bug. :lol:

haha then your related to me haha , i am in a direct line to him haha

[Doodlebug1]

I don't mean to pee on your parade - but I think in a previous post Thomas1 confessed to being a yorkshireman and therefore not really Scottish at all!

That's not to say that previous generations of Thomas1's weren't scottish of course as yorkshire and the scottish borders aren't that far apart.

C'mon Thomas1 full genealogy please.... You never know, you might be related to a southerner :eek: AND an american :eek::eek:

[goeslikestink]

My mother's side of the family can trace one line back to HenryVII... wrong side of the blanket of course, and another line back to the Stuarts (again with the illegitimate thing). Both lines had the added misfortune of finding themselves of the wrong side of just about every war between then and WWI (Cromwell, 1715, 1745, American Rev., Civil War...)

i go back further than henry as in 1347

[simply kim]

ShawneeAcres,Is it possible that you and I are related? My mother's family is one of those founding families in Tennesee also. West on one side and Nave on the other. Goes back quite a way to Oliphants.I just love this topic by the way.:lol:

[justasmidge]

My mother's side can be traced back to Benedict Arnold... always makes for good laughs on that one!

[ManyDogs]

Ummm, 5chestnuts, one of my husband's ancestors was John Wilkes Booth :eek:.
DH is of Irish and French descent and I am English, Welsh, and German, so we definitely have different personalities :lol: !

[mcm7780]

I'm related to George Washington, distantly and in a very indirect way, but a more exciting piece of news to me is that I recently found out that my great-great uncle (if I'm getting that right - great-great grandfather's brother?) bred and raised TWH! :D:cool:

And all these years, my family has told me that nobody else in the family ever had the horse bug. :lol:

I'm told that I'm related to the person George Washington was named after! :winkgrin:

[Hunter's Rest]

Um, never mind. I am sort of deflated after the comment by someone on teh first page telling me I am simple minded to *imagine* I'd be related to someone else just because of common names.
Sorry to bore anyone with my pathetic story.
You all carry on as you wish. I'm out.

[shawneeAcres]

ShawneeAcres,Is it possible that you and I are related? My mother's family is one of those founding families in Tennesee also. West on one side and Nave on the other. Goes back quite a way to Oliphants.I just love this topic by the way.:lol:


My mothers family is SHoun and Lowe. The Shouns founded Shouns Xroads, Tennessee which has now been gobbled up by Mountain City, but there is still monument on the hillside in a cow pasture at the site of the old cemetary with all the people listed who came over from Pa. We have a family organization, the "SHoun" family organization which is huge and national.

I think my mother had a good friend who was a West if I am not mistaken, she grew up in Bristol. Also we had a cousin on my Dad's side (a Martin from the Martinsville area) who married a Buddy West and lived up near Stuart NC

[VAHorseGurl]

Um, never mind. I am sort of deflated after the comment by someone on teh first page telling me I am simple minded to *imagine* I'd be related to someone else just because of common names.

Sorry to bore anyone with my pathetic story.
You all carry on as you wish. I'm out.

Hunter's Rest - Please don't leave! You could very easily be related to Thomas1. At least wait until he weighs in with his side of the family names. :yes:

Don't believe the naysayers. They're just jealous 'cuz they didn't dream up this thread first! :lol:

Oh please HR, do not leave till Thomas1 weighs in! I agree with 5chestnuts!! :)

My father has only just begun doing our lineage and while he's got a lot of work to go, he has been able to trace our family (his side at the moment) back to the Crossing from England to America.

I also now know about 2 of my 3xGreat Grandfathers (both on Dad's side). During the Civil War, they fought for North Carolina and marched in Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg and SURVIVED. One took a bullet to the stomach and survived, which was unheard of during that time.

I'm not working with several organizations to include the UDC to get both GGGGrandfather's the 'iron cross' that represents fallin Civil War Soldiers.

[VAHorseGurl]

I am <ahem> a direct descendant (through the distaff line) to Peter Wright - one of the three men to found Oyster Bay, NY. You know .... that oceanfront property now worth millions per square foot?

Do you think it would have been a simply lovely idea for them to have held onto that land for their worthy descendants?? Hmmm? HMMMM??

LOLOL I hear ya! I am a descendant of BAKER Furniture from North Carolina, they sold out in the 1920's. :(

Also, found out that I am a direct descendant to one of Germany's Largest Bewerys, that family also sold out.

So I lost out on the good money twice. :p

[ManyDogs]

My maiden name is Koch so I MUST be related to the guy who started Sam Adams AND the Koch who always sails in the Americas Cup. And our name is not pronounced like the former mayor of NY pronounces it.
Hmmm, don't esp. like beer (except for Wildcatters-ya'll Texicans) and am not fond of deep water. Hmmm. But hey, I'll take a little of the fambly fortunes...:D

When my father's ancestors came over from Germany many settled in Canada. Someone wanted to get into politics so they changed their name to "Cook".

Yes, 5chestnuts-never a dull moment at our house.
Well, actually, we LIKE being dull so in that aspect we get along just fine.

Hey-our JRT is UK, the cattle dog mix is Aussie, the poodle mix is Francais, and the Peke mix is Chinese. Horses are of British descent and French descent.

My dad spent years researching our family history. It really is interesting.

[Hunter's Rest]

Seriously, what Hungarian Hippo said in an early post still smarts -- that I am an imbecile for 'imagining' that 'maybe' I am related to someone because of this cool 200 year old letter I am reading right now. Sorry to look like such an idiot to you, HH.

[JSwan]

Seriously, what Hungarian Hippo said in an early post still smarts -- that I am an imbecile for 'imagining' that 'maybe' I am related to someone because of this cool 200 year old letter I am reading right now. Sorry to look like such an idiot to you, HH.


I think it's cool and when I come to visit I'd like to see that letter if I may!

My recently departed father in law would have been mesmerized - he was big time into genealogy and traveled the world finding relatives in the oddest places.

He helped me find a cousin in Ireland! One of the last trips he made was to Sweden - he met some very distant cousins and trod upon the old foundation of the ancestral home.

One of Mr. JSwan's relatives blew himself up with a load of dynamite. I think he was a settler who lost his marbles back in frontier days.

[KnKShowmom]

Ah, family history....

Grandpa was always proud to tell the stories of his father who was chief of the fire dept of NYC during the Triangle Shirt Waist fire and whose quotes concerning fire fighters were used extensively following 911.

We weren't allowed to talk about Great Uncle Richard who was a rotten Tammany Hall politician. He, however, was the beginning of the equine love affair in my family because he had some really nice race horses both here and later in Ireland at Glencairne. His horse, Orby, was the first Irish trained horse to win both the English and Irish Derby in the same year! I thought that was pretty impressive, but if you mentioned it Grandpa's fury would be unleashed!!!

Grandpa is rolling over in his grave as I type this.......:lol:

[talkofthetown]

I'm a pirate! Related to Sir Francis Drake.:) And I'm related to someone who was invited to join the mafia, but he turned it down. Both on my mom's side.:cool:

OK, so being related to Sir Francis Drake is really really cool...:lol:
But my boyfriend's uncle is IN the mafia. Really. Up in New York. Kinda cool, but kinda scary....:lol:

Oh, and I'm related to the Kellogg's. Several generation's back, but they're there! I should get free cereal or something! :D

[lcw579]

3dogfarm, my standard poodle would respectfully like you to know that poodles are actually of German descent and that the name poodle is derived from the German word for "puddle" :) Our standards have been trying to shake that sissy French image for years! :lol: :lol:

This is a very cool topic, BTW! I do know that I am related on my mother's side to Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Seward, the man responsible for the purchase of Alaska or "Seward's Folly".

[marta]

do you even know who HH is? f$%k her;)
i think it's fricking amazing that you have a 200 year old letter in your hand from your ancestors. i bet even if you're not related to Thomas1 he probably knows some of the folks related to you.
i can't wait to hear what he has to say.

Seriously, what Hungarian Hippo said in an early post still smarts -- that I am an imbecile for 'imagining' that 'maybe' I am related to someone because of this cool 200 year old letter I am reading right now. Sorry to look like such an idiot to you, HH.

[2DogsFarm]

Hunter's Rest: why not send a PM to Thomas1?

If you are related...How Cool is that!

And if it makes you feel better, my family comes from nowhere in Russia & Romania.
My parents were born in this country, but that makes me only 2nd generation American.
My last name is what the Ellis Island official checking Grandad in thought it sounded like so it became anglicized from the Russian.

Hmmmm...perhaps I am related to the last Czar & Anastasia...
Yeah! That's the ticket!

[CA ASB]

My mom got into geneology big time. Unfortunately too late for college scholarships ... :no: but still. Our family missed out on the $$s as they owned the land under a place called Coney Island. They farmed it. There's actually a museum someplace in NYC that is a family home.

Came by the horsey side quite naturally. On mom's maternal side, we have a wonderful old letter that is also illustrated. He first drew a pen and ink of himself astride his Lippizzaner stallion and then wrote home to Czechoslovakia. My great-great-great uncle was a body guard to Franz Josef and was in the Spanish Riding School. Franz Josef thought so highly of him that he did the rare thing of actually giving him his own stallion.

On my mom's paternal side ... that has been here forever (the Coney Island owners); they migrated down into Louisiana. At one point around the Civil War, one of my grandmothers sued her husband :eek:. Seems he was a gamblin' man and she wanted to clear up the debts. She won. So, he had to sell off his prized carriage and matched grey saddle horses (Saddlebreds, imagine that ...). She arranged with everyone to NOT show up at the courthouse steps and she was the only bidder - buying the whole kit and caboodle for a dollar - so he still owed her. BTW, during the lawsuit, she was still having babies with him.

We have another wonderful letter/essay from the Civil War era from a female ancestor speaking of the value of education and while bemoaning the War, thanking God for it because it allowed her to get an education. Basically, what happened in the South was that due to the men going off to war, the schools of higher education, in order to stay open, actually admitted women. Consequently, many Southern women during that time period were actually highly educated. The essay is fascinating and poignant and quite the treatise on women's liberation.

[birdsong]

I'm related to Snoopy. I'm one of his several hundred illegitimate love children conceived during the original four season run of Knight Rider. :D

HaHaHa..I actually snorked some snot on my key board on that one!!! It really DOES happen...thankfully I had swallowed the coffee.

[birdsong]

Seriously, what Hungarian Hippo said in an early post still smarts -- that I am an imbecile for 'imagining' that 'maybe' I am related to someone because of this cool 200 year old letter I am reading right now. Sorry to look like such an idiot to you, HH.

Just stop right now being bothered by someone who you don't even know!!! They are just party poopers!! Come back and play with us...cool thread..and I can't wait to hear what our Thomas has to say...

Oh and to add my 2c...My Aunt was refused entry to one of the Southern Heritage type clubs...The Dames of Columbus or something like that...someone had to die and then you had to be invited etc...So she showed them..now we are all members of the Society of the Magna Carta!!! Haha...I love genealogy...

It was also my Great great Grandfather...who befriended a Jewish peddler here in the South and first the peddler had his wagon on the street in front of his store front and later joined him with his own space inside...parting only with the war...The peddler, named Strauss, went on the New York where he and his family came to create Macy's.(Their family story is worth a read...their contribution was great) My relative is mentioned in the history of "Famous Jewish Merchants"...
Love the old stories.

The first relative on these shores on one side of the family arrived in 1634 and was once the Comptroller General from Ireland which I believe interprets as the Governor perhaps..

And then there was me.....

[CDE Driver]

What a great thread!

My 5x great grandfather was King Kamehameha. My Mother is half Hawaiian.

[stryder]

While we wait for Thomas....

My mare's great-grandfather was Northern Dancer. ;)

[eyesontheground]

You are a genius HR!! People all over america who research geneology wait for breaks like this!! Run with it!

Come on, Thomas!!

Seriously, what Hungarian Hippo said in an early post still smarts -- that I am an imbecile for 'imagining' that 'maybe' I am related to someone because of this cool 200 year old letter I am reading right now. Sorry to look like such an idiot to you, HH.

[birdsong]

What a great thread!

My 5x great grandfather was King Kamehameha. My Mother is half Hawaiian.

Can you Hula???? Good one...

[ManyDogs]

No problemo LCW579 :D-
I loff standard poodles-they are so neat.

And of course Pennsylvania Dutch Country was really settled by the Germans, Deutch....

[AnotherRound]

Stryder, you're a weasle.

My Dad's great great grandad was a captain in the union army and after the war he went to starting up saloons in Kansas with Kit Carson. Family legend has it he married a Carry Nation girl, but we don't think that lasted long because she's buried somewhere in Utah and He's in Illinois and married again, a widow with a 5 year old boy. Had no more kids, dad's descended from the 5 year old boy.

