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[Hekate]

295. Pretty much how it was for my mother's side of the family. Dad's side was a bit different...

...with his grandparents on his mother's side coming in from Alsace Lorraine (Dad was born in 1918, so that gives you the range); and his father's side more of a puzzle. Mom-the-genealogist traced his family name to 1750 on the East Coast, and was never able to "get them across the water." I found out after she passed on that that was about the time a lot of Scots-Irish came over, so that might be the case with old James.

Interesting things pop up when you delve into your family. If any tintypes/daguerrotypes/photos exist from the mid-1800s you can sometimes discern striking family resemblances among your kin today. In the case of Dad's ancestor James, I was struck by the persistance of the names James and Robert, right down to Dad's brother Bob. On Mom's side, the matrileneal name Anne has persisted for generations.

And my people evidently had the itchy feet typical of so many early Americans: we don't seem to stay in one spot for more than a generation or two.

I grew up knowing I looked like my immediate relatives, but growing up among Asians and Polynesians I had no idea I looked "Irish" until I visited Boston in my 30s. Visiting Ireland in my 60s was amazing. Whatever the English Dissenters who came in the early 1600s looked like, the stamp on our faces now is that of the Irish who came at the time of the Famine. Other things as well seem to have travelled along the genes.

This is a weird, weird thread. Someone used the term "DNA shaming." I'm beginning to think what we've spotted is that nearly-mythological beast "reverse racism." There is nothing wrong with learning about your family history -- every human being has a story they are entitled to, neither less nor more than any other's story.