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Janus58 said:
Another ancestor is mentioned as being heir to Hirvisaari Island, which is this bit of land now part of St. Petersburg.
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That's a pretty nice fort in there Janus58. :)

My Mothers paternal grandfather was a Swedish merchantman from Gotland who came to Australia before WWI and took the name of Cedergreen, that his fellow merchantman brother had adopted emigrating to the USA. My late mom's sister commissioned a Swedish student to research the family history many years ago and she came up with a lineage that led back through many of of the islands farms/homesteads in Gotland until the trail ran out in the early 1600's with a Matts Jacobson and a Jacob Mattson, his son, who were both fishermen. On Gotland all of the grave mounds were found with middle eastern coins so there was most likely some sort of connection with the Varangian guard in Constantinople.

My fathers side is Irish going back over 1000 years and my great great grandfather Martin came over to Brisbane, Australia, with his family during the American Civil war. He was born at the beginning of the potato famine in 1820 and he passed away aged 81 at Red Hill in Brisbane in 1901, and signed his name on his will but his wife just used an 'x' on her will. His fathers brothers/uncles were also literate and stayed in Ireland and signed a lease with Sir John Rouse in 1791, for 413 acres at Reahanoghie Beg (big) in Rear Cross (in the highlands of southern Tipperary). This area was called Barr na dTuaimn in Gaelic or Baurn a domeeney (Circle of domination) and my distant relatives still live there today as I'm a 5th generation Australian.
 
DNA tests show my wider family has a lineage that goes back to one Individual in Ireland who was born around 850 in Northern Tipperary. My father has done much research and, due to the traditional Irish naming conventions that appear in our family names, and the genealogical and DNA evidence, along with the records available today, he is confident that we come from the place called Baile loch chappail in Gaelic, Ballycapple (castle), or Village of the Horse Lake.

My branch of the family also has an interesting genetic trait, we were from the 'Donn' or brown haired branch of the family, so our hair colour starts off very light (blond if in the sun) and only seems to get darker as we age because we tend to stay out of the light.

While my father, my brothers and I all are around 60 or over, our beards are white/black and our head hair could almost be called black.
 
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I have some advice for anybody interested in researching their ancestry. When you research work on building a family tree using private and public documents. Do not rely on general surname information because it can offer a wide range of different ancestry possibilities, some of which may not apply to you.
 
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LaurieAG said:
DNA tests show my wider family has a lineage that goes back to one Individual in Ireland who was born around 850 in Northern Tipperary. My father has done much research and, due to the traditional Irish naming conventions that appear in our family names, and the genealogical and DNA evidence, along with the records available today, he is confident that we come from the place called Baile loch chappail in Gaelic, Ballycapple (castle), or Village of the Horse Lake.

My branch of the family also has an interesting genetic trait, we were from the 'Donn' or brown haired branch of the family, so our hair colour starts off very light (blond if in the sun) and only seems to get darker as we age because we tend to stay out of the light.

While my father, my brothers and I all are around 60 or over, our beards are white/black and our head hair could almost be called black.
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I found some more lineage that suggested something interesting. I was able to trace back to one of two brothers in the 1300's. It turns out that their father was married to a woman who's ancestry could be traced back to Charlemagne. (she was a descended through a daughter of Adele of Flanders).
Now, I've seen it claimed that if you have any European ancestry at all, chances are Charlemagne contributed to your ancestry, but it was interesting to find an actual link.
However, a bit more digging revealed a fly in the ointment. It turns out that there is some question as to whether the two brothers were full brothers or not. And the brother through which my branch descends from might not be her son, but was born to a different wife. I even found a family tree that gives this wife a name.
But then, the plot thickens. This family tree claims that this wife is also part of the same family as first wife above, branching off just a couple of generations up, making her also a descendant of Adele of Flanders, and thus Charlemagne.
But once again, there is some question about this.
It hinges on the marriage of this wife's grandfather to a daughter of one of the first wife's ancestors. Now, this is problematic in two respects: First, the argument for the marriage of the grandfather to her is based on circumstantial evidence. Secondly, I can't find an independent source that confirms she even existed. I can only find mentions of sons for her supposed father. So the whole claim rests on a supposed marriage to someone that might not even have lived.
Now this doesn't mean that she didn't exist or that she wasn't married to the person they claim she was, but it does leave things a bit up in the air, with no clear answer either way.
 
Yes Janus58, there can be some nuances in the way Surnames are written down in the records.

I have heard of Surnames that are almost identical but for an 's' added to the end of the name to denote that the person was not the result of a legitimate marriage.
 
LaurieAG said:
Yes Janus58, there can be some nuances in the way Surnames are written down in the records.

I have heard of Surnames that are almost identical but for an 's' added to the end of the name to denote that the person was not the result of a legitimate marriage.
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Was this meant as a reply to mmatt9876's post?
On my part, the extra info I was able to find came from a Swedish genealogical site which based their finding on old texts, etc. Though I am no stranger to the pitfalls of surnames. The vast majority of my ancestry is Finnish, and in the past, the Finns could change their surname as often as they changed their hat. ( My own grandfather was born with one surname, changed it to another sometime after the death of his father, then truncated it after immigrating, and altered the spelling at least once before settling on the one may dad was born with.) Changes between generations happened fairly often. A great-great grandfather's surname was Vattuniemi (translates to raspberry cape) but this became Wattunen in the next generation. "nen" means "of" in Finnish, and serves the same purpose as "Von" does in German in a surname. As to the change of 'V" to "W", I can only guess. There is no 'w" sound in Finnish, so I can only assume that it was still pronounced as a "v"( like the German "w"), at least until the family immigrated.
 