I've done alot of genealogy, and that 200 year old letter is something I would love to see. I traced my mother's family, last name Whitnah, back to medievel Germany, the original name was Weidknecht, which means Woods Servant, probably serfs attached to the local castle at that time working for the prince, as there really was no germany, just prinicpalities. Family came to US in 1709, with the 10 palatine ships Queen Ann sent over with German and french protestants to make Tar for the British Navy in upstate new york in exchange for land and a living. Except there were no pitch pines in upstate new york so the germans weren't getting the pay and land they were promised, and scattered, sending their children to live with the indians to learn skills and building their homes in the woods with the local natives. Many then went into Pennsylvania. My family setted in New Jersey, and became Whitenacks, Whitkernack, Whitnack, Whitnauer, Whithah. The new jersey Weidknechts did marry Dutch, many Dutch were settled in New York and New Jersey, and these families, interestingly, grew up speaking dutch, and not German, because the communities and the wives were so Dutch. Faimly ended up in Nebraska in 1870 where my grandfather was born in a soddy and remembers building the new, big log cabin when he was five.

Family stories are soooo coool.

[CDE Driver]

Can you Hula???? Good one...

No, but one comment I got on a dressage test for a halt was "Nice Hula"!

All the women in my family except me are beautiful dancers!

[Weatherford]

On my mom's paternal side ... that has been here forever (the Coney Island owners); they migrated down into Louisiana. At one point around the Civil War, one of my grandmothers sued her husband :eek:. Seems he was a gamblin' man and she wanted to clear up the debts. She won. So, he had to sell off his prized carriage and matched grey saddle horses (Saddlebreds, imagine that ...). She arranged with everyone to NOT show up at the courthouse steps and she was the only bidder - buying the whole kit and caboodle for a dollar - so he still owed her. BTW, during the lawsuit, she was still having babies with him.



Uh, we are probably not related, but our families probably knew each other... Mine owned a VERY large farm (think hundreds of acres) on a little island better known as Manhattan... :eek: The farm location? Riverside...
:sigh:

Part of my family were TORIES! :eek: They went to Nova Scotia during the Revolution!

Another part (all on Mom's side) were Dutch and American Revolutionaries :), who started the shipping on the Hudson River (and YES, I did meet/discover a COUSIN for the first time in a church choir once!! During the sermon, of course ;) ) and lent the Continental Congress 5 million in GOLD that was repaid in Continental Congress (worthless) paper... :rolleyes:

And we've always had horses - when I was a book dealer, I found a great poem about the Essex Hunt published in 1907 or so, and in it was stanza about my grandfather!! What a HOOT!! Since it was about his "eye for the women," it was obviously a couple years before he married my grandmother! :lol:

But, I don't know the stories that some of you know - wow! And to have letters from the Civil War and/or earlier! I am green with envy!! BE SURE TO store these letters in ACID FREE containers - boxes, or individual envelopes or clear sheets. Got to be acid free to protect them. And make sure you photograph them (better resolution) as well as type up what they say - very important stuff!! :)

Thanks again for this thread. :D

[x-rab]

One of my cousin's traced my father's side of the family back to the 1600's in England. Supposedly one side of the family came in on the 4th or 5th boat to Jamestown and a family home still exists in Norfolk. The family migrated south sometime but because my grandfather of one of 25 kids, I lose a few greats in there.

HR will bring out the copy of the LaGrange (GA) newpaper that has a letter from the Troup Lightguard, dated July 2, 1862 (I think) printed in it. The page also has letters from Lee to the troups in it. My Great Aunt Bessie kept the page because that letter mentions the death of a brother in a battle during the Civil War or the recent unpleasantness. I have a tin type with him in his uniform to go with it.

I think the Tatum were from Norfolk originally so it is appropriate that I own a Norfolk Terrier.

[greygirls]

Hey Stryder, I met him when he lived in Chesapeake City (MD):).

And stay Hunters Rest--this is a wonderful thread!

I recently discovered that I'm descended from convict stock (Ooooooooooo, and OMG!!!). My mum was from Australia, and it had been a family secret. She always said we were Welsh and Scottish (crikey, never English; heaven forbid!). After she passed, I followed up with a woman in NZ who had traced that part of the family, and by gosh one of my ancestors had been shipped out of England to the penal colony in Tasmania. He was a "colt breaker" and his crime?...... stealing a "head collar" (halter). Alas, finally, my familial horse connection (lol)!

We all get a big kick out of it. My mum would have too--she always liked a good laugh.

[atr]

D.H. Lawrence was my father's cousin, once removed. I don't quite have his vivid imagination...

[Thomas_1]

CALLING Thomas1. Turns out WE MAY BE RELATED!! OMG!!! Blimey! For a minute I thought I'd an unknown daughter turn up in the USA!!!!

It would make a terrific change and terribly unusual to have an American look up geneology and find they were related to me. Every one I've ever come across was either related to Queen Elizabeth I, Henry VIII, King James of Scotland or George Washington ;)

Thomas1
I am sitting in my quiet Virginia farmhouse looking thru some letters my grandfather's sent to me for safekeeping – and it occurs to me that we must be related. DON'T PANIC..... WE'RE NOT RELATED AT ALL. ;)

I'm originally from Yorkshire and only moved up this way nearly 20 years ago. My lot were all in and around there for centuries.

I'm from a load that have been involved with horses forever!: a direct descendant of Thomas and Richard Darley from Buttercrambe in North Yorkshire. I was named after Thomas Darley and to keep this horse related, he's the one that imported Darley Arabian which led to purpose breeding and the thoroughbred.

His father, George Curry, moved from his sheep and cattle farm in the Scottish border country (east, I believe) to Ohio's rich farmland around 1810. There he continued with crops and sheep and cattle (Charolais) and enjoyed racing trotters and pacers and light harness horses.
His brother and father's name was Thomas, his grandfather was John, his mother was Agnes. In the letters (dozens from and to George Curry in the US, to and from his Scottish relatives) they refer to so many names and places (Tully, Duncan, Borthick, Walter, the Kilham Kye, Cornhill, Yetholm School, Westnewton, Alexander Ross, Lenalhill, etc. etc.) I took a team of horses out to Yetholm only this afternoon. It's a lovely little village with a first class pub. Kilham is just over the hill from me and Cornhill is about 5 miles to the north. Lennel hill isn't so far away either and is somewhere I often ride. I've a mass of photos of all those places. Kilham isn't really a place as such, it's more a small feudal farm and farm cottages - as are many "places" round here. Including Flodden where I am.

There's a huge culture of horsemanship round here though and you might be interested in some threads I've posted about it in the past. I'll see if I can turn them up and come back and post a couple of links here for you.

Your knowledge sounds so very like what my people did (and do still today). Tell me about what you might know of this.
PS It is my mother's father from whom I get the Scotch blood (it's all Burke and very much Irish on my dad's side.) My mom was born a Curry. Now I don't quite know how to tell you this but Cornhill and Kilham are actually in England not Scotland.

The borders are unique though in having their very own culture. Ask anyone from round here if they're Scottish or English and you'll get the answer "I'm a borderer!"

I do have a customer who's an archivist and wrote a couple of books about this immediate area and the old families here. I'll have a look and see if any of the names you mentioned are in there.

And so you can get a feel for what the area is like, this photo is driving the road from my farm past Kilham to Kirk Newton and on the Yetholme road.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/flodden_edge/Driving/busyroad.jpg

This is Lennel village which is right next to Cornhill :

http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa178/classic-carriages/Driving/DSCF0001-1.jpg

[stryder]

Stryder, you're a weasle.



A weasel? wow. I've been called a lot of things, but never a weasel. At least I can spell...:lol:

[Thomas_1]

Here you are. You might find this interesting in terms of learning all about your roots.

It's also VERY much horse related so we shouldn't get a ticking off for being off topic.

http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?p=3027014&highlight=common#post3027014

[Hunter's Rest]

Wow. WOW. Just nipped in for lunch before another lesson at 1 and find this thread has gone and done exploded!!
Most excellent Thomas1 -- of COURSE the borders were a wee bit indistinguishable in the olde days. My peeps were perhaps both Scottish and English. Superb to hear all about the places the elder Curry refered to. I'd be so interested in checking them out someday. I've always thought of myself as more Irish (from the sire line) but guess I'm just as much Scottish (from the dam's side!)
Keep the info coming, Thomas.
It really was just your name - Thomas - that made my brain make a leap. I was reading those olde letters last night and I was just like, 'Thomas. Thomas. Hmmm. Think I know a Scottish Thomas.' Turns out I was half right, anyway.
I look forward to delving into this a bit more.
Ok, here's the other half of hte pedigree - the Burke line is from Kilkenny, I think, and (to hear my grandma tell it) included a bunch of gypsies and horse traders and perhaps a witch or two. Anybody got any Burke's in their lineage?????

[texang73]

VERY cool thread.

I am directly related to John McAlister (Scottish!) who made Thomas Jefferson's spectacles. Seriously. You can see them at Monticello's visitor center... and to also keep it horse related, he started out selling carriage whips and canes in Philadelphia.

[DressageGeek "Ribbon Ho"]

So does anyone have relatives (great grandparents, grandparents) thrown out of several peasant villages (maybe burned out of their homes?) in Austria and Russia until they ended up on the shores of the Atlantic and had to go east to America? Where they landed at Ellis Island? No more details other than that.

Maybe we're related...?

[marta]

i LOFFFF the pink ear nets on your team of horses.
they look awesome! the whole carriage looks awesome.
wow!

[Thomas_1]

Wow. WOW. Just nipped in for lunch before another lesson at 1 and find this thread has gone and done exploded!!
Most excellent Thomas1 -- of COURSE the borders were a wee bit indistinguishable in the olde days. My peeps were perhaps both Scottish and English. Superb to hear all about the places the elder Curry refered to. I'd be so interested in checking them out someday. I've always thought of myself as more Irish (from the sire line) but guess I'm just as much Scottish (from the dam's side!)
Keep the info coming, Thomas.
It really was just your name - Thomas - that made my brain make a leap. I was reading those olde letters last night and I was just like, 'Thomas. Thomas. Hmmm. Think I know a Scottish Thomas.' Turns out I was half right, anyway.
I look forward to delving into this a bit more.
Ok, here's the other half of hte pedigree - the Burke line is from Kilkenny, I think, and (to hear my grandma tell it) included a bunch of gypsies and horse traders and perhaps a witch or two. Anybody got any Burke's in their lineage?????

Well it seems I'm the bearer of bad news today..... Not only was I the one to tell you that we're not related at all...... so you don't get a share of my farm ;).

But you're not necessarily Scottish either ;)

And now I've got to ask you if you know what a Burk or Berk is in the English language :)

[Foxtrot's]

Calvincrow - We are related!!!!

[CA ASB]

Not to insult HR, but wouldn't "berk" be slang for an idiot?

I used to loff all the folks who would try and sell you the family "coat of arms." Now, my sire's family came from Scotland, but they were peasants. One, through provable marriage, allows me to officially wear the Campbell tartan. What was really interesting is that when I married, I married a Campbell.

But my own family on the sire's side? No shield, no coat of arms, no tartan :no:. The lineage (as is oft true in horses) comes from the bottom side.

And HR, it seems with the gypsy background that sooner or later, you'll find magikal horses that fahrt butterflies somewhere in your past as well - and their pedigrees are so pure they can only be passed down verbally!

[Sleepy]

Not to insult HR, but wouldn't "berk" be slang for an idiot?


I think it might be worse than that. I know there was a Burke executed in Scotland for smothering people so he could sell their bodies. :eek:

My Scottish ancestors all came from the same place. And most of those no longer on Skye are now in either NC or Halifax, NS.

[Foxtrot's]

HR - this is one of the best threads - thanks for starting it. These posters have scared HH away.

I'm descended from a Governor of the Bahamas, (1795-1805) His picture is in the Senate but it was before photos, so it is a line drawing. He repatriated some of you guys' pirate relatives to England to be tried and possibly hanged. He also put up the blokade to catch slave ships on their way to America - many of whom settled in the Bahamas.

His other accomplishment was to decree that all explosives had to be kept in separate magazines and that all livestock had to be fenced in. Guess too many people were blowing themselves up.

I have a whole lot of microfishes (sp) that are copies of his letters to the King.

There is a street named after us, but it is now a red light area !

[Thomas_1]

Not to insult HR, but wouldn't "berk" be slang for an idiot? Now that's pretty much going to be a dead cert being that we Brits have more words for a moron than anyone else in the world.

I think perhaps the best on line British to American translation is here

http://septicscompanion.com/dictionary/b.html

And HR, it seems with the gypsy background that sooner or later, you'll find magikal horses that fahrt butterflies somewhere in your past as well - and their pedigrees are so pure they can only be passed down verbally!

Some fantastic great news for the OP is the romany gypsy connection to Yetholme.

Don't know if you know but that is where the oldest Romany horse fair was and also where the Romany King and Queen used to have their coronations and lived till the 1800's. A lot of Irish Romanies settled here because of that and a lot of places round here are called the likes of Romany Hill and friends of mine live in Romany House in Yetholme

This gives a little information:

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/yetholm/yetholm/index.html

http://www.fife.50megs.com/scotland-gypsies.html

History is an absolute passion for both Susan and I and we have amassed a huge collection of books on the area and also all things equestrian history over the years.

[birdsong]

I think we should all go visit Thomas!! His photos are just lovely with those wonderful hillsides and of course his entire set up is just a dream for me!! Now to find out that Thomas is such a Historian is another feather in his cap!!

Love the Darby mention (forget which poster it was) So do you have an Arab!!?

[JSwan]

My great grandfather was a well known composer.

