wcg's Friday meme

[kiya]

1. What is your lineage? Where are your ancestors from?

On my father's side, I'm a Yankee going way back, with ties to England, Germany, Ireland, and Scotland. I'm not sure it's overly meaningful to say that there's any 'from' left for any of those places, as the culture I get from that side of the family is distinctly New England culture. My mother's father was Irish-extracted by way of Canada, my mother's mother was Polish.

I was born in Boston. Grew up in Maryland. Moved back to New England when I could.

2. Of those countries, which would you most like to visit?

I have visited England and Scotland; I haven't visited Skye, which is where the family legends say that the Nicolls came from. I have hopes to visit Ireland someday, possibly the region around Cork (which is where my mother says the Harringtons come from). Kevin feels most kinship with Ireland of any other nationality (he does not know his lineage, so he's guided by whimsy), so we may manage a trip there.

Perhaps if I manage to get somewhere with Polish, Poland. I like to travel.

3. Which would you least like to visit? Why?

I haven't felt any particular ties to Germany. Or to Newfoundland (which is where I believe my grandfather's kin landed first on this side of the pond).

4. Do you do anything during the year to celebrate or recognize your heritage?

Not . . . really. I do (as people following this journal may note) occasionally go delving into studies of my heritage so as to better include meaningful stuff in my daily life, though.

5. Who were the first ancestors to move to your present country (parents,grandparents, etc)?

On my father's side? I didn't have ancestors that came over on the Mayflower. The whimsical story is that they were on the next boat. I do have documentation of being a Harvard legacy from the 1640s or so, and am dimly related to the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony. (See what I mean about the Yankee way back?) My mother's side, the Irish ancestors left during the Potato Famine and eventually entered the States somewhere around Montana before settling near here and becoming Boston Irish; I think my Polish ancestors came over about the time of the Depression, and that would be my grandmother or my great-grandparents.

(Article amended at 7:01 PM to fix a trailing parenthesis error in the headers.)

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

And very interesting. *nod*

*smile*

A.

[tiassa]

Wow, I'm impressed that you know that much about your heritage. I have a frickin' degree in genealogy and I don't even know when my father's side of the family immigrated to the US. >:(

Of course, the fact that I rarely if ever talk to my father's side of the family might factor into it, but.

[kiya]

My father for a while was the Keeper Of The Big Book Recording All Relationships In Our Family Tree Back Into The 1600s. May still be. And I've been speaking to my mother recently about stuff on that side of the family, so it's fresh in my mind.

It sort of amuses me that this thread came up only after I realized that I was a bit embarassed about my ignorance of that side of the family and went to a little effort to fix that.