Who Do You Think You Are?

Every so often I get an urge to really get into my genealogy. My great-grandfather did a family tree (back before you could do such things on the internet) and my grandmother and now my mother became the keepers of it. So I even have a pretty good place to start.

Well the bug has bitten again, only this time I mean to do something about it. I joined Ancestry.com and they have this thing which I think is pretty neat where you can get your DNA tested and they'll tell you the genetic background of your family. As in, you're 50% Scottish, 10% German, 5% Native American, etc. etc.

I bought the kit for this, so now I'm just waiting for it to show up in the mail so I can spit in a tube and learn my past! Admittedly, on my mothers side there's not much mystery. We're German. So German. Much German. And some Czech. Maybe some Polish. But mostly German. So sayeth the Family Tree! And my grandmother, when she was alive, bless her So Very German soul.

But my father, for obvious reasons, is a mystery. I was always told his family was Scottish but his last name actually has an Irish...flavor to it, I guess? And honestly, who knows? Not me.

I'm actually kind of excited to find out where my genes come from, in broad strokes. And I'm working on the genealogy itself, as I get time. This coming weekend I'm going to dig out all the boxes of family stuff my mother has and lay claim to it for a while. The site is really interesting, even just knowing the couple of things I know off the top of my head I've found censuses from when my Grandmother was growing up and from my great-grandfather's childhood too. And they have a picture of my great-grandparents' headstone up in Ohio which I found pretty neat.

I'm not telling my mother about the DNA testing though. Couldn't tell you why, but I feel like I want to keep that private (as she posts about it on the internet for all and sundry to see). It'll be a couple of months anyway, between waiting to get the kit and then waiting for the results, but there you go. Aside from goggling at the idiotic kinds of books that get published and the people we have running for president, that's my new hobby.

My Opa was cooler than your Opa

I want to take a moment to appreciate something here.

My friend Eve has been talking about doing her family tree on Ancestry.com and it got me thinking about how my great-grandfather had worked hard on our geneaology while he was alive. He even took the time to write a couple of the stories into, well, story form.

I got it into my head to look for those stories and the family tree that I remember and playing around with them on Ancestry.com myself.

First, here is the closet where my Mom keeps all the family papers, pics, etc. that haven't been digitized yet:

It's usually a little neater, but I'd already been digging around when I decided to take the pic.

Scanning all that stuff is one of those projects she does in her practically non-existent free time.

I found the stories:

I also found the files of crossword puzzles my Opa created and the speech that was read at his funeral in place of a eulogy - he wrote that too.

But I also found these:

These are the baptismal and confirmation certificates for my maternal great grandfather and great grandmother. Filled out in German, though they were both born and raised in Ohio, and the churches were in Ohio too.

How gorgeous are these?

How awesome is it that we have these?