There is no doubt in my mind that you will know his most famous piece. The Napoletana Tarantella.

Click on the link!

http://www.sicilianculture.com/folklore/tarantellan.mp3

There are many tarantella but this is the one of Naples.

No jokes about Naples or Sorrento please - that part of Italy was not always a recreational spot for horny US sailors.

[War Admiral]

And now I've got to ask you if you know what a Burk or Berk is in the English language :)

Rhyming slang, I do believe...

But also, aren't the Burke family sort of Anglo-Irish aristocracy... What the Irish would call "Old English" rather than Cromwell's lot?

...which would make Hunter's Rest related to Chris DeBurgh, I believe. Not sure whether THAT's a step up in the world or not...!

[2DogsFarm]

So does anyone have relatives (great grandparents, grandparents) thrown out of several peasant villages (maybe burned out of their homes?) in Austria and Russia until they ended up on the shores of the Atlantic and had to go east to America? Where they landed at Ellis Island? No more details other than that.

Maybe we're related...?

See my post - #54 - all I know is Dad's parents came over "on the boat" before 1912 as he was the first kid born on US soil.
They came right to Chgo after Ellis Island as there were already some uncles living there.

Mom's family was here earlier, as her Dad settled the family in Eden,South Dakota and ran the general store along with serving as Mayor < the town was so small, we used to tease her that it was just his turn.

Wish I knew more than that, but I don't. :no:

So shall we call ourselves Cousins?

[LostFarmer]

Last name is Moulton. My Great-great Grandfather was born on the ship Thornton on the Irish sea on when they immigrated. His father was an orphan that was sent to the coal mines as an 8 year old little boy. He happened to be named Thomas by the way. His first wife died giving birth to a daughter named Sarah. He remarried Sarah Denton and had 8 more children. They were in Irkshire as I remember.

My only claim to fame is this is my Great great grandfather on my mothers side. http://rawhide-tuff.org/Prose/Family%20History/George%20Edwin%20Little.htm http://wiki.hanksplace.net/index.php/George_Edwin_Little

This was build by my Great grandfather on my dads side as part of his homestead. http://www.flickr.com/photos/73888478@N00/100959418/

LF

[Debbie]

I'm with birdsong, there needs to be a COTH gathering at Thomas' farm. I pretend to be Scottish for a week a year so I need to go visit the homeland. We can all help Hunter's Rest discover her Scottish roots.

[JanM]

A gentleman I worked with and I were talking about ancestors-my family arrived here about 1742, but he beat that. He is a direct ancestor of the spanish colonists who arrive from Spain and settled in New Mexico (the second time-the first group were run out by the Pueblo tribes [like the t-shirt says 'fighting illegal immigration since 1492']). He grew up on a ranch in Northern New Mexico that is the last (but still big) part of the original Spanish land grant to his ancestors. I think his relatives date of arrival beat mine by a few hundred.

Actually Hunters-I'm excited about your piece of history. It's so amazing to get a glimpse of what people who came before us were like.

I used to get those 'buy your family crest' letters too. The problem is that the current family last name is actually slightly different from the real name, the coat of arms are for the English branch who are not related at all, not the German branch that is the real origin. Guess I don't need that coat of arms anyway.

[2DogsFarm]

I'm with birdsong, there needs to be a COTH gathering at Thomas' farm. I pretend to be Scottish for a week a year so I need to go visit the homeland. We can all help Hunter's Rest discover her Scottish roots.

Count me in!
I have been plotting to make Floddenedge my next Dream Vacation.
Sigh...at this point it looks like Spring 2010 may be the soonest I could get there.

LF: WOW! That is a gorgeous picture. And that barn is still standing?

[twofatponies]

Doesn't anyone have a less illustrious lineage? :D

I've got...Swedish peasants, Tyrolean peasants, German engineers, and a bunch of Irish rabble... all of whom met one another here in the US around the turn of the last century. One great grandmother was notorious for belonging to the first all-female motorcycle gang. I have a photo of her that looks a lot like a mug shot :lol:

None of them had horses, to my knowledge.

[seeuatx]

Doesn't anyone have a less illustrious lineage? :D

I've got...Swedish peasants, Tyrolean peasants, German engineers, and a bunch of Irish rabble... all of whom met one another here in the US around the turn of the last century. One great grandmother was notorious for belonging to the first all-female motorcycle gang. I have a photo of her that looks a lot like a mug shot :lol:

None of them had horses, to my knowledge.

Well, see I didn't tell you about my dad's side of the family tree. Great Great Grandpa was apparently German riffraff that was cut off from his family and exiled from his town (:eek:). My Grandpa traveled back to that area in the 80's and started asking around... people recognized the last name, but as soon as he dropped my great-great grandpa's first name people became very quiet indeed. Still haven't figured out what got him run out of town.

[Foxtrot's]

You need the Australians to chime in for riff-raff. They LOVE being related to anybody that was shipped out to Botany Bay.

[vineyridge]

Not to worry about coming from peasants. We've got a bunch of Scots-Irish, who got sent from Scotland to Ireland in the time of James I, and then emigated to the US and ended up in the terribly low class Waxhaw settlement at the back of NC.

Rest of the family were pretty much all small farmers here and there; some Dutch and English in upstate New York (my grandmother's family), and the rest pioneer types in the South. I read a book about early migrations to Mississippi, and my people settled in the part of the state that was known for having poor white trash.

We do have generations of great family stories though, and a couple have to do with horses tangentially.

One of the best is that a great, greatgrandfather in Mississippi got word that one of his sons had been wounded at the Battle of First Manassas and was being cared for by a certain family in Virginia. He hitched up his wagon and drove to Virginia to bring his boy home, only to find that the son had died only a few days before his arrival. So he brought home a body instead of a wounded soldier.

Another war story is that my great, great grandmother (different branch) had a premonition that something was dreadfully wrong with one of her soldier sons. Her daughter's fiance (my G Grandfather) was home on leave, and he volunteered to go see what he could find out. As he went North in Mississippi towards the fighting, he would ask every soldier that he encountered if he had heard of this fellow. He found out that at the time my GG Grandmother had had her premonition, the Battle of Brice's Crossroads was raging. And, when encountering a train bringing bodies and the wounded back from there, he asked his question. "Yes," the answer came. "We knew him, and we are bringing his body home for burial."

[Pony Person]

I think perhaps the best on line British to American translation is here

http://septicscompanion.com/dictionary/b.html

Thanks alot, Thomas. Now I'm going to spend all day looking up swearwords.:lol::lol::lol:

[Sassenach]

Damn best story I have is going through my mom's e-mail one day and going 'Mom why did you e-mail yourself?'

E-mail from a woman with the same spelling of her name and last name asking 'are we related?' She thought she was e-mailing people in Ireland and didn't realize she was e-mailing us in the States.

Mom's response: No way there's no one related to us with the same last name in this country!

Anyway we call up my Grandpa who's response is 'well... I did have that one uncle who left before World War 1...'

Yep she's his great-granddaughter.

Even better - of all the places in the US to be she lived an hour away from us.

Even better - her entire family are college professors (I'm the first in my family to go to college whoo!)

Mom's Response: See! I always knew we were smart! :lol::lol:

[dizzywriter]

Doesn't anyone have a less illustrious lineage? :D



I come from a long line of Carpathian hillbillies.

[Holly Jeanne]

Originally Posted by twofatponies http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?p=3896932#post3896932)
Doesn't anyone have a less illustrious lineage?

Well, my grandfather was a moonshiner in West Viginia. He got to be the lookout 'cause he had the fastest horse. :lol:

[Seriously_Hunter]

Thanks alot, Thomas. Now I'm going to spend all day looking up swearwords.:lol::lol::lol:


Haha!!! So am I ~ that link is GREAT! I've been giggling at my desk getting odd looks from the bf watching tv!!!

[Groom to Priceless]

I'm a pirate! Related to Sir Francis Drake.:) And I'm related to someone who was invited to join the mafia, but he turned it down. Both on my mom's side.:cool:

Well you must be related to me then . . . good old Sir Francis was the son of the black-sheep brother of my ggggg(?) grandfather!!! He was quite the scandal to "the established Drakes" back then!

[Pony Person]

Well you must be related to me then . . . good old Sir Francis was the son of the black-sheep brother of my ggggg(?) grandfather!!! He was quite the scandal to "the established Drakes" back then!
Cool!:)

[arktos19]

I come from a long line of Carpathian hillbillies.

Hey, me too! On my mom's side anyhow. The area her dad was from is now (Berezova?) in Ukraine and the area her mom was from is now in Slovakia. Sub-Carpathian Rus, anyone? I have always attributed my body type to my peasant breeding; built for working the cabbage fields! Oh yeah, and my slightly slanty eyes to the Mongol hordes who overran eastern Europe at regular intervals.

Oh yes, and West Virginian German, Scots-Irish, English, Belgian, etc. on my dad's side....

On the horse-related front, my TB is a grandson of Secretariat - much better breeding than me! :cool:

[Trevelyan96]

LOL, I don't think any of my long lost, unknown relatives would be happy to find me in their closet! Especially if they knew the rest of my family! (the ones who can't deny me, that is)

[Jenn2674]

I love geneology! I am Scottish/English/Welsh - I'm actually first generation american. I have several family members that have gone all the way back to the 1300s. Nothing interesting although on both sides of my mothers family there is some mental illness and dementia. My grandmothers great x4 I think murdered his brothers two children (Heald) - there is still a memorial in a church in Knottingly, England. And my grandfather's great grandfather x3 (Thomson) was committed to an asylum in Scotland for what was probably dementia/alzheimers. Creepy, huh!

[Trevelyan96]

Oh well... if we're bragging... I've traced both my mother's parents back to the 1200's. My maternal grandmother is a descendent of Henry III and Phillip of Spain. We all even still look like Phillip's daughter, Catherine, widows peak and all. But the coolest part is that Henry III"s wife, and Catherine's mother was the infamous Catherine DeMedici. Explains the somewhat scary personalities of all the women in my mom's family.

My dad's side... LOL, not so grand. Immigrants who can't be traced, other than knowing that his mom was the very well kept mistress of several 'husbands', before they married her.

[RedMare01]

Great topic!

My hubby's family is Scottish (our last name is Sutherland).

I mainly know about my grandmother's families...my paternal grandmother is a mixture of German (last name Zinninger) and Irish (named Renn). My great grandfather on my maternal grandmother's side came here from France (named Mivelaz) and my great uncle has done a lot of geneology on that side. He found some relatives in France and Switzerland.

I don't know much of anything about either of my grandfather's lines...but there has to be some English in there somewhere, because they both have English last names (Denison and Taylor).

I would love to get into geneology research, but am not quite sure where to start. Do you guys that do a lot of this look online or ? What is the best way to get started?

Caitlin

[Hunter's Rest]

(don't you people have jobs?? 105 responses, and counting .... ) scratches head. :o))))
I am ALL OVER going to Scotland and visiting great uncle Thomas1 and seeing our family resemblance.
I mean it.
Thomas1 -- when is best to visit? I've never been to the north of England and would sincerely love to see my peep's old 'hood.
Who's in??

[Crooked Horse]

Doesn't anyone have a less illustrious lineage? :D


Well I have always been convinced that my ancestors were peasants working in the field.
Evidenced by my ANNOYING ability to keep going no matter how crappy I feel or how tired I am.

[Crooked Horse]

My goodness, is Thomas ready for the Great COTH Invasion? :eek:

[nuts4cowboybutts]

Interesting for sure.

My old Papa used to tell me our family came over here real early.

He said some men from our family came over on the Mayflower - but they were part of the crew.:cool:

Don't know if they jumped ship or just decided to move on over here.

I do know one of my great greats was in the Revolutionary War, and later on, my great, great granddaddy was in the Civil War. He was on the side that lost. He had been captured during a battle and wounded and sent to a prison in Elmira, NY. He called it "Hellmyra."

After the war he had to walk home from Elmira, NY, down to VA. He was wearing his uniform and said people chunked rocks at him nearly all the way to the VA border. He never did like Yankees.

[SarahandSam]

I have one particularly vicious pirate (noted for rape) and three Salem witches, including my namesake--two were hanged, one died in jail. Also Priscilla Alden, John Alden's wife.

We're also related to Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, who is the main contender in the Shakespeare authorage question... so just for the sake of getting to be descended from Shakespeare, I believe in de Vere. (;

The other half of my family, since my mom was adopted, is nameless truck stop waitress/trucker rabble. d;

[subk]

If we're doing a field trip to Scotland I want to come!

To keep this horse related...My husband's family used to own one of the farms that now comprises Churchill Downs. Of course, CD wasn't particularly impressed when he told them when he wanted to up grade his Derby tickets.

I always thought my grandfather was Scottish until a few years ago. I found out he was really Irish. I was reading an accounting of his Shield's family reunion and it said that the conversation at the reunion center around horses, as it always did whenever you got more than one Shield in the same room! Being the lone horse crazy child with 4 ball playing brothers it was comforting to discover the horse thing was in fact genetic and not some strange aberration!

