Ancestry

[gestalt100]

Now I'm a universalist, anyone can be an Asatruar, anyone can believe, honour, but I'm interested in ancestry. It's an interesting topic, straying away from Asatru a bit, I'd like to talk about ancestry, if you know who you are you feel a part of something. Americans are such a diverse melting pot of many cultures and races, and my own blood is an excellent example. Really spices up the gene pool to add some Cherokee blood to those English who have been breeding on the same island for thousands of years .

I'll start out with mine.

I was born in Gainesville (the poultry capital of the world), in the northeastern region of Georgia, at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. My mother is a chemist and busineswoman and my father is a retired businessman and Airbourne Ranger who was in the Light Arctic Infantry specialty unit, his final rank was Captain. My mother's (the Dyer and Green families) ancestors were British colonists who have lived in the Carolinas since the early 1700s; some intermarried with the local Native American tribes and had mixed blood. My grandfather on my mother's side of the family was a welder who worked on the Fontana Dam in the Civilian Conservation Corps and a farmer, my grandmother was a housewife (ironically her name was Vesta). My father's lineage (the Smith and Fowler families) more recently immigrated from Danzig/Gdansk to the state of Illinois in the early 1900s and have Polish/German and Pennsylvania Dutch heritages. My grandfather on my father's side of the family was a naval aviator and a pilot for Delta airlines. My grandmother was a nurse. I was named after my great grandfather on my mother's grandmother's father side of the family -Benjamin Green. My father's side of the family originally had an Eastern European last name (something Polish or German I would assume), but it was changed in the early 20th century to Smith to avoid prejudice.

These stories, how far you can go back, and be sure... it's all so amazing. I have two chroniclers in both sides of my family, one was a Catholic priest that had nothing better to do, the other was well educated and had ties to the Dyers in England, showing a family tree going to the 1600s, which is incredible. Now think, your ancestors, in no matter what part of the world, were once following a religion now considered pagan, even the Jews (Semitic Polytheism). I believe the reason to go pagan is the reason to return if everyone's ancestor's were right and the truth comes from an ancient source. That is what I believe. Follow your call to an ancient religion, find one that fits you, feels natural and return.

Your turn.

[Bathilde]

I've done some work on my family's ancestry. I've joined ancestry.com a few times, as well as interviewing some of my older relatives. I have digital copies of census records, birth and death records, etc.

Unfortunately my work doesn't come with the stories of my ancestors. I'm hoping to do a video interview of my relatives before they die so I can archive it for future generations. My great aunt and my sister have also done some work on our family history.

My online family tree is here: http://thebucci.com/annabucci

My ancestry mostly comes from England, Italy, and Hungary.

[Bathilde]

Really spices up the gene pool to add some Cherokee blood to those English who have been breeding on the same island for thousands of years

I'd just like to point out the irony in this statement. The English have had immigrants and conquerers in a near constant stream for the last 4000 years or so(Beakers, Romans, Franks, Vikings, Normans, Danes, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, etc), and the American Indians have only had immigrants and conquerers in the last 500.

[Aelfgar]

My ancestry mostly comes from England, Italy, and Hungary.

That's a coincidence since mine is from England (Mother's side) and Hungary(Father's) too. Unfortunately I know very little about my father's family past my grandparents because after they came here in 1910 they didn't keep in contact with the family that stayed so it's hard to dig up now. My mother's side is much more documented, I believe to at least the 11th century. Mom is the genealogy buff of the family and has done a lot of work on the current history.

[gestalt100]

Just a long standing joke with my folks about the English thing.

[Stormingwulf]

I'm still doing a ton of research into my family history and its not the easiest task in the world when many members of my family don't want to give any information, focus all their attention on one ethnic group or outright lie about where we come from....Add in a few adoptions here and there and its an eternal headache for me.

From what I have figured out so far my ancestry is mostly western European with a tiny spec of Cherokee thrown in here or there though I'm not sure if that is exactly true as I have found no claims for Cherokee ancestry in my family or at least connected to me anyway. From my mother's side I am a combination of mostlyAnglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, English-Scotish, Norman-Scottish, Norman, Danish, Norweigan, Sweedish, Welsh, German and Cornish and Pictish. Some of the surnames that show up in our tree are: Turley, Midkiff, Graley, Allan, Baikie, Balford, Parsions, Wright, Lewis, Woodson, Briggs, Trail, Sinclair, Livingstone, Smythe, Bruce, Huntington, Forrester, Moody ect.

All I know about my father's side is that we're either Irish or Anglo-Saxon with either Welsh or German in there. My biological father's name is Hobbs but his specific line is either from O'Dell or Odell that was adopted by the Hobbs of the West Virginian and Virginian area and his mother's maiden name is Thomas.

[Bathilde]

There's a thomas in my family as well.

[JeffSinger]

I was born in Portland, Oregon in the foothills of the Cascades. My family is primarily German with some Scot thrown in for good measure.