LaurieAG said:
Yes Janus58, there can be some nuances in the way Surnames are written down in the records.

I have heard of Surnames that are almost identical but for an 's' added to the end of the name to denote that the person was not the result of a legitimate marriage.
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Many Russian and Ukranian immigrants who came to America in the late 1800's and early 1900's had their names changed by the immigrant officials simply because when asked their names, the immigrants pronounced the "ov" on the end of their names that instead sounded like "off". So, instead of the name being "Petrov" for example, their new names were "Petroff".
 
(Q) said:
Many Russian and Ukranian immigrants who came to America in the late 1800's and early 1900's had their names changed by the immigrant officials simply because when asked their names, the immigrants pronounced the "ov" on the end of their names that instead sounded like "off". So, instead of the name being "Petrov" for example, their new names were "Petroff".
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Fladimir Putin and Drumpf.
 
(Q) said:
Many Russian and Ukranian immigrants who came to America in the late 1800's and early 1900's had their names changed by the immigrant officials simply because when asked their names, the immigrants pronounced the "ov" on the end of their names that instead sounded like "off". So, instead of the name being "Petrov" for example, their new names were "Petroff".
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My grandfather and his two brothers came from Germany more than a hundred years ago. Their name contained a ü (u-umlaut), which does not exist in English. Two of them were registered with the ü changed to i because it's pronounced something like that in German. The third had the ü changed to a u without the umlaut. In English, his descendants continue to pronounce it as i.
 
(Q) said:
Many Russian and Ukranian immigrants who came to America in the late 1800's and early 1900's had their names changed by the immigrant officials simply because when asked their names, the immigrants pronounced the "ov" on the end of their names that instead sounded like "off". So, instead of the name being "Petrov" for example, their new names were "Petroff".
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Lol, sometimes they were even less original. The US Immigration authorities usually started names with 'Green' for Scandinavians and 'Brown' for Germans although they did use other variations. On my mothers paternal grand fathers side they were merchant seamen and the family members who left Gotland all adopted the name another of their brothers received when emigrating to the US while the line that stayed kept the traditional Swedish name which had repeated for the previous 3 generations.
 
Janus58 said:
Now, I've seen it claimed that if you have any European ancestry at all, chances are Charlemagne contributed to your ancestry, but it was interesting to find an actual link.
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I would not be surprised if a large portion of the Human population has some sort of royal heritage.
 
Janus58 said:
It hinges on the marriage of this wife's grandfather to a daughter of one of the first wife's ancestors. Now, this is problematic in two respects: First, the argument for the marriage of the grandfather to her is based on circumstantial evidence. Secondly, I can't find an independent source that confirms she even existed. I can only find mentions of sons for her supposed father. So the whole claim rests on a supposed marriage to someone that might not even have lived.
Now this doesn't mean that she didn't exist or that she wasn't married to the person they claim she was, but it does leave things a bit up in the air, with no clear answer either way.
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My post was probably in reference to this Janus58.
 
I have been spending time researching my German, Polish, Irish, Russian, and American ancestry using family documents. I have also been building a family tree online using those family documents. I am also eager to find any solid evidence of English, Welsh, or Scottish ancestry.
 
mmatt9876 said:
I have been spending time researching my German, Polish, Irish, Russian, and American ancestry using family documents. I have also been building a family tree online using those family documents. I am also eager to find any solid evidence of English, Welsh, or Scottish ancestry.
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If you can get copies of old marriage certificates they usually provide information on the occupations, countries and towns of birth of the couples. Birth certificates also carry similar information for the parents. Once you have a location in the other country you can then search for more records (surveys, census) from there. Immigration records are also good to find a home town/village if you can find how they immigrated i.e. ships manifests. Many of the Irish immigrants on the same ship were 'recruited' from the same area's as well.

Also, in many cases Irish born people went to work in England, Wales or Scotland and emigrated to other countries from there.
 
LaurieAG said:
If you can get copies of old marriage certificates they usually provide information on the occupations, countries and towns of birth of the couples. Birth certificates also carry similar information for the parents. Once you have a location in the other country you can then search for more records (surveys, census) from there. Immigration records are also good to find a home town/village if you can find how they immigrated i.e. ships manifests. Many of the Irish immigrants on the same ship were 'recruited' from the same area's as well.

Also, in many cases Irish born people went to work in England, Wales or Scotland and emigrated to other countries from there.
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Thanks. That is good information. I have recently done a bit of research on the Polish American side of my family using marriage documents.
 
So far I have compiled some documents outlining my Polish American ancestry. Now I just need to compile some documents outlining my German American, Irish American, and Russian American ancestry.
 
I wanted to share with you guys that I am proud about my German, Polish, Irish, and Russian American ancestry. I think it is cool to research your ancestry, whether you research your ancestry using information about family surnames, research family documents, research ancestry DNA results, and so on, and so forth. I believe it is honorable to research your ancestry because you can broaden your horizons and connect with other people in the process.
 
As I began to take a new interest in my German, Polish, Irish, and Russian American ancestry I also began to take a new interest in my Christian, specifically Roman Catholic, identity and ancestry. Religion and spirituality are as much a part and a force in our story and ancestry as ethnicity because religion and spirituality often have a community and following that members and believers are a part of. Religion is a beautiful thing that can give us healthy habits, focus, and purpose.
 
I had a question about English ancestry. Are people of English descent mostly an Anglo-Saxon, Norman-French, and Celtic-Briton people?
 
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