I got pirates too, well a legal one anyway! A many time great grandfather, Gideon Olmsted was a privateer in the American Revolution. He overcame his British captors, (who had captured him at sea) stuck them in the hold, and sailed their sloop home. Ended up with a US Supreme Court ruling in his name too, Olmsted v. Pennsylvania after a conflict as to who got to keep the plunder. He eventually won. If you get a really thick book about the Revolution you might can read about him. :wink:

[jherold]

I am a descendent of Thomas Price. Mr. Price was given a land grant to an area that is now part of Baltimore, Maryland. He sailed over in the early 1600's His grandson, Capt. Benjamin Price fought in the American Revolution.

And it's never been proved, but family legend has it we are related to David Herold who was in the plot to assasinate Lincoln, but supposedly chickened out!

[Horserich Cashpoor]

I live in LaGrange, Ga!

[LostFarmer]

LF: WOW! That is a gorgeous picture. And that barn is still standing?

Yes the barn is still standing and owned by Grand Teton National Park.

[avezan]

I'm from a load that have been involved with horses forever!: a direct descendant of Thomas and Richard Darley from Buttercrambe in North Yorkshire. I was named after Thomas Darley and to keep this horse related, he's the one that imported Darley Arabian which led to purpose breeding and the thoroughbred.


That is WAY cool!

[DressageGeek "Ribbon Ho"]

I'm up for a trip to Scotland - been there before, as far north as Inverness, went to the Edinborough Festival once (and there is a pic of me ssshhhh! on top of one of the horse statues at the castle). I have plenty of colleagues in Glasgow, have visited there more than a few times (and where I discovered the original Likits and tablet, all in the same trip).

Yes, I think Thomas should host us all. If we choose the right time of year (um, July? for one or two weeks mid summer?) we could camp out outside. Maybe.

[birdsong]

(don't you people have jobs?? 105 responses, and counting .... ) scratches head. :o))))
I am ALL OVER going to Scotland and visiting great uncle Thomas1 and seeing our family resemblance.
I mean it.
Thomas1 -- when is best to visit? I've never been to the north of England and would sincerely love to see my peep's old 'hood.
Who's in??

Me, Me

[Little Valkyrie]

Not "related" but apparently Kaiser Wilhelm II was my great-grandfather's godfather. Also on my mum's side there is also a concert pianist said to be the best player of Beethoven's music since the big man himself... I did not inherit any of that talent :winkgrin:
We have some very interesting relatives here on COTH

[War Admiral]

I rarely admit this in public but my however-many-greats-grandfather was Daniel Edgar Sickles. Please don't hate me Southerners! :eek:

[Foxtrot's]

and then there are those whose name is Fitz-something, i.e. Fitzpatrick, Fitzgerald, etc.,
meaning Illegitimate son of...that's interesting.

[Kementari]

I'm all for an invasion of Scotland to visit Thomas! :winkgrin:

I'm 1/4 Scottish - Sir James Dewar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dewar), who invented the thermos-type flask, is my great-great-great-(might need some more "great"s ;))-uncle. I learned a few years ago that he was also the author of one of my favorite quotes: "Minds are like parachutes: they only function when open." I thought that was pretty neat when I found it out! :yes: My great-grandfather was an illegal immigrant (who would later create the original dies for Nabisco animal crackers!), which always throws people off as Scottish people aren't the image that leaps to mind when you hear "illegal immigrant"... :lol:

I'm also 1/4 English, but the immigration there goes waaaay back to shortly after the Mayflower. Other than you standard Revolutionary War heroes and villians, I can't recall anything too exciting about them. :winkgrin:

The other half is Irish, immigrating mostly during the Famine. That side (my father's) has historically been rather ashamed of their lineage (which was, until my grandparents' generation, of very low socio-economic standing), so we know very little - which I think is a shame. But then, I have so many hobbies already that I don't have time to pick up genealogy, so I'm can't claim to be much more motivated than my relatives, though for different reasons...

[Kementari]

and then there are those whose name is Fitz-something, i.e. Fitzpatrick, Fitzgerald, etc.,
meaning Illegitimate son of...that's interesting.

Not necessarily - the naming of illegitimate sons in that way came later. "Fitz" simply means "son," coming from the Norman "filz" (which French speakers will recognize as a version of "fils").

Many (most?) of the "Fitz-" names are Irish, dating back to the Anglo-Norman settlement. Those families adopted the Irish naming tradition of Mac/Mc ("mac" is "son" in Irish), but using their own language.

"Fitzpatrick" isn't Anglo-Norman (or indicative of illegitimacy), though: the Mac Giolla Padraig family Anglicized their name as "Fitzpatrick" instead of "Magillapatrick" despite being Irish, because Norman families had more prominence and power.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming. I studied Irish in college (briefly, unfortunately!), and naming, both of people and places, was a particular interest of mine over the course of that study! :yes:

[Foxtrot's]

ok - but some Fitz's are named such because they were illegitimate, or that is what I was taught waaay back in U.

[Kementari]

ok - but some Fitz's are named such because they were illegitimate, or that is what I was taught waaay back in U.

Oh, certainly some are - and there's nothing (necessarily) Norman about those! ;) I was just commenting that the majority are no more illegitimate than the rest of us. :winkgrin:

[HighFlyinBey++]

My mother's side can be traced back to Benedict Arnold... always makes for good laughs on that one!

Next weekend, I'm moving my horses to a farm off the road named after the man who nearly kidnapped General Arnold back from the British (24 more hours and history would have been different!) After the war, this gentleman built a house, raised a family of 7 kids & build a bridge over the ford in the river. There is a bridge there now, but I don't believe that it's the original from the 1700s.

The manor house on this farm still bears a bullet hole from an attempt on John Mosby's life during the Civil War. J.E.B. Stuart was in this house. My ponies will be pooping on the same land that Stuart's horses pooped on!!

[allpurpose]

(don't you people have jobs?? 105 responses, and counting .... ) scratches head. :o))))
I am ALL OVER going to Scotland and visiting great uncle Thomas1 and seeing our family resemblance.
I mean it.
Thomas1 -- when is best to visit? I've never been to the north of England and would sincerely love to see my peep's old 'hood.
Who's in??

me me me (raises hand and waves it). :yes:

First I'm coming to your place to vacation a bit, then we can fly across the pond and visit Thomas !

[PiaffeDreams]

There's a huge culture of horsemanship round here though and you might be interested in some threads I've posted about it in the past. I'll see if I can turn them up and come back and post a couple of links here for you.

Now I don't quite know how to tell you this but Cornhill and Kilham are actually in England not Scotland.

The borders are unique though in having their very own culture. Ask anyone from round here if they're Scottish or English and you'll get the answer "I'm a borderer!"

I do have a customer who's an archivist and wrote a couple of books about this immediate area and the old families here. I'll have a look and see if any of the names you mentioned are in there.

And so you can get a feel for what the area is like, this photo is driving the road from my farm past Kilham to Kirk Newton and on the Yetholme road.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/flodden_edge/Driving/busyroad.jpg

This is Lennel village which is right next to Cornhill :

http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa178/classic-carriages/Driving/DSCF0001-1.jpg

Thomas! What stunning country you live in!!!

We "Moyle's" are Cornish, but those border lands look like a wonderful place to live especially with a horse culture.

[Thomas_1]

ok - but some Fitz's are named such because they were illegitimate, or that is what I was taught waaay back in U. You are indeed both correct. It does mean son of but a heck of a lot of Fitz's were bastard sons of.....

Remember that surnames weren't really used and passed on until the end 14th/ early 15th century. That is the main reason why its genuinely not possible to trace your really ancient relatives right back. So when folks declare decendency to the likes of some ancient pillaging raping vagabond or nobleman it's going to be made up!

Prior to then folks were given a "surname" that was a descriptor but they weren't automatically passed on to sons and daughters. Early names were things like trades or places or a description of where they lived.

Burk or any derivative of it such as Boroughs, Bury, Burg, Burke, Bourke, Burghe, DeBurghe, Borrow and Burrowes are all actually derived from Borough which means a dweller of a borough. (rather than say a village - which is Thorpe and derivatives of Thorpe.) Berk does also means a moron or idiot though!

My own name Fletcher is a trade descriptor and an arrow maker

We "Moyle's" are Cornish, but those border lands look like a wonderful place to live especially with a horse culture. Moyle would be a name that would best suit me. It's Cornish (and Welsh) for bald!

My goodness, is Thomas ready for the Great COTH Invasion?

I'm all for an invasion of Scotland to visit Thomas! Fortunately Flodden has the pedigree and history of being well prepared for invasions. Got more castles than farms! Remember what happened last time. We won! :yes:;)

[2DogsFarm]

Fortunately Flodden has the pedigree and history of being well prepared for invasions. Got more castles than farms! Remember what happened last time. We won! :yes:;)

HA!
But those invaders weren't a horde of Horse-looney COTHers, were they?
Resistance will prove futile. Prepare for the Invasion of the COTH!CHAAAARGE!!!!!!!!!!!!

[allpurpose]

HA!
But those invaders weren't a horde of Horse-looney COTHers, were they?
Resistance will prove futile. Prepare for the Invasion of the COTH!CHAAAARGE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wait! I thought we were invading Canada? Oh, wrong thread. Sorry! :lol:

[Eventer55]

(don't you people have jobs?? 105 responses, and counting .... ) scratches head. :o))))
I am ALL OVER going to Scotland and visiting great uncle Thomas1 and seeing our family resemblance.
I mean it.
Thomas1 -- when is best to visit? I've never been to the north of England and would sincerely love to see my peep's old 'hood.
Who's in??

We're in. . . my husband is Scottish (last name Lamb from the Lamont clan) and he's been talking about going to Scotland for years. Can we go pony trekking to keep this HR.:yes::yes::yes::yes::yes:

[Thomas_1]

HA!
But those invaders weren't a horde of Horse-looney COTHers, were they?
Resistance will prove futile. Prepare for the Invasion of the COTH!CHAAAARGE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nearly ready:

http://www.flodden.net/tour/panel3.aspx

Just to do a little adjustment to make my carriage wheels like this. :winkgrin:
http://www.wordinfo.info/words/images/Boadicea-chariot-Statue-Lon.gif

[sisu27]

For all you Canadians, my 3xGreat Uncle is the Metis Rebellion leader, Louis Riel... but I'm a history nerd, so that is a big deal to me..


Cool!

[Pony Person]

HA!
But those invaders weren't a horde of Horse-looney COTHers, were they?
Resistance will prove futile. Prepare for the Invasion of the COTH!CHAAAARGE!!!!!!!!!!!!

*fanfare*

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NO country is prepared for the CoTH invasion! Muahahahahahaaa!:lol:

[Foxtrot's]

Hil-aaaa-rious stick post.

Calvin Crow, chime in here to meet your relataive!

[DressageGeek "Ribbon Ho"]

Wow. I don't even know what our real name is, I think they got punchy at Ellis Island and just started making stuff up, and my antecedents couldn't speak English anyway so what did they know?

I always wants to be Scots and have my family plaid and wear kilts. I was very upset to discover that that was really only for males.

[Equibrit]

I have a question for all you septics.
This is in no way meant as any sort of insult - but - why do y'all never say you are American. How come you're always some other nationality ? The large majority have never left the country but claim to be a native of some other land.

Signed, MacGregor by birth!

[allpurpose]

I have a question for all you septics.
This is in no way meant as any sort of insult - but - why do y'all never say you are American. How come you're always some other nationality ? The large majority have never left the country but claim to be a native of some other land.

Signed, MacGregor by birth!

Nobody said they were a septic! ;)

[dizzywriter]

Hey, me too! On my mom's side anyhow. The area her dad was from is now (Berezova?) in Ukraine and the area her mom was from is now in Slovakia. Sub-Carpathian Rus, anyone? I have always attributed my body type to my peasant breeding; built for working the cabbage fields! Oh yeah, and my slightly slanty eyes to the Mongol hordes who overran eastern Europe at regular intervals.



We're Ukie-flavored Lemkos. "Sub-Carpathian Rus" is fighin' words for us. In the mid 1990s, a group of us drove through Polish-Slovakian Lemkoland to Uzhorod, with a stop at the Andry Warhol museum in Miedzylaborce (sic?). It was a great trip.

[dizzywriter]

I have a question for all you septics.
This is in no way meant as any sort of insult - but - why do y'all never say you are American. How come you're always some other nationality ? The large majority have never left the country but claim to be a native of some other land.

Signed, MacGregor by birth!

Because this thread is about ancestry, not citizenship.

[Equibrit]

Nobody said they were a septic! ;)


EXACTLY !

[Equibrit]

Because this thread is about ancestry, not citizenship.

Did I, at any point qualify my question by saying "in this thread" ??

[Pony Person]

Did I, at any point qualify my question by saying "in this thread" ??
When I read your post, I thought that's what you meant. But I think dizzywriter's post applies to what you were asking. For example, I'm Italian, but I've never been outside the US. I'm Italian because of my ancestors.:) Is that what you meant?

[Equibrit]

But you are American. What do you know about being a real Italian ?

[Pony Person]

But you are American. What do you know about being a real Italian ?
Well, for a start, you have to have an attitude.;):cool: But all kidding aside, I know nothing of authentic Italian culture, but it's in my blood. I'm American by birthplace. But, at least on my mother's side, I'm Italian.

[LexInVA]

I like pizza.

