Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I'd like to do that someday. I know that my great-great-grandmother on my Dad's side was a slave. Beyond that, my family history past my grandparents is more or less a mystery.

This happened to my nephew who is black/white. They wanted to do a history thing on his fathers family. But when they called the grandmother, she knew nothing beyond her life, no stories or anything like that.
I find it odd. But she was just in the time possibly when her parents could have been slaves.

 Ashiraya wrote:
My ancestors are all dead. D:

Were they killed by the Harkonnen's ninjas before your eyes?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I'd like to do that someday. I know that my great-great-grandmother on my Dad's side was a slave. Beyond that, my family history past my grandparents is more or less a mystery.

This happened to my nephew who is black/white. They wanted to do a history thing on his fathers family. But when they called the grandmother, she knew nothing beyond her life, no stories or anything like that.
I find it odd. But she was just in the time possibly when her parents could have been slaves.

Yeah, that's kind of my fear. That there'll be a record down to the slave era, at which point any trace'll disappear.

I'd be more interested in the history of my African ancestors, frankly. Were any of them individuals of high status in African tribes/states? etc

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
My ancestors are all dead. D:

Were they killed by the Harkonnen's ninjas before your eyes?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I'd like to do that someday. I know that my great-great-grandmother on my Dad's side was a slave. Beyond that, my family history past my grandparents is more or less a mystery.

This happened to my nephew who is black/white. They wanted to do a history thing on his fathers family. But when they called the grandmother, she knew nothing beyond her life, no stories or anything like that.
I find it odd. But she was just in the time possibly when her parents could have been slaves.

Yeah, that's kind of my fear. That there'll be a record down to the slave era, at which point any trace'll disappear.

I'd be more interested in the history of my African ancestors, frankly. Were any of them individuals of high status in African tribes/states? etc

Although, like that commercial said, you could find something great in your history.

The furthest back we can trace the history of the family on my dad's side is to Virginia, but the courthouse that housed most of the records was apparently burned down. Beyond the family name being an obvious bastardization of a Scottish name, and supposedly that missing link was the same generation that came here, we don't really have much else to go off of. The current assumption is criminals that fled to the new world, though that assumption is mostly tongue-in-cheek. Mostly.

My mom's side features someone who was committed to an insane asylum and another who was allegedly a lieutenant for Capone.

Relapse wrote:

I know there are probably some really cool ancestor stories here on Dakka.

I am directly related to the first living being ever.

Being Scottish, perhaps oddly, I've always actually been slightly irritated by many peoples focus on Ancestors. The amount of times I've heard, after I've started speaking, "hey, you're Scottish, awesome, my family owned a castle in Scotland back in the old days."

I'm barely able to suppress the now after the 20th time hearing this.

Like others have mentioned, that's just how Families + Time works.

If you want to tell me a story about your family history, stick with up to your grandparents grandparents as an absolute limit, - Even then, assuming I can count, you're basically talking about 32 different people. - 4 sets of Grandparents, each with 2 parents, with 4 sets of grandparents each. That's a heckuva lot of fowk. Going back even further, even just in a direct-ish line, just gets truly silly.

So, for Pete's sake, stop boasting to me about it, it's not impressive.


Err, sorry everyone, but that ramble was actually a little cathartic.

 Compel wrote:

Err, sorry everyone, but that ramble was actually a little cathartic.

I'm glad you feel better. I think a big part of it is people just want to know where they come from.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Were they killed by the Harkonnen's ninjas before your eyes?

All of them. Dx

Despite being mostly shy and quiet, my ancestors were Vikings. Not quite sure, but from what I heard, I think one of them was named Harold Fair-Hair.

My great grandfather, father's side, was a prohibition era moonshiner.

My grandfather, mother's side, was an errand boy for the Capone Gang.

I'm guessing the latter hauled some of the product of the former.

My people were sent to London by William the Conquerer as spies. I guess they flipped because when he invaded they ran to Ireland rather than complete the sabateur part of their job. At some point the family hit upon hard times and left Cork county for the U.S...during the potato famine I believe. That's my dad's side, mom's mom was native american/getman and grandpa was of welsh descent.

