Your ancestry?...not so simple? (Page 1 of 2)

Hey Shred
Years ago a Puerto Rican friend of mine had given me quite a bit of history concerning the various nationalities that went into the makeup of that islands history. From what I understand, there was a considerable amount of Italians that were the sugar plantation owners in early times along with Jews and Spanish.
The LDS has a fantastic resource of filmed church records from around the world BUT
when using them you must be very carefull to do the actual work of looking at the actual copies of the church records yourself as opposed to taking the easy road and accepting or latching onto the published lines that other people have posted on that site .
You must get really tough about dotting your I s and crossing your Ts if you want to be really certain beyond a doubt. I had to learn how to read records in 3 other languages that were often written by people that appeared to have advanced arthritis of the hands.
On the upside of this , beyond tracing parts of my family back to the mid 1500s I learned a wealth of history that you'd never otherwise take the time to discover and its not dry history like you get in school but so very interesting because your seeing how your family was effected and involved. Thee was much, much more moving about of people in previous days than most people in the USA are aware of.

Holy smokes Bob!...I guess my cousins might be on to something...thats very cool of you

Hey Andy, thanks for chiming in (hope you got my other email address).....that facsinates me that you could go back that far on your family tree...and Deb will use that link

We had an old friend from high school spend the night last night...she 50% Italian and German...(man can she talk )....anyhow she was funny...'Dave, man your family is all mixed up "....we also know that my great great grandparents on my fathers side owned a plantation in South Carolina...I went to the old site, they have my last name on some country road out in the middle of the country....I told my dad (I'm 15, didnt know any better, being raised in Calif.by my mother)....."hey dad, we got any african blood in us"....I'm smiling and lol with my 13 year old brother....my dad gave me a look that could kill....I'll leave the rest of the story alone, except to say NO....those were an abbrevited version of what his response was

Shred

These Puerto Rican friends had also told me that there whole segments of the Italian plantation owner group that pretty much married only with other Italians and not with the slave population. That whole conversation was really enlightening as i had never known anything about the Italian element being part of the equation in Puerto Rico.

Lots of strange things in the Carribean history, like how many people know that there was almost as many Scottish slaves in early Jamaica as there were Africans. seems they didnt deal well with the heat though and most died in their first couple years in the cane fields. It was an unfortunate time in history in Europe for anyone who fell behind on their taxes, theyd sell you off to the Euro slave traders and you AND your family were Carribean bound . These were not the indentured servants the schools teach about but actual real slaves. There was some law about not being allowed to own a white slave for more than 7 years but if you commited any infraction you automaticly got another 7 years - and there was always an infraction !

The only digging in my family tree was done when my Mom's sisters(my aunts) took their brother(my uncle) to Ireland to visit Mulraney in County Mayo where my Grandfather was born and raised before immigrating to the states and settling in Cleveland, Ohio. The only relatives named McLaughlin(my Mom's family name) were in the village cemetery. The only living relatives they met were cousin's all named, dig this, McCartney. I should dig a little deeper into that line, I already know that Sir Paul is of Irish decent...........I wonder?????

                                                                                                             Think Green Laddy,

                                                                                                             J Dawg

You SHOULD!!

I´m German, no Carribean ancestors .... umpf - how boring is that?!

Eva

For the majority of my life I lived using someone else's family history. I was adopted so I didn't know what "my" ancestry was. And that certainly bothered me. In searching for my parents I also was able to fill in some blanks on my mothers side. It's interesting what you can find while searching. Sometimes it's an event that some people would rather not "remember". But it all worked out. And.....

I'm living proof of Nature vs Nurture. But thats another topic.

Stay Safe
me

Hi Eva
The 30 years war caused major upheavals in Germany with people being shuffled around to other places you might be suprised at what you'd find. In many places well over 50 % of the people were killed and in some areas upwards of 80 % which left many places almost empty of people [and taxpayers] so many of the states in southern Germany opened up immigration and brought in people from Switzerland and Austria by the 10s of thousands. I know that are are even several towns in southern Germany that were made up entirely of people that came from Italy. Has your family always lived near Nurnburg ?

I believe most of the church records in both Bavaria and Wuertemburg are still pretty well in place and most have been filmed by the Mormons and put onto microfilm that is avaliable for research. Where the problem comes arrises in Germany with the records is usualy in the Posen area where many are now suspected of being destroyed or missing due to WW2. Most of the church records in your area should go back to the middle of thge 1500s or early 1600s. Can you read and understand the old time German writting ?

Bob

250 Jahr Auswanderung Neckar Valley Volk