[Pony Person]

I like pizza.
And I love pasta and bread with dipping oil..yum:cool:

[appychik]

And I love pasta and bread with dipping oil..yum:cool:

Me too.

I'm mainly German (get that from both parents - moreso my mom's side, my grandpa), Dutch (from father's side - and my last name), French (mom's side - my grandma) and English (my dad's mom, I think).

Very interesting, ancestory and all this stuff. Wish I knew where to start tracing things back. My aunt (on dad's side) was doing this... but not sure how far back she got.

Perhaps some day I'll have an opportunity to work on that. Anyone have any suggestions as to where to start, besides the obvious? (Which would be living relatives ;)).

ETA: Through my paternal grandma, I am a Daughter of the American Revolution (or qualify as such). Does anyone know what the heck that means? And my brother has located our family shield. Kinda nifty...

[Janet]

I always wants to be Scots and have my family plaid and wear kilts. I was very upset to discover that that was really only for males.

A "plaid" is an article of clothing (a large square of cloth worn over the shoulder). I can be worn by by both men and women.

A "kilt" is an article of clothing only "correctly" worn my men. But women can wear pleted skirts.

"Tartan" refers to both the pattern associated with a particular clan/name (Gunn Tartsan consists of wide stripes of Black and Blue, alternating with thin stripes of Green and Red), and the fabric made in that pattern (I have a scarf made of Gunn tartan).

Sorry, the distinction bewteen "plaid" and "tartan" was drummed into me from a young age (due to my non-Scottish, Scottish nationalist great aunt) and had to speak up.

[SarahandSam]

For me it has to do with traditions. America being relatively "new" (unless you're Native American) and comprised of immigrants from different cultures, our traditions within families tend to come from our heritage. My grandmother was Italian, and though my mother was adopted and therefore I probably don't have a drop of actual Italian blood in me, there are lots of Italian traditions I grew up with that she got from her straight-off-the-boat mom. Our American tradition of eating Jingles after we decorate the Christmas tree is only one generation old, so it doesn't have quite as much resonance yet as does the Christmas cookie-baking tradition, which includes recipes so old the measurements are done by feel and not by actual measurement.

Our American roots, especially for those who are second- or third-generation Americans, are comparatively shallow... so our heritage gives us a little more to hang on to.

[Foxtrot's]

Amrican/Canadian = a melting pot of cultures

[JER]

Some years ago, on this very board, I was reading someone's post in which they included their real name.

They were either related to me or related to me by marriage. I suspected the former, as this person had a first name that recurs in my mother's family. They're Scottish Gaelic but it's a very uncommon name -- and, like with the Gaelic folk of N. Ireland, W. Scotland and the islands in between, the various branches of the family are apparently genetically obligated to keep recycling the same few first names. I suppose this is how we recognize our own kind.

I didn't follow up.

[stryder]

ETA: Through my paternal grandma, I am a Daughter of the American Revolution (or qualify as such). Does anyone know what the heck that means?

The Daughters of the American Revolution is open to "any woman 18 years or older, regardless of race, religion, or ethnic background, who can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution."

My paternal grandmother was a member of the DAR, and although I didn't join, my nieces have. more info here: www.dar.org As you can imagine, genealogy is a big part of the resources available through the DAR.

[appychik]

The Daughters of the American Revolution is open to "any woman 18 years or older, regardless of race, religion, or ethnic background, who can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution."

My paternal grandmother was a member of the DAR, and although I didn't join, my nieces have. more info here: www.dar.org As you can imagine, genealogy is a big part of the resources available through the DAR.

Thanks stryder!

[allpurpose]

EXACTLY !

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

[dizzywriter]

Did I, at any point qualify my question by saying "in this thread" ??

For many if not most people, "American" is an acquired nationality. It isn't a blood thing. Besides, by posting your comment in this particular thread, it seemed like a comment on this particular thread's content, which is about ancestry.

In America, many people identify themselves by their ancestry. If those same people went overseas, I'm quite sure they'd identify themselves as American. If they went to their ancestral homelands, the locals would probably laugh them out of the pub if they tried to identify themselves as "local".

Been there, done that. Your identity depends, to a large extent, on context. In a group of lesbians, I would be straight. In a group of straights, I'd be married. In a group of married people, I"d be "divorced x times". Among horse people, I'm intermediate. Among non-horse people, I'm advanced. etc. Among Americans, I'm ethnicity "x". Among common "ethnic xs", I'm a lawyer.

[Kementari]

Personally, if someone asks me where I'm from (in an international sense), I say I'm American. If someone asks me what my ancestry is (as in this thread), I say Scottish, English, and Irish.

I'm not sure why a sense of history or culture is a bad thing - nor am I sure why one would assume that someone knows nothing of their ancestry other than the nationalities. I'm American, but I've lived in Ireland and hiked across Scotland (I've only spent a grand total of two days in England, admittedly :lol:), and I doubt I'm so unusual in taking more than a simply nominal interest in my forebears.

I also doubt that even if someone goes around gleefully telling anyone and everyone that they are (say) Russian, despite knowing absolutely nothing about Russia, it will actually have any appreciable effect on anyone else.

[CarolinaGirl]

I'm half scottish, half some mix I'm sure lol.

My mother was the first of her family to come to the US from Scotland (and has since returned to live in Glasgow lol).. so I suppose I'm first generation American on her side? Anyway she's a Ross.. mother was a Tulloch. My grandmother's cousin actually traced the family tree way back, all Scottish. I need to get some copies I suppose. Turns out my grandma's sister was actually adopted. We don't know if she ever knew it either as she died a year or two ago and no one was sure whether to bring it up. Anyway we've also got some really awesome pics of people like my great great great grandma. It's all pretty cool to go through and find places and people that you have a connection to.

Needless to say I don't know much about my dad's side... and no one seems all that interested in tracing it that I know of... maybe one day.

[vineyridge]

Equibrit, I think it may be because all of us (except the Native Americans) did come from far, far away in the beginning. There is a tug to our "roots" that we get from old family stories, even though most of us are probably proud that our ancestors had the gumption to get up and go from places where the stay at home relatives were trapped in an intolerant class system

On the other hand, sometimes I find it hard to consider myself a Yank, since I'm Southern born and bred. In the past, many Southerners considered themselves citizens of their states or of the old Confederacy than of the United States. Many still do, when competitions are involved.

[2DogsFarm]

Nearly ready:

http://www.flodden.net/tour/panel3.aspx

Just to do a little adjustment to make my carriage wheels like this. :winkgrin:
http://www.wordinfo.info/words/images/Boadicea-chariot-Statue-Lon.gif

:cry: Poor innocent Floddenites...or is it Floddenians?
See Pony Person's post #131
We won't need no stinkin' swords on our chariots...and we won't need no chubby, nekkid charioteers neither!
The Power of COTH will prove mightier than the sword.
Be afraid
Be very afraid

[Amwrider]

(don't you people have jobs?? 105 responses, and counting .... ) scratches head. :o))))
I am ALL OVER going to Scotland and visiting great uncle Thomas1 and seeing our family resemblance.
I mean it.
Thomas1 -- when is best to visit? I've never been to the north of England and would sincerely love to see my peep's old 'hood.
Who's in??


Can I go to?!?! I am part Scottish, my grandmother's surname was Hendry from clan Henderson. Any Henderson clan members here?

[Beasmom]

Late to the party as usual. I think my family may be one of those with little distinction. No one came early enough to take part in the Revolutionary War, and probably not early enough for the Civil War, either. Still, looking through old photographs and letters is a fascinating thing.

My paternal grandfather was Irish. Evidently the Claffy great-grandparents came from Roscommon. NOBODY comes from Roscommon, for cryin' out loud! Gramma Claffy used to hitch up her skirts and dance for the grandkids. Grandpa Claffy, who'd been injured in a carriage accident, sat and prayed the Rosary most of the time. Dad has few memories of him. My paternal grandmother was from French-Canadian stock. Merciel, I think was the last name.

My maternal grandparents are only slightly more interesting. My grandmother, Ruth Lambright, was born in Boggsville, CO, the last home of Kit Carson. Her father, Alan, was a lawyer in Las Animas. He also ranched around Boggsville for a while. Ruth met my grandfather, Stanley Tracht, when he was recovering from tuberculosis at nearby Fort Lyon. His parents ran a German-language newspaper in Ohio.

My great-aunt Nelle, and sister to Ruth, married a local rancher, Henry Manifor. The Manifor name went through many variations from 1885 to 1905, based on the existing signatures I've found in Manifor Ranch records. The earliest manifestations were "Minnenfiore", "Minninfiore", or "Minnefiore". Then "Minnefier" and "Minnifer", and finally "Manifor". My cousin used to tell us the name was Austrian, but based on the early spellings, I'm thinking Italian or Italian-Swiss.

None of the other family names have had so many variations.

[Janet]

Can I go to?!?! I am part Scottish, my grandmother's surname was Hendry from clan Henderson. Any Henderson clan members here?
Depends on WHICH Hendersons.

The Hendersons form Caithness are/were a sept of the Gunns, through George the Crowner's son Hendry. If you are descended form THOSE Hendersons, we are probably related through George the Crowner.

[Drvmb1ggl3]

I am distantly related to the President of Ireland. Same surname, spelled the same, from the same small town in the same County.




The President of Ireland is from Belfast, hardly a small town.

[bumknees]

Someone traced one line of my family back to england 1066 before the norman invasion.

The surname is Frampton:
I am related to the great unknown of american history. William Kent Frampton who helped settle Phila with WIlliam penn, helped establish the quaker meeting of Oyster Bay Ny. While william lived before the time when middle names were used/given his descndants use ken as his middle name to set him off fro the ensueing at last count 95 williams. And the kent is to 'say' that he once owned most of if not all of what is now kent county del. He also estabished the first brewery in phila.

Yes related to Peter also think he is like my 4th or5th cousin 1 removed or it is 2x's removed...

To keep this horse related I am also a relation ( his uncle and one of mine in england related) to The gentelman known as 'the father of the turf' or the keeper of the kings horses/ stud' Tregonwell Frampton

Also the ancesters in england apparently held 2 seats in the house of lords. And at hte time of Oliver Cromwell one went with his the other stayed with the king. As they both lived in the same 'town' bet that made for some very intresting dining tabe converstions..


During the revolutionary war I have 5 ancesters fight all returned home. John Frampton fought with George Washington both at Braddocks Defeat, and at the Battle of Trenton. All of his sons also fought in the war.

somewhere in Pa there is /used tobe a post office somewhere near Pitt. Called Frampton.. also named for my family.



Civil war becomes a bit more intresting because either ancesters had a really warped sense of hummor or they really loved the name Benjamin..There were at least 4. All born living with in 5 miles of each other all born with in 5yrs of eachother..2 at least have same middle initial which makes searching census records difficult at best if that is all you have access to at the moment.. ll 4 served during the civil war. 2 in the same unit but diffrent companies. One a POW the others just various battles inclufing Gettysburg.

Most framptons married elizabeths which make it even more difficult...
Oh yeah also related to Mars ( both the congressmen and the candy company) And somewhere in there i have a Disney which puts to the though that perhasp walt and his family...

On dh side of the family IF family history can be believed ( I havent found anything to confirm this as of yet and mil has not been exactally forth comming with the documentation she claims to have stashed away) Dh is supposedly a descendat of Robert E Lee, and Geo Washington through Martha. This line goes back to Robert The Bruce of scottland...

I hve over 28k names on my family tree as it stands right now. Ive been piddling with this stuff for bout 6 yrs now.

[arktos19]

"Sub-Carpathian Rus" is fighin' words for us.

Sorry! :cool:

Um, why? I understood that is a name for a geographical region?

[witherbee]

Another connection to Kaiser Wilhelm II here - am supposedly related through my Grandmother's side of the family (per a great aunt who is into tracing the family tree). Am mostly English on my Mother's side (Strait and Potter are the family names there). My grandfather on my Dad's side was adopted by the Bright family, but his records burned in a fire at the orphanage, so never knew anything about his ancestry. My Mom always said we are Scotch, Irish and English, but I have no idea if that's true.

Fun thread and lovely pictures from Thomas!

We Americans are usually very interested in our ancestry, but just because we say we are German, English, Irish etc does not mean that we do not first and formost consider ourselves to be Americans.

[allpurpose]

Late to the party as usual. I think my family may be one of those with little distinction. No one came early enough to take part in the Revolutionary War, and probably not early enough for the Civil War, either. Still, looking through old photographs and letters is a fascinating thing.

My paternal grandfather was Irish. Evidently the Claffy great-grandparents came from Roscommon. NOBODY comes from Roscommon, for cryin' out loud! Gramma Claffy used to hitch up her skirts and dance for the grandkids. Grandpa Claffy, who'd been injured in a carriage accident, sat and prayed the Rosary most of the time. Dad has few memories of him. My paternal grandmother was from French-Canadian stock. Merciel, I think was the last name.

My maternal grandparents are only slightly more interesting. My grandmother, Ruth Lambright, was born in Boggsville, CO, the last home of Kit Carson. Her father, Alan, was a lawyer in Las Animas. He also ranched around Boggsville for a while. Ruth met my grandfather, Stanley Tracht, when he was recovering from tuberculosis at nearby Fort Lyon. His parents ran a German-language newspaper in Ohio.