My ancestors were the well known people involved in that famous incident.

This actually reminds me of a joke a co-worker said "Whenever I asked my White friends what they are they say Everything"

Lets see, on my moms side Im related to a couple Presidents of the Dominican Republic, as well as one of the assassins of a certain Dominican dictator (Trujillo).

On my dads side, my ancestors:
1. Fought against the soviets and hungarian coconspirators during the Hungarian Revolution
2. Fought alongside Soviet forces against German forces during the invasion of Hungary during WW2
3. Commanded a German SS panzer unit during Operation Barbarossa

Did I mention that all three of those things are attributable to the sane person (my grandfather)? Looks like he had trouble picking sides lol.

Going back a bit further the family was supposedly, at one point, in possession of chemical factories which during ww1 were accused of using the bodies of dead allied soldiers to produce fertilizer.

Really, I dont know all that much about my family history, kinda sad :/

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I have an ancestor who fought in the revolutionary war, war of 1812 and tried for the civil war but got turned away for age.

Forgive me if I find that unlikely, assuming he was born in the last year of te Revolution he woulf have been just 3 years shy of 80 at the outbreak of the Civil War. Like really, for this to be realistic he woulf have had to have been insanely long lived.

He lived 102 years.
But it is just a story My dad told me

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I'd like to do that someday. I know that my great-great-grandmother on my Dad's side was a slave. Beyond that, my family history past my grandparents is more or less a mystery.

If you go to an LDS stake center, chances are they could set you up. They have access to some of the biggest amounts of geneology data in the world.

My dad's kin were Scottish Loyalists who left Scotland to persecute the Irish in Ireland. After a generation or two they were rounded up for horse thievery and sent to Australia.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
He lived 102 years.
But it is just a story My dad told me

Well in that case it becomes a bit more realistic a story, though not necessarily more believable (because really, 102 years old during a time period when the average life expectancy was half that is insane to think about)

 Grey Templar wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Once you go back past 8 generations you are pretty much related to everyone...

To an extent.

I think it would take more than 8 generations to connect someone living in Sweden to someone from Vietnam(provided they were both ethnically "pure")

I think that limitation was implied

My grandad was part of a platoon of infantry that was surrounded by the japanese for like 6 weeks, caught malaria and ended up in port morseby getting upset at his future wife for the fact he had NO CHRISTMAS DINNER.


3 ancestors were drafted for the battle of waterloo, one was a cannoneer, one was a foot soldier and the last was an officer. The officer was the only guy who survived the battle.

I hark back to Clan Baine, and an Irish tailor who came to Australia in the second fleet.

My great-great uncle died in Auschwitz.



Fell out of a guard tower.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I wheel that joke out every time this thread is rehashed!

 Albatross wrote:
My great-great uncle died in Auschwitz.



Fell out of a guard tower.

That just sounds embarassing XD

"Dear Mr. and Mrs. Albatross, I regret to inform you your son has died in the line of duty."
*tears* "At least he died fighting for his country."
"Well, he fell from a tower and died guarding one of our facilities. The nearest enemy combatant was a whole country away."
"..."

When my dad was in the 82nd, he landed in a tree during a practice jump, got tired of waiting for someone to find him, cut himself down and promptly broke his angle on a rock at the bottom. My grandfather got a purple heart in Veitnam but he refused to accept it because he was injured when he slipped in some mud and fell back onto a coincidentally pokey stick that pierced his right buttock. My great grandfather on my mom's mom's side died during the Korean war; he had a heart attack on the way back

I'm pretty sure I'm a bit like Lieutenant Dan. I've had a member of my family injured or killed in every American conflict but never from combat or anything the opposing force did XD.

