Living a lie for 60 years or more?

[Rattlecan ★]

You would think a DNA test could settle this.

 

[Shu Fang Bastard ★]

I thought this was thread was going to be about Elizabeth Warren.

Couch

[JerrySTL ★]

I thought that it was going to be about Rachel Dolezal, but she's only 45 years old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal#:~:text=Nkechi Amare Diallo (born Rachel,being born to white parents.

[Wilbur ★]

23 and me could figure her out in 10 days.

[shootingstar]

Copy excerpt of what I wrote in an email to a close friend and was accompanied by a recent group photo myself and some siblings.

...my thoughts are:

*birth certificate can be useful …even if one is only ¼ or 1/8 --if we need to be mathematically accurate.  But that’s only a tiny part of a person’s whole identity.  For sure, mother tongue linguistic fluency is directly tied to identity and can very easily, brings the language speaker  closer to familial culture/cultural history.   We know that language expresses cultural nuances / attitude,  not always easily translatable into a 2^nd language.

*not hiding who your family roots are and being consistent telling folks  This is partially why I believe my family history / stories need to be told with photos and documented by family member (preferably since they can provide far more intimate details of family life than anyone else) before those stories get lost and warped over the decades or every 50 yrs.  Now, Artificial Intelligence software can mine the open Internet sites and now invent more crap.  (I know I sound hard-edge, but this is the danger of AI.)  For now, I view my family stories in a thematic way so it can inform the reader in a broader way. I admit I do have fun telling some family stories in a blog. Every family has some cool stories. And so much more than dates and events.  We need to learn how to tell it an interesting way without distorting the truth, so the next generation might be motivated to carry the story along.

*not hiding physically  your racial/ethnic genetic inheritance.  Celebrate it!  For 100% Asians, I feel sorry for those who choose to turn completely blonde and stay blonde, for a long time.  Jeepers….talk about damage to hair.  1 of my nephews did it for a few months. I was around when I saw his stunning hair transformation.  He was already in his 20’s. Sure, his parents were amused.  So far, no sibling has dyed their hair….we all have some visible grey hair strands in hair. In the photo below, aside me, the ages are 62, 54 (sister on far right).  The young woman is a niece.  There is my brother and another sister not in this photo.

*how a person naturally chooses to incorporate  positive parts of their familial heritage in their daily life / special occasions. And wants to share it with others with  no agenda.

*their relationships with others in general and its authenticity – in all aspects of their life.

 

[smudge ★]

I thought this was @Rattlecan's coming out announcement.

[smudge ★]

She's not a very good liar. Definitely need a DNA test.

[Rattlecan ★]

15 minutes ago, smudge said:

I thought this was @Rattlecan's coming out announcement.

 

[Wilbur ★]

18 minutes ago, smudge said:

I thought this was @Rattlecan's coming out announcement.

Okay, that is funny.  :).

[MickinMD ★]

DNA Tests? Mine are at the bottom and they match ancestral claims.

My grandparents were Irish, German/Alsatian, Poilish and Polish.

My Ancestry.com DNA Test results - which are estimates - have 29% Polish + 20% Baltics.  Since I traced my Polish ancestry to the 1600's in Suwalki County, Poland, near the Lithuanian Border, that makes sense. My cousins, descended from the same two Polish grandparents, all get 1% Jewish from DNA tests. The Suwalki area had a lot of Jewish refugees from Russian oppression in the 1700's and 1800's with Suwalki City being 1/3 Jewish at one point, so that's the other 1% to make 50%.  The 24% Irish takes care of my Irish grandfather.   My paternal grandmother was the daughter of an Alsatian (French/German) father and a German mother whose ancestry I can trace back to 1533, all in Germany.  So she should account for the 13% German and her husband, last name Hartzer, must have been a mix of German, Swedish, etc.

Personally, I find tracing my ancestry very interesting, but it wouldn't matter to me where it ended up - as long as I could put some of the story together.

For example, I can't find a German ancestor past Hans Zimmerer. born in 1533.  It was in the 1500's that most Germans got last names.  Zimmerer means "Carpenter" so it's likely Hans was a Carpenter and I can't trace beyond him because of a lack of last names.