My great-aunt Nelle, and sister to Ruth, married a local rancher, Henry Manifor. The Manifor name went through many variations from 1885 to 1905, based on the existing signatures I've found in Manifor Ranch records. The earliest manifestations were "Minnenfiore", "Minninfiore", or "Minnefiore". Then "Minnefier" and "Minnifer", and finally "Manifor". My cousin used to tell us the name was Austrian, but based on the early spellings, I'm thinking Italian or Italian-Swiss.

None of the other family names have had so many variations.

Another Claffy here! My mother's family on her mother's side were Claffys. Settled in Chicago area. Married Dutchmen (some were blacksmiths to keep this HR!).

[Janet]

A "Yankee" (derived from the natives mangling the verbage of the overwhelming numbers of the Hudson Valley Dutchmen named "Jan" who populated the place before the English colonials) is the designation of a person who was specifically born in the northeastern section of the United States - NY,CT,ME,NH,VT, RI.

That's it. Period. A Yankee it is NOT just anyone born anywhere in the US.
The usage depends entirely on context. Growing up in NY, "Yankee" meant "New Englander" (the New York Yankees nonwithstanding).

Further south and west, it includs NY. By the time you get to Virginia, "Yankee" includes every state that fought for the Union in the "War of Northern Aggression".

When I lived in North Carolina, I knew people who considered Virginia part of the definition of "Yankee"- who considered the Petersberg-Richmond section of I95 as "that Yankee toll road".

And once you get outside the US, "Yankee" includes everyone in the US.

[Coreene]

"Kees," of course, being the other half of the Yankee name. A nickname for Cornelis and actually pronounced "case" and not "keys." My dad immediately anglicized his spelling to "Kase" upon arrival for that very reason - because he wasn't going to spend the rest of his life like Hyacinth Bucket.

[vineyridge]

Down here a Yankee is anyone without a Southern accent. :) And no matter where I go in the world, I may be an American, but I refuse the designation "Yankee". :)

[Thomas_1]

Someone traced one line of my family back to england 1066 before the norman invasion.
The surname is Frampton: Did you see my earlier comment about the origins of Surnames?

To keep this horse related I am also a relation ( his uncle and one of mine in england related) to The gentelman known as 'the father of the turf' or the keeper of the kings horses/ stud' Tregonwell Frampton Some of the old books I have make mention of him. Nowadays he'd probably be described as a gambling addict. Sounds to me like one of life's characters though.

On dh side of the family IF family history can be believed ( I havent found anything to confirm this as of yet and mil has not been exactally forth comming with the documentation she claims to have stashed away) Dh is supposedly a descendat of Robert E Lee, and Geo Washington through Martha. This line goes back to Robert The Bruce of scottland... I knew it! Confirms my other posting :winkgrin:

[bumknees]

Oh yeah Thomas I am aware of how the name came about. Off top of head it means the following broken down
Framp meaning strong / firm Ton meaning enclosure of some sort. Its roots are believed to come from old english.
So one was often refered to as being "from frampton" which later morphed into the surname.

My particular branch comes from the Dorset branch.

Yeah I after looking and locating a portrait of whatshisname ( who would name their kid that did they hate him before he was born or something) he also looked to me to be able to tie a good one on at the drop of a hat... He looked drunk while it was being done.. So would imagine he was able to gamble at drop of hat also..


Havent even begun to mention my dads side of the family or my moms fathers side of family... names like Loomis, Dodge, kelly, houston,critchfieild, fireman or freeman or firman( depending on what record you look into)...and just a few others...

[harvestmoon]

I have a question for all you septics.
This is in no way meant as any sort of insult - but - why do y'all never say you are American. How come you're always some other nationality ? The large majority have never left the country but claim to be a native of some other land.

Signed, MacGregor by birth!

I am an American. I am not some other nationality or a native of another land, but my ancestors were. It's simply interesting to look back and see where they came from and how they lived.

Now, I would never claim to BE Irish, because the last time I checked I wasn't born in, or a citizen of, Ireland. I'm just an American who has Irish ancestors.

[Beasmom]

Allpurpose wrote,

Another Claffy here! My mother's family on her mother's side were Claffys. Settled in Chicago area. Married Dutchmen (some were blacksmiths to keep this HR!).

My Dad was born in Wheaton. He played in a big dance band around Chicago before WWII. I'm PM'ing you!

[Foxtrot's]

Horseless - you and our line of Jack Russells must be related - we imported our first in l977 from the Portman Hunt in Dorset, UK :D

[suz]

wish i knew more about my heritage, all i know is grandpa on my dad's side was a philanderer, he may or may not have actually married nana, but she did give my father grandpa's last name. supposedly he was a german officer who came to the usa after wwI and worked as an electrican for flo ziegfield before he was recurited by the us army to translate for german prisoners at the pow camp in the southwest. i've tried to find more details, but his records were lost in a fire. my maiden name is wiegand, there may be some jewish relation in there, i hope there is!
does anyone know if wiegand is a jewish name? it may have been von wiegand at one time.
dad's mother, my nana, was a ferguson from ireland, i think her family came from scotland before that.
is ferguson a scottish name?
what i'd really like to find is a relative in the canadien maritimes, i've always been so drawn to that region of the world that i wonder if it's a 'home' thing. though of course if that was the case, i guess i'd be just as drawn to the bronx!

[allpurpose]

Allpurpose wrote,

Another Claffy here! My mother's family on her mother's side were Claffys. Settled in Chicago area. Married Dutchmen (some were blacksmiths to keep this HR!).

My Dad was born in Wheaton. He played in a big dance band around Chicago before WWII. I'm PM'ing you!

Well, folks, looks like Beasmom and I ARE related - Claffy cousins with a few "removed" inbetween. We're working on relations and will report back as soon as we have it nailed down. I'm aghasted!

Oh, and yes, we had horsey ancestors. One (named THOMAS!! ;) )was a harness maker in Chicago, who "...rode his horse on Sundays along Halsted Street, which was then bordered by cabbage fields."

[scpezold]

My dad's side is German and my mom's side is Scandinavian. In Germany my ancestors are from Passau (sp). I have always wanted to go there and have heard it is a wonderful little town. Most all of my relatives (dad's side) are in and around Missouri. Dad had enough of the weather there and moved South.
My grandmothers (dad's side) first cousin was Charles Eames. He invented the Eames Chair (made out of molded plywood). We had an Eames chair when I was little and I always thought Mr. Eames himself gave us the chair as a "family gift" :lol: Um...yeah..not so much.

[seeuatx]

On dh side of the family IF family history can be believed ( I havent found anything to confirm this as of yet and mil has not been exactally forth comming with the documentation she claims to have stashed away) Dh is supposedly a descendat of Robert E Lee, and Geo Washington through Martha. This line goes back to Robert The Bruce of scottland...

I hve over 28k names on my family tree as it stands right now. Ive been piddling with this stuff for bout 6 yrs now.

Actually could be possible. Robert E Lee was married to Mary Custis, the Step-Great Granddaughter of George Washington from Martha Washington's 1st Marriage, though Mary's father (the step granson) was actually adopted by George Washington (thus wrecking havoc on the minds of history buffs everywhere). Mary Custis Lee was the Great- great granddaughter of the 3rd Baron Baltimore. Robert E. Lee is believed to be descended from Sir Thomas Moore as well as Robert II of Scotland through the line of the Earl of Crawford.

And they say there was no such thing as American Royalty... pshhhh

[dizzywriter]

Sorry! :cool:

Um, why? I understood that is a name for a geographical region?

Subcarpathia is the name of a region. The Subcarpathian Rus' is the name given to a supposedly separate Slavic ethnic group composed of Carpathian mountain highlanders, including Lemkos, Boikos and Hutsuls. Their existence was promoted under Communism in Poland and Czechoslovakia to blunt claims that they are/were a Ukrainian sub-culture. When Russia wants to stir up trouble in Ukraine, they haul some Rusyns out of an attic and have them declare independence.

[grayarabs]

Fun and interesting! One of our famly names is Tweed - so far have found no connection to "Boss" thank goodness. Apparently my ggggrandfather was living in a small town in Kansas - when he espied a newly arrived family coming into town - one pretty gal riding a horse sidesaddle - and he remarked that he was going to marry her - and he did.
My Scotttish surnames are Tweed, Russell, Caddell and Wilson.
English ancestor surname Stonum - who bred/raced TB's in Virginia. I think they arrived in the 1600's.
Oh - in regards to property - Zumwalt ancestor - one of the children used the deed to the farm to stiffen her bonnet - whatever - and promptly lost it - and I think the farm. That was hundreds of acres somewhere in Kentucky I think - alas..

[bumknees]

Quote:
Originally Posted by horseless no more

On dh side of the family IF family history can be believed ( I havent found anything to confirm this as of yet and mil has not been exactally forth comming with the documentation she claims to have stashed away) Dh is supposedly a descendat of Robert E Lee, and Geo Washington through Martha. This line goes back to Robert The Bruce of scottland...

I have over 28k names on my family tree as it stands right now. Ive been piddling with this stuff for bout 6 yrs now.


Actually could be possible. Robert E Lee was married to Mary Custis, the Step-Great Granddaughter of George Washington from Martha Washington's 1st Marriage, though Mary's father (the step granson) was actually adopted by George Washington (thus wrecking havoc on the minds of history buffs everywhere). Mary Custis Lee was the Great- great granddaughter of the 3rd Baron Baltimore. Robert E. Lee is believed to be descended from Sir Thomas Moore as well as Robert II of Scotland through the line of the Earl of Crawford.

And they say there was no such thing as American Royalty... pshhhh


Yeah it is possible but I have yet to locate a connection to either the Payton or Eader surname. So I am withholding final say until after mil dies and I can get either sil or bil to copy and send me to documents mil says she has.

[SarahandSam]

because he wasn't going to spend the rest of his life like Hyacinth Bucket.

LOL--that is Boo-kay, thank you. ;)

[Kementari]

The President of Ireland is from Belfast, hardly a small town.

I was going to say that I think pintopiaffe is actually referring to the recently departed Taioseach, but I note that he is from a part of Dublin, also not much of a small town. ;) Though perhaps she isn't referring to her current surname but a family or maiden name.

(Don't worry, pintopiaffe, I'm not stalking you :winkgrin: - I was just looking at your stallion on the 'net a few months ago, and your name was unusual enough that I happened to remember it! :yes:)

[Groom to Priceless]

Tracing your family tree can be very interesting - and for me the best parts are not the blue bloods (related to more second sons than I can count!! No castles for me! :lol:) it's the stories of the regular folks . . .

Apparently in the late 1600's (yes we did come over ON the Mayflower - not Pilgrims, just young men of good families who were recruited to fill the ship!) there was a father and son pair named . . . wait for it . . . .Icabod and Icabod!! They must have decided to live up to their unfortunate names because apparently the father was the local Judge and the son was the township's mortician. Yep, you probably guessed it, when business was slow for sonny boy, the story is that daddy obliged him by suddenly becoming a "hanging judge"! Guess you wouldn't have wanted to get caught jay walking at the wrong time in that town! Icabod II also ran the local stagecoach stop/pub/inn. Apparently they used to "lose" some of the strangers that checked into the inn from time to time. Mostly the ones that came in with stuffed pockets. Hmmmm. Hate it when that happens!

And to keep it horse related . . .my great grandmother's sister and husband used own the corner of Hollywood and Vine (in THE Hollywood) and ran a livery stable!!! Not there anymore . . .go figure!

[Doodlebug1]

OK - so let's try this in reverse....

I live in the UK and want to trace some of my US family (my mom is american). Keeping this horse related I am in particular interested in Dennis Ryan (died around 1900/1910 I guess) - we know nothing at all about him other than he was a horse trainer and died ultimately (though not immediately) from a bad fall.

We have no pictures or anything at all of his but he married my great, great grandmother Maud and had two kids:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/habgooe/MaudRyanAndKids?authkey=SGwsvyrtJp8&feat=email#5305745471516894354

He was alive when that picture of the kids was taken but must've died shortly after.

We know that they lived in Oregon - Maud (Dennis' wife)'s father came across the plains in the 1850's as a 14 year old, but we don't know or when his wife came to Oregon, or how the Ryan's got there.

Clearly I get my stunning looks from these pioneers who came across the plains (false teeth obviously weren't around judging by Isaphena!) but hey, it must've been love as these pics were taken on their 50th wedding anniversary...
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/habgooe/ElihuBentonCollard?authkey=TymWiIPR-fY&feat=email#
We also don't know anything about Elihu or Isaphena's families - were they in the US generations before setting off across the plains to Oregon (sadly the pic that accompanies the card in the pics is missing).

Any ideas anyone - am I related to any other COTHers???

[Arado*TB]

This is so interesting. Hmmm I often wonder when we find ourselves on this very subject. I go back to one of the original survivors of the Mayflower. Yes, this is documented quite well in a book containing our family tree on my mothers side. One thing to keep in mind is the change in the of spelling of names.