My recent ancestors are the usual line up of mild wartime heroics, my American grandfather managed to be present for pearl harbour, Omaha beach and the Ardennes, but usually on the periphery of them, he hid in a crater after morning mass at pearl, transferred to Europe, landed on D+1 and fought in the 2nd infantry division, so he wasn't in the thick of the Ardennes fighting. He did seduce and bed a famous actress who was entertaining the troops though, which makes him a real American hero in my books. I probably also have uncles and aunts in Germany and Hawaii that I don't know about.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
He lived 102 years.
But it is just a story My dad told me

Well in that case it becomes a bit more realistic a story, though not necessarily more believable (because really, 102 years old during a time period when the average life expectancy was half that is insane to think about)

Just gonna point out (cos this thing always irks me), that life expectancy of any time period 100+ years ago was brought down significantly by high infant mortality rates.
Generally speaking, if you lived past 10 you would be ok

I don't think I've any famous ancestors. I mean if you go back far enough, I'm a Kennedy and they were a part of the O'Brien clan that was pretty influential in parts of the west of Ireland, but given that they were provincial cattle lords at the best of times, that's not that impressive and is basically true of everyone with any Irish ancestry.

Going back as far as great grandparents, my Dad's family were pretty much all poor farmers or itinerants and my mam's family were slightly richer farmers or fishermen.

My mam and my Dad were born 2 days apart from each other and were 2 of only 3 children in the maternity ward at the hospital.

When my family settled in NZ during the 1800s they owned the whole town I live in today. They got it through the land lottery that was going at the time.

Over the centuries the land was split through sales and marriage arrangments and now we only own the houses we live in. Although there is a street named after our family where the first house of the town was built by a great great (many greats) grandfather of mine.

Sucks, but is interesting.



My Step Moms Great Grandparents housed Jews in Holland (his house is still there, nearly unchanged) from the Nazi occupiers . We met some of the survivors a few months ago. He used to blow up trans and rail roads as well to stop the germans. But doesnt really count as they arent my ancestors.

My great uncle was a FIFA ref and came up with the idea of the red and yellow card (well it was his wifes idea but he got the credit).

He then got involved in Soccer in the US and I believe they still hold a Ken Aston cup in his name the funny thing is I can't stand football lol.

His brother was a Lancaster pilot during WW2 and always had the most fascinating stories. Sadly his flight book disappeared but someone seems have uploaded some of the stuff he wrote down.

http://www.wartimememoriesproject.com/ww2/allied/royalairforce/61sqd-raf.php#raston

He passed away a few years ago and I never got the opportunity to visit his home in South Africa but did get to share a drink with him for the first and last time when he last came over to England.

 Swastakowey wrote:
When my family settled in NZ during the 1800s they owned the whole town I live in today. They got it through the land lottery that was going at the time.

Over the centuries the land was split through sales and marriage arrangments and now we only own the houses we live in. Although there is a street named after our family where the first house of the town was built by a great great (many greats) grandfather of mine.

Sucks, but is interesting.



My Step Moms Great Grandparents housed Jews in Holland (his house is still there, nearly unchanged) from the Nazi occupiers . We met some of the survivors a few months ago. He used to blow up trans and rail roads as well to stop the germans. But doesnt really count as they arent my ancestors.

Here is an article of the Jewish girl who was hidden http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4798137/Hidden-baby-meets-her-brothers


The first house of Paraparaumu by a direct ancestor in 1890. "Mr J W Howell's whare, the first bach at Paraparaumu Beach in 1890. The bach was located at what is now the corner of Howell Road and Marine Parade. G H Howell Collection"



And a picture of my family during that period at a wedding 20 years later



They are from a photo album called the "howell" Collection, but I have yet to find it outside of a few pictures. I may as well check out the local library to see if they have the collection.

One of my great grandmothers (fathers side) was a drunk and Irish.

I don't know that much more about that side of the family since no-one talks to anyone else because of real and perceived slights.


No idea about my mothers side, I may have to check up on it.

I come from barbers, coal miners and teachers out of the holler of West Virginia. The barber took a spin over the pond and fought in a few trenches, and the coal miner saw Queen Elizabeth's coronation parade while on a stop from his US Navy destroyer. He was not, of course, the Captain of the vessel, but one of the mechanics.

My other grandfather joined the army and served in the Korean War, and enjoyed the dubious distinction of being shot up by a VK sniper- he was shot six times over the course of a few hours. He only shared the story with anyone a few years back.

My wife's mother was orphaned because her parents disappeared in a plane within the Bermuda Triangle.