It's very likely that a guy named Grzgorz, the Polish form of Gregory, probably lived in a rural area of Central Poland, probably wasn't well off, and was definitely offered free farmland in the later 1600's in NE Poland, in what is now Suwalki County, by the Order of Catholic Monks who oversaw the area for the Polish King.  The area had become depopulated by wars in the past and the Monks wanted to reestablish a population and gave away farmland.

Gregory didn't have a last name.  Last names came to rural Poland in the late 1600's, and his son took the last name that means "Son of Gregory," which works out to Gryskiewicz.  My research established that the name "Gryskiewicz" originated in Suwalki county and the "wicz" ending was given to rural people in the 1600's.

My maternal grandfather, Joseph Gryskiewicz, fled Poland to the USA around 1906, after he said his friend's live body was ripped in two by the Russians while tied to two oxcarts. What terrible crime called for that punishment? Around that time, there was a Polish revolt against Russian occupation with a lot of Russian officials assassinated.  My guess is my grandfather and his friend had something to do with the revolt and my grandfather escaped.  He must have traveled under an assumed name to escape because there are NO records of him ever arriving in Philadelphia as he said he did and a Navy cousin of mine did thorough research.

In America, in the 1900's, the last name was Anglicized to Griscavage, and that was my mother's maiden name.

[shootingstar]

1 hour ago, MickinMD said:

It's very likely that a guy named Grzgorz, the Polish form of Gregory, probably lived in a rural area of Central Poland, probably wasn't well off, and was definitely offered free farmland in the later 1600's in NE Poland, in what is now Suwalki County, by the Order of Catholic Monks who oversaw the area for the Polish King.  The area had become depopulated by wars in the past and the Monks wanted to reestablish a population and gave away farmland.

Gregory didn't have a last name.  Last names came to rural Poland in the late 1600's, and his son took the last name that means "Son of Gregory," which works out to Gryskiewicz.  My research established that the name "Gryskiewicz" originated in Suwalki county and the "wicz" ending was given to rural people in the 1600's.

My maternal grandfather, Joseph Gryskiewicz, fled Poland to the USA around 1906, after he said his friend's live body was ripped in two by the Russians while tied to two oxcarts. What terrible crime called for that punishment? Around that time, there was a Polish revolt against Russian occupation with a lot of Russian officials assassinated.  My guess is my grandfather and his friend had something to do with the revolt and my grandfather escaped.  He must have traveled under an assumed name to escape because there are NO records of him ever arriving in Philadelphia as he said he did and a Navy cousin of mine did thorough research.

In America, in the 1900's, the last name was Anglicized to Griscavage, and that was my mother's maiden name.

 

Anglicization of non-Anglo last names for some immigrants into Canada and U.S. (and Great Britain) can pose some challenges on accurate research. Especially going backwards from WW II.   My last name has these versions:  Jang, Chong, Chang and few other versions.  The clue is to compare the person's Chinese last name ideogram, against Chinese documentation and consistency across multiple relatives.

I have my full name (first, middle and last) carved  in a name chop for red ink in Chinese.  So do each of my siblings.  It was a gift from a sister who vacationed in Hong Kong.  She asked my mother (without us knowing) to write out in full each of our full names for the HK ink chop producer.

I have a piece of paper which gives, stroke by stroke by my mother, how to write my full Chinese name. YES, it's valuable family history evidence...because we don't know how to write Chinese. Every sibling also has their own stroke by stroke document, since their first Chinese name is different.  (So for an indigenous person if they are interested/ really want that record in their language, is to get it.)

It depends what the immigrant agreed to the immigration  border authority in Canada or U.S. at point of entry.  Of course, alot of the times they wouldn't have known English language, to choose "best" Anglo version. If that makes any sense. 

THis  chop almost got thrown out in Vancouver when I went to recover some belongings after dearie's death.  Below, the whole thing is backwards, because it's a stamp.

[shootingstar]

Why is it important now within a family:

My mother could die any time.  Also there is now multiple interracial marriages in my immediate family and biracial children - grandchildren and now, 2 great grandchildren.  Just even preservation of our family last name in Chinese, to know what the Chinese character even looks like, would be needed to accurately understand family origin.