My Journey Into My Past

  I am so lucky!   I know where I came from, without a doubt.   There were absolutely no surprises in two different DNA tests, The only surprise came from a cancer screening, which said there was a small amount of Jewish ancestry, my paternal family has the breast cancer gene.   Once I knew that, I went to my chart and found that my 4 th paternal grandmother was Jewish.   Since there is a high incidence of Askenazi Jewish breast cancer in people from Poznan, it as a surprise, but not really a big one. We already knew there was a multitude of breast cancer, just didn’t know about the Jewish connection. I am also lucky that while I only knew my maternal grandmother, I knew my maternal great aunts and uncles, cousins, 2 nd cousins, 3 rd cousins, and even 4 th cousins while growing up.   I knew my paternal aunts, uncles’ cousins and 2 nd cousins.    I have 90 first cousins alone!   All but 10 of them on the maternal, side.   Most of t...

Translating documents is one of the most difficult tasks in my genealogy research.   I have three Nationalities in my ancestry. My paternal grandparents were both from Poznan, Poland. My grandfather was a first generation American, and my grandmother immigrated at age 19. There is a choice of languages in their documents. The document can be in Polish, Russian, German, or Latin. I do not speak any of those languages. I can look for key markers, like birth, marriage, and death.   I can pick out the ancestors name and maybe glean their parents name, but I either way I   have to find a translator, if I can tell which language it is, or rely on google translate.   The handwriting can also be a challenge when you are trying to get a word translated.   It needs to be spelled out! My maternal grandfather’s family was from Germany. My great grandfather came to the United States at age 12 and spoke German and English. Those family records are in German or Latin. The ol...

  What a treat!   All of my cousins and siblings remember spending the night at Grandma’s house.   I remember one special night with her, it was after she had fallen ill, and she had stories to tell while she still could.   I felt very lucky to be the one she shared one particular story with.   She started talking about my long-gone grandfather, his courtship and their early days of marriage, then went on to talk about her childhood.   She was the third youngest of nine children, born in 1893. While still quite young there was an epidemic, perhaps diphtheria, the disease entered the home, a notice was posted on the door that the family was quarantined and no one could enter.   They could not leave either. I don’t know if others in the family were affected, but Grandma’s three year old brother was very, very sick. When he died,   poor baby Joe was wrapped in his blankets and placed on the porch for the death wagon to pick up.   The family was ...