Ancestral Musings

Yes, I've been neglecting this blog lately.  But DNA fascinates me and I have some things to say about it. First:  No incredible relevations of extramarital relationships or unknown children out of wedlock (at least, not recently) have been revealed by the several DNA tests I have taken:  Ancestry, 23andMe, and Family Tree mtDNA.  However, those tests have pointed out directions where I should have been looking for wayward ancestors. Second:  Ethnicity estimates are interesting but are not yet precise enough to really pinpoint your ancestral homeland (with a few exceptions).  I haven't really learned anything more about those ethnicities than you could readily tell just by looking at me:  northern European, British, Gaelic.  I'm a pretty pale, blue-eyed individual. Third:  It's good to know that your relatives really are your relatives.  But again, I look a lot like my mother's side of the family so no surprises there.  DNA has conf...

 As you can see, I've been neglecting this.  The end of the winter (ha!  Snow was in the forecast last week) brought a raft of medical appointments, some leftover from COVID, some from the arm break, some that had been delayed because of the aforementioned events.  There was sewing to do, books to read, streets to run through.  I haven't done much writing of any kind, including letters, for a few weeks, but I'm beginning to flex those mental muscles again.   Part of the problem was a lack of instant ideas from the prompts but I realized as I was browsing the Generations Cafe Facebook page this afternoon that I really do have an ancestor whose name begins with a vowel:  Alonzo Bert Case (ABC!), my second great grandfather.  I don't know much about him:  he was born in New York City in about 1854, and died in Tenino, Washington in 1916.  Looking at the 1910 census, he was a farmer.  Tenino is a rural town in southwest Washin...

Translation:   I have not yet had to translate anything (or have it translated) because the vast majority of my most recent ancestors were English speakers.  In fact, the vast majority of all of my immigrant ancestors were English speakers.  The exceptions were the Dutch, who arrived in what became New York in the mid-17th century, and the Alsatians who appear, in the records I've found, in mid-18th century Virginia.  With patience, I could probably translate French if that is what the Alsatians spoke but the odds are reasonably good that they spoke German instead. On the other hand, my husband's family are much more recent imports.  His mother's family was definitely German:  his mother Edith's grandparents apparently spoke very little English.  I cannot determine if it was her maternal or paternal grandparents who she knew best.  Whoever it was, they left her with a few German words that would surface from time to time.  Near the end o...