[Equibrit]

Hey Doodle, check this out; http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~glendasubyak/ch175.html

"Ella Maude Collard, born March 1, 1878, married Dennis Ryan (about 1901), had Marjory, Kenneth and Leah Mary (born September, 1906); Marjory married B. J. Lekas and had Daphne and Janet Gary; William Kenneth married and had Patrick and Damaris; Leah Mary married Leslie Haffey and had Dennis and Joan Clancy (born December 4, 1936). Ella Maude married, second, Harry Saunders, and had Damaris."

[Cammie]

Really interesting to read about everyone's background. My Mom does have a very neat family tree for her mother's side of the family that goes back to the 1500's when they were still in England. It's hanging in her hallway, and is utterly fascinating to look at. It has a lot of the major families on the Eastern Shore of VA in it- Taylor, Conquest, Parker, Corbin etc. Her family was from Accomack. Of course, my grandmother (a Taylor from Accomack) married a Taylor from Stovall, NC which makes trying to keep the Taylors sorted out a little more difficult. Hopefully I'm not too inbred. :lol: I do know the Stovall Taylors started out in Lunenburg, VA before heading down to North Carolina.

My Dad's side of the family comes from the Poughkeepsie area of NY. The difficult part on his is that one of his ancestors was the same age as another man with the same name, they both married women with the same name a year apart and lived close by one another. Makes it very hard to make sure you're looking at the right ancestor! His family names are Welch and Fitchett. Of course, after looking back into the Welches, they started out in Pennsylvania before they split off- one branch went to NY, the other went to the Eastern Shore of Va. Of course- even MORE of a chance of being inbred! Just like a thoroughbred :lol:

Anyone related??? :cool:

[Sue from Auckland]

*Pulls snooty face and looks down nose* Well, I'M descended from hungarian royalty ("not only hungarian, but of royal blood - she is a princess") :) So someone, at some time reckoned. anyway. Apparently there was even a family castle. Of course, my part of the family moved to the UK from there (if it was true) probably in the 1500s and have no claim to anything that may still be around. As far as I've actually been able to accurately trace my ancestors (only 150 years or so, thus far), we were pretty ordinary types - potters, bootmakers, seamstresses and such.

[Doodlebug1]

Equibrit - that's amazing - what a start!! So Maud was not really Maud, she was Ella...

Searching for a Dennis Ryan is going to be a bit harder I suspect - clearly he's from Irish family - but I'm not sure that people came straight from Ireland to the west coast in one journey - wouldn't a generation have been East coast first, it seems too co-incidental that he must've been one of the first to get to Oregon and he just rocked up from Ireland at the right time.

I'm baffled by the Eliah and Isaphena generation too - those names don't sound British but their surname 'Collard' does - ahh well, they should be easier at least unlike Dennis, their names are bound to be quite unique - I'll log onto that genealogy site right now - thank you soooo much for pointing me in the right direction.

[Doodlebug1]

OMG Equibrit - OMG!!

I've just clicked the link you sent me - AMAZING. There were thousands of Collards - and longevity must be hereditary....

It refers to Isaphena still being alive at 90 - Maud (or Ella) also lived to 90+ and her daughter Marjorie lived to almost 100 - Marjories daughter, my grandmother - despite smoking about 60 a day for years :no: is still alive and kicking - wow!

thank you, thank you, thank you!!

[Auventera Two]

I'm originally from Yorkshire and only moved up this way nearly 20 years ago. My lot were all in and around there for centuries.

If anybody's related to Thomas, it's probably me. As much as that horrifies him.............:lol: My ancestors on my father's side are all from Yorkshire. With my last name, "Hollingsworth" it's clear I'm of British descent. LOL :cool:

Actually, no clue if Thomas is at all related to any Hollingsworths, I was only kidding about the being related part.

[Dispatcher]

Really interesting to read about everyone's background. My Mom does have a very neat family tree for her mother's side of the family that goes back to the 1500's when they were still in England. It's hanging in her hallway, and is utterly fascinating to look at. It has a lot of the major families on the Eastern Shore of VA in it- Taylor, Conquest, Parker, Corbin etc. Her family was from Accomack. Of course, my grandmother (a Taylor from Accomack) married a Taylor from Stovall, NC which makes trying to keep the Taylors sorted out a little more difficult. Hopefully I'm not too inbred. :lol: I do know the Stovall Taylors started out in Lunenburg, VA before heading down to North Carolina.

My Dad's side of the family comes from the Poughkeepsie area of NY. The difficult part on his is that one of his ancestors was the same age as another man with the same name, they both married women with the same name a year apart and lived close by one another. Makes it very hard to make sure you're looking at the right ancestor! His family names are Welch and Fitchett. Of course, after looking back into the Welches, they started out in Pennsylvania before they split off- one branch went to NY, the other went to the Eastern Shore of Va. Of course- even MORE of a chance of being inbred! Just like a thoroughbred :lol:

Anyone related??? :cool:

Well, maybe. My Father's family is from the Eastern shore. Redden State Forest, Taylor's Island, Tilghman's Island--all his family. In fact, my brother's name is Taylor Tilghman Redden

[Beasmom]

Hey, Just spoke to Allpurpose this morning. She called me! We're still trying to figure out the "cousinage" thing. Calling SOS to all you geneology geniuses out there.

We have Charles Claffy in common as an ancestor. He's my Great-Grandfather, and AP's Great-Great Grandfather. Her Grandmother (Sylvine) and my father, Joe, would have been first cousins. What do you call the children of first cousins? And the children of those? That's what AP would be.

I've never had the terms "first cousin once removed etc., explained to me.

[Equibrit]

More here Doodle; http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~glendasubyak/ch170.html
If you change the numbers up and down at the end of the link above you can page through th free stuff.

[see u at x]

This is such a cool thread, but I feel incredibly boring compared to the rest of you! My family is German on both sides - Kroeger, Bergherfor, Trager, and Eimbrink. The only remotely famous person in my family tree that I'm aware of was Admiral Chester Nimitz, who was a cousin on my maternal grandmother's side. To keep it horse related, my dad farmed with horses until he retired in the 60s, and owned two of the last American Cream draft horses in the state of Iowa at that time. He had a stallion and a mare, and by the time he sold them, the breed was almost extinct.

[City Ponies]

I was almost related to Kirk Douglas. My great-aunt went on a blind date with him way back when, in the beginning of his boom, and she didn't like him. I harped on her even while she was on her death bed just to give her a laugh. And she would always respond, but just think, there would be no hot Micheal to look at if we got married. And she had a darn good point.

My family goes back to Italy (mom's side) and Spain (dad's). My great-great uncle was Norman Rockefeller's horse trainer for a while. And he apparently repayed the favor by giving our family a good start after coming over on the boat

[Drvmb1ggl3]

I was going to say that I think pintopiaffe is actually referring to the recently departed Taioseach, but I note that he is from a part of Dublin, also not much of a small town. ;) Though perhaps she isn't referring to her current surname but a family or maiden name.

(Don't worry, pintopiaffe, I'm not stalking you :winkgrin: - I was just looking at your stallion on the 'net a few months ago, and your name was unusual enough that I happened to remember it! :yes:)

I take it Pintopiaffe's surname is not McAleese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_McAleese) then. Yes the former Taoiseach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoiseach) (Prime Minister, not President (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Ireland)), Bertie Ahern, was a true blue Dub, born and bred (one need only here him utter a couple of words (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6py-JbDHgUc) and there'll be no doubt where he's from). His family was from west Cork, so maybe that's what s/he was referring to.
Unless he/she is referring to the current Taoiseach and his/her last name is Cowen and family connections are from Offaly.

[bumknees]

also check out the morman genealogy site. For their own reasons they have pretty complete genealogies on people and their famlies. www.familysearch. org
It is free and if you find something intresting like a book you can have it sent to your locl morman library i do not recall if there is a charge or not it has been a while since I looked into there.
also try your local libraries web site many have heritage quest that you can access from home if it free. You might have to put your library card number in to access it.


Also If youhave veterans in your family try the VA and the local to where the veteran discharged to homelocal court house they may have filed their discharge papers there also veterans service it is a county office supported by the state ( diffrent from the VA) they might have actually they should have something on the vet.

[JoZ]

Dutch (from father's side - and my last name),

I know! I noticed that both years doing the horse treat Secret Santa. I am half Dutch -- my mother's parents immigrated through Ellis Island in 1915. My grandmother lived with a Mrs. [your last name] in Massachusetts for several years (both widows). I knew it to be Dutch immediately.

My other side is a mix of Irish/Welsh. Some connection to Cork but I don't know what any more.

Hardy peasant stock on all sides!

[Kementari]

I take it Pintopiaffe's surname is not McAleese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_McAleese) then. Yes the former Taoiseach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoiseach) (Prime Minister, not President (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Ireland)), Bertie Ahern, was a true blue Dub, born and bred (one need only here him utter a couple of words (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6py-JbDHgUc) and there'll be no doubt where he's from). His family was from west Cork, so maybe that's what s/he was referring to.
Unless he/she is referring to the current Taoiseach and his/her last name is Cowen and family connections are from Offaly.

Nope, not McAleese, at least not now (like I said, she might be referring to a family or maiden name). And my apologies to Bertie for making him sound dead in my post (I just reread it and laughed at my choice of words :winkgrin:) - I'm actually kind of fond of the man for illustrating that your garden variety crooked politician is truly an international tradition. :lol:

[magnum]

We have a good handle on the paternal side in my family, and one quite famous relative.

However, on Mom's side, we can't trace anything beyond our Great Great Grandpa. We are pretty certain that he is German ... I found his name on the Geneology website and a copy of his papers upon arrival at Ellis Island on the Ancestry.com site.

However, prior to his departure from the Baden (W. Germany at the time) station, the trail goes VERY cold ...

.... turns out, Great Great Grandpa ... was fleeing a grumpy Frauline in W. Germany ... changed his name upon departure ... then met up with a woman on the boat and arrived with a different name than that which which he left Germany!

Least, that's the story we are told, anyway. He was at least fleeing SOMETHINg .... as our mother's maiden name simply DOES NO EXIST prior to Zie GG GroBvater's "Great Escape" ... even on the ancestry and Morman websites ...

Magnum

[Amwrider]

Depends on WHICH Hendersons.

The Hendersons form Caithness are/were a sept of the Gunns, through George the Crowner's son Hendry. If you are descended form THOSE Hendersons, we are probably related through George the Crowner.

Hendry it is, I guess maybe we are distantly related!

[Beasmom]

Magnum, THAT's funny!

[bumknees]

magnum.
Can you get a copy of either his marrage license or if he is decesased his death certificate? Those are supposed to have the surnames of his parents on them.
Or if he is still alive just ask him.. Or maybe your mom had once upon a time heard the surname and location.

I ran into a huge brickwall with my fil. He came from italy when he was like 5. I have his citizzenship papers, a copy of his mothers pass port( back then in many contries minor children under I think the age of 10 were put on one of hte parents pass port). the problem with him is 1) his parents were married as best we can figure out at the vatican because they were 1st cousins and needed special permission yadda yadda..Fils father died at an early age due to TB. In a VA facility that no longer exists and he was a WWI vet whos records were part of the fire at the records depot... Now if you go to the 'phone book' of the area where fil came from I suspect that many of the anzalones, russos are related ony problem is no one on this side of the water has been in contact with those on that side of the water for over 50 yrs.. And I do not speak Italian..

Then on my grandfathers ( moms dad) side of the picture well there is a problem.. thus far no one in the family has been able to locate anything that would indicate 1) my grandparents marrage anywhere 2) grandfather was most likely born to an unwed mother 3) his grandfather was prominate in the community.. civil war vet, pension agent for veterans, a justic of hte peace, teacher etc... No birth certificate for grandfather and uncles swear that grandfathers mother was married to a guy but looing at census records indicate she was alwasy single... < head desk head desk>. Oh yeah the town where both of my grandparent taught for at least 2 generations if not part of a 3rd has no record ofthem ever teaching with in that school district.. Though not so long ago I was invited to a reunion of a class who had people in it that had classes with both of them...

to keep this Hr.. I noticed a tend through out my genealogy that many of my ancestors up to my grt grandfather had horse related occupations when they were not serving in the military during the various wars... blacksmiths mostly...kinda supports the horse gene theory..

[wateryglen]

Mom was French Canadian; mostly maple sugar farmers!
Dads father raised horses for the Army Remount Service in Nebraska. His ranch was in South Dakota. My dad never forgave me for taking up english riding! :winkgrin:
No celebrities or royalty here either. Just some brave Irish & Luxemburg ancestors that came here for some reason unknown but brave they must have been.

[sk_pacer]

... we can't trace anything beyond our Great Great Grandpa. We are pretty certain that he is German ... I found his name on the Geneology website and a copy of his papers upon arrival at Ellis Island on the Ancestry.com site.

However, prior to his departure from the Baden (W. Germany at the time) station, the trail goes VERY cold ...

....Least, that's the story we are told, anyway. He was at least fleeing SOMETHINg .... as our mother's maiden name simply DOES NO EXIST prior to Zie GG GroBvater's "Great Escape" ... even on the ancestry and Morman websites ...

