Half of my great-grandfathers were illegitimate, which makes tracing back through their fathers difficult.
One great-grandfather was from a land-owning family (an aristocrat of sorts). He basically took his share of the family money and came to America.
The family mansion was immense. In the next generation, the mansion was occupied by two spinster sisters and a much younger brother. The brother went off the city to get some education. When he came back, he had married a city girl. His sisters disowned him and moved to the far end of the mansion. They lived at each of the mansion for years, only to meet for holiday dinner.
My mother has an oil painting of the old mansion. A soldier who was fighting in the Russo-Finnish War painted it as payment for his stay in the mansion on the way to the front. Much later, after the old mansion burned, there was a big fight amongst the family as to who would inherit the painting. The brother shipped the painting to my mother here in America to settle the peace in the Finnish family.
After the mansion burned, the family built three "cottages" on the property. One for each of the sisters and one for the brother and his family. Each of the cottages would be considered mansions in this country, but combined were not as big as the old mansion.
I hope some day to inherit this painting.
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Näkemiin
Dave (SCA: Geoffrey Genour of Carney) Protector of Bits and Bytes, Third cousin once removed to Phil, Prince of Insufficient Light
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On my mother's side we've been here for a while. Back, after the French and Indian War, my great (x alot) grandfather and grandmother lived in the Ohio River Valley and they paid for their released slaves trip back to Africa. They owned a large farm and many of the families male members were priests. Except, supposedly, in one generation we had a horse theif and then like two generations later we had a sheriff. A great great great great granduncle on my mom's side was taken captive by the Confederates.
On my dad's mom's side there is an interesting story of how they got to Puerto Rico. Back in the past the oldest son would inherit, and then if there were no sons to inherit it would go to the younger brother of the current holder of the land. Well, the story starts in Spain where there were two sons of an elderly lord (eldest son great great great (and so on) of my grandma). This elderly lord had a greedy younger brother who wanted the land once his brother passed on. So one day the younger brother took the two sons to the docks. The two sons then ended up on a ship bound for puerto rico where the eldest met his wife. My grandma still has connections with relatives in Spain.
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DRAGON BLESSING
May dragons bring you wealth and guard your treasures May they banish darkness and enlighten you May female dragons grant you inner power May the Dragon Queen neutralize your enemies May Dragon Spirits give you power over Elementals May weather dragons bring rain at your request May Ti'amat effect the changes you command May Ishtar grant you Dragon Power May Ishtar grant you Dragon Power
One tragic story is of my G-Grandmother, Honora Carty Egan. Word is, she had 22 children but eleven survived. By the late 1890's, most of the children had either married or moved to the U.S. or Canada. There were only two children left living at the farm, who were in there upper teens, that wanted nothing to do with farming. It left Honora and G-Grandfather Patrick doing most of the work. Honora was feeding the animals one day and turned her back on the bull and the bull tore into her and trampled her to death. At 4'11", she never had a chance. She was 66 years old.
Her son Thomas, took the bull to market a few days later and sold it, promptly jumped on a ship for the U.S. and was never heard from again.
The most exciting thing I've discovered was my relation to the notorious Shelton gang of Peoria, Illinois.
More information on them here and here. Though they aren't on my direct line, they're close enough (and interesting enough) to claim.
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"For man He suffered and He died: If man will take His word as guide And leave all infamy, Then we shall come to happiness And blisses more than we can guess in Jesu's company."
I'm not a genealogy researcher my self but my parents are and they have found quite a lot of ancestors, I think they have over 10000 names in their data base by now.
What I think is interesting is that on my fathers mothers side they have found a long line of viking kings, queens and other nobles.
I have helped them with a web site where they present some of their research. Unfortunately for you some data base information are only written in swedish but if you would like to see their web site the url is: http://w1.044.telia.com/~u04400073/eng/index.htm
And to see my viking ancestors click on the picture of Kerstin.
By the way having kings and queens as ancestors does that make me a prince?
Group: Celtic Nation
Posts: 911
Joined: 18-Nov-2003 Zodiac: Oak
QUOTE (Crebain @ 07-Nov-2004, 09:27 AM)
By the way having kings and queens as ancestors does that make me a prince?
Probably not. If that were so, we would all be princes and princesses. Virtually everyone of European descent likely has royalty somewhere in their lineage. The trick is finding and detailing the precise links. Some of William the Conqueor's ancestor were sufficiently prolific that that the odds are quite good that anyone with ancestors in Great Britain has Viking ancestry, albeit probably not in the direct paternal line.
For example, here's one of my likely Viking lineages (I say likely because there are simply too many links to verify them all). WALTER MELVIN39 MORGAN (MAUD ELLEN40 FRANKLIN, BURGESS39, ELIZABETH38 JEFFRIES, PRICILLA37 WOOLSEY, MARY36 HOPKINS, FRANCIS35, MARTHA34 WHALEY, THEOPHILUS33, RICHARD32, THOMAS31 WALLEY, RICHARD30 WHALLEY, THOMAS29, RICHARD28, DOROTHY27 WILLOUGHBY, ROBERT (ESQ)26, MARGARET25 DE FREVILLE, BALDWIN24 FREVILE, BALDWIN23 FREVILLE, ELIZABETH22 MONTFORT, JOHN21 DE MONTFORT, PETER/PIERS20, PIERS19, THURSTAN18, HENRY17, THURSTAN16, ADELINA15 DE BEAUMONT, ISABEL14 OF VERMANDOIS, HUGH "THE GREAT"13, HENRY12 KING OF FRANCE I, ROBERT II "THE PIOUS"11, ADELAIDE10 OF GERMANY, ADELA/GERLOC9 OF NORMANDY, ROLF/ROLLON8, ROGNVALD "THE WISE"7 EYSTEINSSON, EYSTEIN "GLUMRA"6 IVARSSON, IVAR "OPLAENDINGE"5, HALFDAN "THE OLD"4, SIGURD "RING"3 RANDVERSSON, RANDVER2, RADBART1KING, GARDERIGE-) As some of the Viking names also appear on the web site you reference, we would appear to likely be very distant cousins.
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Síochán leat, Mailagnas Clan Donald USA
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