For those of you who are able to trace their ancestry back to another country...

[ms.pamela]

65. Ancestry

Tommy we may be related, my mother's father was from Ukraine too. I have an excellent recipe for pierogis, just made some for Easter for my daughter and good friends, everyone loves them except my husband, who is Czech and Hungarian, and for the life of me, I can not understand it. He loves my nut rolls but unfortunately, he was told by his doctor to cut out all gluten. So instead of making my nut and poppy seed rolls my youngest daughter found an Armenian bakery in LA that makes small nut rolls and mini nuts rolls so I ordered those for all my family members for Easter and had them shipped all across America. My mother and oldest daughter, who actually is a Scientist and works for 23 and Me went to Ukraine and Russia, twice for my daughter and four times for my mother. We even had 2 young Ukrainian girls as exchange students when she was in 8th grade. I did the DNA test last year and with 23 and Me, you can sign up for medical information concerning your DNA too. I found out on my father's side that I was a direct descendant of King Edward the lst and King Phillip the 3rd of France and more than likely a descendant of the Irish king Mac Donald. Some of my ancestors arrived in America in the 1600s. One of my ancestors had a plantation next to George Washington's father's property and another had a plantation in Culpepper Virginia but I also have a .07 percent of African American heritage, which in all honestly I am much prouder of. There is Cherokee Indian in my ancestry also but 23 and Me does not pick up Indian tribes per se according to my daughter as the tribes hold on to that information pretty tightly probably to prevent too many folks from claiming tribal benefits. I found out that one of my ancestors was a revolutionary war hero and another great-great uncle died at Anthiem at the age of 22. My father's father died from lung problems due to mustard gas in World War I when my dad was just 3 and his mother died when he was just 4. He ended up at a military orphanage in Chambersburg PA. My father joined the Air Force and served in the Korean and Viet Nam wars. He eventually moved back to Chambersburg where he died of Lung cancer from Agent Orange at the age of 70. Recently I discovered a second cousin had died in the Korean War. This is one reason why I despised those jerks who ransacked our nation's capital on January 6th, so many of my ancestors fought for the freedom and liberties of this nation and to see those confederate flags at the Capital made me sick. I will give you my recipe for perogies.

Cheese Perogies

4 cups of unbleached flour
3 large egg yolks
1/4 cup of water
1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
1/2 cup of melted butter
1 to 1 1/2 cups of sour cream

Put the flour and salt into a Kitchen Aid Mixer, beat the egg yolks with water in a small bowl, and add in the cooled melted butter. Pour this mixture into the Kitchen Aid mixer. Stir it in by hand, then add the sour cream and put the dough hook on the mixer. Mix for about 3 minutes. The dough should be soft, if it looks dry add some more water, or half-half, a Tablespoon at a time until it is moist. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and set aside. You will roll this out to about a 1/4 inch and I take a round plastic 4-inch cover from any container that I get from Costco and cut around it with a shape-paring knife. You put your filling ( recipe down further) about a Tablespoon of it on one side and fold it over and crimp the sides. I get 2 cookie sheets out and line them with parchment paper. Dust the cookie sheets with flour so the perogies won't stick. This recipe makes about 45 perogies I cook them in a large pot of salted boiling water and add a little oil in too. When the perogies rise to the top remove them with a slotted spoon on another cookie sheet that has been well-oiled. You can freeze these. I put them into the freezer on a cookie sheet and remove them once frozen and put them into freezer bags. You can fry them up in butter or simply add PAM spray to them and microwave them for 60 seconds or when they are warm but not overdone.

Cheese Filling

Peel about 4 pounds of red or yellow potatoes
Boil and mash them up, add about 1 stick of butter,
some milk and about 2 cups of shredded sharp cheddar,
and 1 cup of good quality American Cheese, (Boar's Head)
and beat with a mixer. Add salt and pepper. You can add onions
or chives if you wish. Some people add other filling such as
Farmer's cheese, mushrooms, or meats.

Pierogies are time-consuming but absolutely delicious. I only make them at Christmas and Easter. You can experiment with various kinds of cheese but I always use cheddar as my base cheese.

Back to my heritage. Since doing my DNA test I have made new friends with several of my distant cousins. I used the My Heritage site to investigate my ancestors and what stories I discovered. My cousin said I could write a novel about it all. In fact, I am writing a book and utilizing many of the surnames of my ancestors in it. The study of ancestry is human history and all of us have our own story. I can trace some distant relatives back to 990 in England and 1080 so far in Germany-Swisserland.I have no Russian in my Eastern European heritage only, Czech, Ukrainian, Hungarian, and Polish. Good Luck with further investigations into your heritage and Tommy, I can also cook up some good Italian homemade pasta too.