My mom was adopted so i know next to nothing about her birth parents but the people who raised her and in truth were her only parents were Katherine Wayer and Mathias Hatzenbuehler. They hailed from Dickinson and New England, North Dakota respectively. Katherine was a home maker and one of the best, she was your stereotypical grandma lol, cookies out of the oven and sewn quilts all that good stuff. Mathias, or Matt was a carpenter and actually built all of the older hotels and Sharis restaurants in the area in addition to a good chunk of the older houses, there is actually a hill in Tigard covered in homes he had a part in building. He also built the home in which my mother and aunt were raised and he lives there to this day. Katherine was the child of German immigrants and Matt's parents i believe were born American. Matt's father died from a pneumonia before he was born, he aboard a medical ship during the first world war when he passed away. They were both very ethnically German and spoke the old language (In fact in an attempt to spare us children they only argued in German, forgetting they taught us all the curse words and some other words, so we always knew!") and visited Germany more than once, the name Hatzenbuehler is actually taken from a German village by the name of Hatzenbeal. They were both master gardeners and delighted in growing everything from roses to eggplants in their rather large yard which in reality resembled a small farm. (Once when i was little the cabbage patch was so grown i thought i could crawl around in there under the leaves and make tunnels, i destroyed it and when my Grandma asked what the hell happened i told her the cats must have done it, no punishment was forthcoming, only hearty laughter and story told for years." They were average American people, like something you would see in a Norman Rockwell painting. I am actually very sad about one thing: These two people had many skills they could have passed to me but i never embraced those things, and now with Grandma gone and Grandpa near blind those things they could have taught me are forever lost and i feel like i didnt recognize what i had when i had it. Katherine died two years ago. Their two daughters Janice (Mom) and Aunt Donna are still keeping some of grandmas old ways alive and when ever i eat Schmora and Salat i think of summers and Grandmas.

My Fathers side is almost entirely German with a little Scot. His name is Rollie and his Father was Sgt. Richard "Dick" Singer, 7th Cav, Infantry, BAR gunner and he served in Korea in the Pusan perimeter and was once wounded and left for dead before he made it back to friendly lines. He is the winner of the Purple Heart and the Bronze star, a warrior tried and true. He had many occupations, Sheriff's deputy, cab driver, Department of transportation worker and more. He split up with his wife (My father's mother.) Joanne Lanham, who was a home maker. I know little of Joanne and even less of her parents though i have gleaned that her parents were very typical people and also had that stereotypical grandparent style. The Father of Richard was Louis Singer whos father was Ferdinand. Ferdinand told his son that our family originally hailed from Alasce-Lorraine but migrated to Austria-Hungary after France took control of the disputed territory and after Archduchess of Austria Maria Therese's 1776 offer to immigrants to settle into ethnic villages in Austria-Hungary. Not liking the fact that France controlled German territory they jumped at the offer and the Singer's were off to the land of two kingdoms! Their they farmed and their they lived and laughed and loved. My Great Great Grandfather Ferdinand was called "Der Eisner" "The Iron man" because he was said to be able to wrestle down all the other men in the village despite he small stature. He served in the Army of Austria-Hungary. His brother Jacob "Groz Yokel" Singer was said to have been a giant of a man who on one occasion is said to have without help lifted a wagon mired in the mud. Jacob Singer once made a small firework type bomb from a clay pot and when his prank went bad and the pot exploded with him to near a hole was ripped in his cheek. My great great Grandfather and his brother in law (A man by the name of Bayer.) had to transport Jacob in a wagon to a doctor two villages down. The whole time Jacob complained he wanted whiskey and eventually the two men gave in and purchased him 12 cents worth of whiskey. It is said that through out the rest of his life Jacob drank the whiskey through the hole in his cheek. Ferdinand's wife was Antonia Bayer, who's mother was Anna M Bayer. In 1885 the Singer's moved to the village of Bethlanhaza. Ferdinand was a man who had a passion for growing things and took great pleasure in working the earth and even went on to create his own variety of Rose and was considered to be a master Rose grower, later in Salem, Oregon he would open the Ferdinand Singer Tree Rose Gardens and people came from across the country to see and purchase his roses. In November of 1898 the Singer's and Bayer's attempted to emigrate to America but were turned away at the German border and sent back to Bethlanhaza in a cattle car. Ferdinand enlisted the help of an "agent" to sneak his family out and after a long journey they boarded a small channel steamer in Rotterdam which took them to Liverpool and from there they sailed to Canada where they lived in Saskatchewan until the spring of 1900. They then moved to the area of Bismark, ND where they claimed some of the last virgin land on the prairie. After living 9 years in a sod house and after several failed harvests on which they only broke even they came to Salem, Oregon in May of 1909. They purchased 6 acres of farmland. One of the first things Ferdinand did in Salem was to plant roses and in 1928 after achieving praise from many individuals he founded the F.Singer Tree Rose Gardens. They were his love and his passion and he spent many hours of everyday tenderly caring for his roses. In 1942, ten years after the birth of my Grandfather Richard Ferdinand passed away at the age of 73 and 2 months. Many family members believe it was fortunate he passed away when he did because in 1950 his beloved Roses were wiped out in one night after a freezing storm which resulted in temperatures of -10 degrees.

The Singer's have been in Oregon ever since and we will be here for a long time to come.

Hail the ancestors who gave us the gift of life and a legacy to live up to.

[JeffSinger]

Though i never knew him and he died several decades before my birth i have a deep love for Ferdinand Singer and i consider him my most exalted ancestor.

[Waya Adanvdo]

If anyone's still around, I have a question concerning ancestry and heathenry.

My ancestry is largely European, mainly English and Germanic, which is very physically apparent. However, I also have Cherokee heritage, as well as various other European nations, etc. I take a more folkish viewpoint regarding heathenry. From such a viewpoint, do I have the birthright to pursue heathenry and the AEsir despite that my ancestry is not strictly of the North?