--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On Oct 8, 2008, at 2:26 PM, Hugo wrote: > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > >> > >> My brother is a genealogy freak, and has long > >> been obsessed with tracking down our ancestors. > >> This has been complicated by the fact that our > >> father was adopted. He was literally found on > >> a doorstep in 1918, the year that the flu > >> pandemic that killed an estimated 100 million > >> people worldwide started, so we have assumed > >> for some time that his parents died in that > >> pandemic. > >> > >> He was adopted by a Quaker family, but grew up > >> fairly irreligious, and passed that along to me. > >> So did my mother, who was a Presbyterian in name > >> only. She tried to send me to Sunday School, but > >> I was literally kicked out after a few weeks for > >> asking the Sunday School teacher where the woman > >> who supposedly married Cain in the Land of Nod > >> came from. > >> > >> Anyway, my brother just got back from a field > >> trip to Philadelphia, where he tracked down adop- > >> tion and census records that hint that my father > >> was the son of US-born citizens (which spoils our > >> hopes of getting a "grandfather clause" EU nation > >> passport), but that *their* parents were most > >> likely from Russia, and spoke Yiddish. > >> > >> So cool...I'm Jewish. Oy veh. > >> > >> Not really, of course, since as I understand it > >> Jewish lineage is valid only if passed down matri- > >> linearly, but it's fun to play with a whole new > >> concept -- being at least partly descended from > >> Russian Jews. > >> > >> Mix that in with the established Scot-Irish > >> heritage on my mother's side, and my gene pool is > >> kinda like the result of an unlikely ménage à trois > >> between Sean Connery and Maureen O'Hara and Golda > >> Meir. :-) > >> > > > > Cool, I'm waiting for a website where you just type > > in your name and birthday and it gives you a list > > all the way back to Adam. As it is I haven't had > > any luck, a shame becasue you never know what mysteries > > are lurking in your genes. > > > > I'd be most fascinated to find out my maternal lineage > > but my nobody knows exactly where my Great grandfather > > came from, all we know is that he's from the Scottish > > Highlands and came down south to fight in the "great" war > > and had to lie about his age and whereabouts otherwise they > > wouldn't have let him into the army. Amazingly common > > behaviour apparently, he could have been 14-15 even. > > Trouble is he hardly ever told anyone where he was from > > and none of the family know, so it's a dead end. > > The largest database of world genealogy is kept by the Mormons in > Utah. A couple of years ago we were contacted by a forensic > genealogist and an estate attorney from Utah. Apparently we had a > lost relative who had died with no children. These people had tracked > down the entire family tree--a hundred or so people--and distributed > the estate based on available records and "forensic genealogy." > Pretty amazing to see, as they forwarded to us the entire family tree > on this side of the family.
Wow, that is really something. I didn't know they could do that. Maybe I'll hire me a forensic genealogist to sort it out. Would the Mormons have UK stuff though?