Magnum

This isn't unusual at all - depending when they left and why, names were changed to escape persecution, conscription, debts, etc and changed again no matter where they landed because English administrators had a rather nasty time with many foreign names and spelled them phonetically. My own last name has had the spelling changed no less than three times AFTER my paternal grandfather took out his homestead patent (1899}. Through some very tough digging, three of us managed to get to what is now Janufka, Poland, formerly Prussia and then we hit a brick wall of immense proportions. The records show two marriages for great grandfather (a land holder) and therefore two families...but we KNEW that. The rest?? Well, Poland (and most of Germany and several other countries) was so badly bombed during two world wars that records are mostly non-existant in many places. We did find the original spelling of the last name but that really isn't much help.

The search can be done, as most never changed their names a whole lot, just dropped part of it, or modified spelling enough to make them somewhat untraceable by the methods available back then.

[MSP]

Interesting thread! I have been researching my family history on and off for some 30 years. I have thousands of people in my database and probably about 10 different databases.

Used to be a lot of hard work going to halls of records and walking cemeteries day after day! Many records are lost do to fires so a lot of information can be had from cemeteries.

Some of my family is Pre-American, that is, many of my ancestors were on this continent before it was the United State of America. Some were patriots and some were Tories. Some go back 11 generations on this soil and some are new arrivals.

I am not related to General Washington but he did interrogate my GGGG grandfather! He was a gentleman and returned him to Canada and scolded those that kidnapped him. Any one interested in a long but interesting story:
The 'Headers In Life & Legend by Russell W. Knight Selman's Raid (http://bssl-inc.org/Pages/MarbleheadNet/MM/Headers/Headers22.html)

Try researching here http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/default.htm
They make it so easy now! I researched in London once but I can’t remember if that was the place I went to.

For New England family reference check out these two old books that are digital now.

The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (http://books.google.com/books?id=ieIypI-z2ioC&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0)

This book is an eye opener for those that know history from US school text books! Anyone related to Tories check out this book.
The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution (http://books.google.com/books?id=jkgSAAAAYAAJ&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0)

One of my families was the “Coffin family of Boston”. Other family names are Buck, Simond, Irving, Callbeck, and Motschmann.

Only horse related family history is STB racing on PEI (http://www.peiharnessracing.com/callbeck.html). My grandmother had a STB and some where we have a picture of her driving him around when she was young. :cool:

[Foxtrot's]

Name changing - a lot of the early pioneers did not read or write (much), so names got mixed up all the time. Our own family was hard to trace because the original name was Armit, but there were so many corruptions of it - Ermit, Ermitt, Ermitte, Armite, etc. etc.
and being French/Scottish didn't help with the strong accents.

[Erin Pittman]

Ummm, 5chestnuts, one of my husband's ancestors was John Wilkes Booth :eek:.
DH is of Irish and French descent and I am English, Welsh, and German, so we definitely have different personalities :lol: !

This is an interesting thread! I am related to your husband through association. One of my ancestors was Dr. Samuel Mudd - the surgeon who set JWB's broken leg after he fled Washington, DC. :eek:

Most of my ancestors have been in America for a loooooong time - both my mom's and dad's family trace back to the Mayflower. My mom's great-something grandfather was Elder William Brewster, one of the leaders of the Pilgrims, through one of his sons - don't remember if it was Love or Rasling. My father's family were Gough's (later changed spelling to Goff) and they were part-owners of the Mayflower, though they didn't come over on that voyage. I figure they must've known each other.

I am somehow related (uncle or something, I believe) to John Adams and to J.P. Morgan (too bad I didn't get a piece of *that* pie).

One thing that I remember - we were camping once up by Leadville Colorado and made a water stop in a little town nearby. They had a little one-room school house museum that we went in and there was a quilt there that had been made for the principal of that school back in the early 1900s. That principal happened to be my mother's great-grandmother (my mom was born and raised in Virginia). It was really neat to see something so unexpected in such a tiny little town. Apparently, my great-grandmother was the wandering type and spent some time in Mexico and the West where she was a teacher. There are lots of teachers in my family - must run in the family.

[Janet]

Hendry it is, I guess maybe we are distantly related!
If you want some interesting history about George the Crowner, google
gunn keith peace treaty
or
gunn keith St. Tears

[Bluesy]

There's a chance I may be related to Hugh Hefner.

I haven't really looked into it though, so I don't know for sure. I can just imagine - "Uncle Hugh...I'd really like an indoor arena..." :lol:

[HydroPHILE]

Um, never mind. I am sort of deflated after the comment by someone on teh first page telling me I am simple minded to *imagine* I'd be related to someone else just because of common names.
Sorry to bore anyone with my pathetic story.
You all carry on as you wish. I'm out.

I wouldn't take it personally. :) They're just questioning it, that's all. I mean...someone could be related to someone from England named "John Smith," but that doesn't mean it's THE John Smith :) I don't recall them using the term "simple-minded."

My family is related to the Churchills. I didn't find that out until my maternal grandmother passed away last March, and my mother found her birth records :)


I am also part Scottish - Clan Gunn - Sept Mann :) We hail from the Caithness area of Scotland (northwest Highlands). It's a beautiful area.

[HydroPHILE]

There's a chance I may be related to Hugh Hefner.

I haven't really looked into it though, so I don't know for sure. I can just imagine - "Uncle Hugh...I'd really like an indoor arena..." :lol:

Only if he can have pink bunnies embroidered on the saddle pads :D

[Janet]

I am also part Scottish - Clan Gunn - Sept Mann :) We hail from the Caithness area of Scotland (northwest Highlands). It's a beautiful area.

That makes 4 of us.

PS,
Caithness is the far northEAST of Scotlandi

[Kate66]

A "plaid" is an article of clothing (a large square of cloth worn over the shoulder). I can be worn by by both men and women.

A "kilt" is an article of clothing only "correctly" worn my men. But women can wear pleted skirts.

"Tartan" refers to both the pattern associated with a particular clan/name (Gunn Tartsan consists of wide stripes of Black and Blue, alternating with thin stripes of Green and Red), and the fabric made in that pattern (I have a scarf made of Gunn tartan).

Sorry, the distinction bewteen "plaid" and "tartan" was drummed into me from a young age (due to my non-Scottish, Scottish nationalist great aunt) and had to speak up.

Hmmm, I would have to check that out. I am Scottish, by birth, upbringing and nationality. I would have to say that I have spent my entire life using the words plaid and tartan interchangeably.

[Kate66]

I am an American. I am not some other nationality or a native of another land, but my ancestors were. It's simply interesting to look back and see where they came from and how they lived.

Now, I would never claim to BE Irish, because the last time I checked I wasn't born in, or a citizen of, Ireland. I'm just an American who has Irish ancestors.

Thank you. That is a good way of explaining it. Like Equibrit, I am always a little confused when people say they are 1/2 Irish, however neither of their parents is Irish, or 1/4 Scottish but then say it was their great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents that were Scottish - wouldn't that make them like 1/128th Scottish?

[Kate66]

Another small point to note is that unfortunately there are many common names in Scotland, Ireland and England, so just being from the same town and having the same name does not mean that you are any relation.

OP - I have Alexander Ross's in my ancestry, unfortunately a very common name in Scotland and I am from significantly further North than you are looking at.

For those who are looking at the name Gunn, my grandmother was a Gunn, from Shetland, until she married and ironically became a Scott (with 2 Ts).

Just another little note to help you when you are searching on ancestry. Scotch is our national drink, not our nationality :-) We are typically Scots or Scottish.

[MSP]

That is cool there are several of you with Gunn in your ancestry! Is that a common name or is this a remarkable occurrence?

I agree that having the same surname and being from the same town doesn't necessarily make one related but it is certainly worth researching because many times you will find relationships that may go back a ways.

The Irvings are Scottish, from Annan in south west Scotland. The Coffins in New England can all be traced back to Tristram Coffyn so if you find the coffin Name in your lineage in New England you might as well assume relation. The real controversy starts back in England. Tristram was from County Devonshire near Plymouth. And there is a line of Coffins that trace back to Sir Richard Coffin and a manor called Portledge that many have tried to assume are the same family because they are in the same area. No proof of this has ever been found and one can not assume anything when researching family history so it goes to show being from the same area with the same last name may just be coincidence.

[Janet]

That is cool there are several of you with Gunn in your ancestry! Is that a common name or is this a remarkable occurrence?

I agree that having the same surname and being from the same town doesn't necessarily make one related but it is certainly worth researching because many times you will find relationships that may go back a ways.
Gunn is a relatively small clan from the Northeast corner of Scotland. As far as I know, there are no OTHER Gunns in England or Scotland, so if your name is Gunn and your family came from Scotland, you are probably related, though you may have to go back to the 1500s to get a connection. They are pretty widely dispersed. Even going back to my GGG-grandfather, who left Scotland for England in 1815, he has descendants in Africa, Canada and the US, as well as in England.

I understand that there are quite a lot of Gunns in the Carribean, only some of whom are related. Some of them are descended from slaves who took on their master's name.

[Foxtrot's]

Isn't "Plaid" what Al of Tim Taylor's Tool Town wears i.e. lumberjack checks? :)

[MSP]

All this has sent me searching to see what is new; new web sites and info on line.

So I happen on this site of my Irving lines and found out some of the Irving's died at the Battle of Flodden! Go figure Thomas! :winkgrin:

The Dumfries branch rose to prominence in the 16th century - Christopher Irving of Bonshaw and a son were killed at the battle of Flodden in Sept. 9, 1513 while leading light horsemen against the English. It is alleged that many Irvines died in this battle and the ensuing English raids which laid waste to the area.



Horseman no less!

[Janet]

Isn't "Plaid" what Al of Tim Taylor's Tool Town wears i.e. lumberjack checks? :)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartan

Tartan is also known as plaid in North America, but in Scotland, a plaid is a tartan cloth slung over the shoulder or a blanket

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaid


Plaid is a Scots language word meaning blanket, usually referring to patterned woollen cloth. It is unclear if the Gaelic word Plaide came first.

A plaid or full plaid is a pleated cloth worn with the modern kilt, made from the same tartan and worn cast over the shoulder and fastened at the front.

The belted plaid or great kilt is an earlier form of the kilt.

A plaid rug is a large thick woolen twill cloth, often tartan, used as a travel rug or as a blanket.

"Plaid" is also American English for tartan.

[DressageGeek "Ribbon Ho"]

Ah, so I wasn't too far astray regarding plaid and tartan!

[Foxtrot's]

Hey, Hunters Rest: Bet you never figured that your post would draw 224 responses. Great thread.

[Hunter's Rest]

... and all this time I thought I had *no* relatives --I've got rainy day projects, now, for months to research all these cool links everyone's put up!
Alas, seems like Uncle Thomas1comes to naught, but maybe there's others ...
I really am sincere, though, about doing a someday-visit over there. I've always wanted to take a few weeks and go walkabout in the old 'hood (as it were.) What better place to start than Uncle Thomas' lovely valley.
Carry on.

[MSP]

Hunters Rest, there is a farm listed on the Scottish Borders owned by a Curry.

http://www.locallife.co.uk/scottishborders/farmers3.asp?pageno=1

Map (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=1+Fleurs+Farm+Cottages,+Eyemouth,+The+Scottish+B orders+TD14,+United+Kingdom&ie=UTF8&cd=2&geocode=FWenVAMdVWLf_w&split=0&sll=55.879527,-2.137515&sspn=0.006295,0.006295&ll=55.879548,-2.137527&spn=0.238031,0.457306&t=h&z=11&iwloc=addr)

Could be no relation or could be the "bingo" you are looking for! If your Curry's are Scottish you will find plenty on the clan. I found a site that is doing genetic testing on the Irving clan. Sadly they are only testing men with the surname or I might consider it because my research is cold when it gets to Scotland. The test would tell me which family branch to search in.

[Hunter's Rest]

Oh WOW!! Rainy-day-rainy-day. Bring 'em on. I've got research to do into my REAL Uncle Thomas.

[Thomas_1]

I actually know quite a few Curry's in this area.

It's not an uncommon name

http://www.maxwellancestry.com/ancestry/publishing/names/51811.htm

[Thomas_1]

All this has sent me searching to see what is new; new web sites and info on line.

So I happen on this site of my Irving lines and found out some of the Irving's died at the Battle of Flodden! Go figure Thomas! :winkgrin:

Horseman no less!

"Christopher Irving of Bonshaw and a son were killed at the battle of Flodden in Sept. 9, 1513 while leading light horsemen against the English. It is alleged that many Irvines died in this battle and the ensuing English raids which laid waste to the area."

[Thomas_1]

If anybody's related to Thomas, it's probably me. As much as that horrifies him.............:lol: My ancestors on my father's side are all from Yorkshire. With my last name, "Hollingsworth" it's clear I'm of British descent. LOL :cool:

Actually, no clue if Thomas is at all related to any Hollingsworths, I was only kidding about the being related part. No worries..... that's a South Yorkshire name and it's a gulf away ;)

[linquest]

I am ALL OVER going to Scotland and visiting great uncle Thomas1 and seeing our family resemblance.
I mean it.
Thomas1 -- when is best to visit? I've never been to the north of England and would sincerely love to see my peep's old 'hood.
Who's in??

HR- August, that will be after the Bar exam and before I have to start working in Sept. I shall combine the Scotland trip with a stay at your place for cubbing :cool:

[Beasmom]

No worries..... that's a South Yorkshire name and it's a gulf away ;)

What a relief!