Youngest Twig

#52ancestors
Week 32 Aug. 6-12
Youngest

Exploring Ancestry of Youngest Twig

 By Myra Vanderpool Gormley ©2018 

You know you’re getting old when the grandchildren start marrying and are threatening to make you great-grandparents. 

During a recent visit with the youngest grandson and his bride, the conversation turned to my favorite subject — genealogy. I whipped out some blank charts and began getting information about the newest member of the family’s ancestors. She was able to provide some names, dates and places, and after a few chats with her mother, via phone, added more and some critical details.

 “I’m half Polish,” she told us. 

After the young people headed back to their Midwest home, I began to do some research. I’m faced with a brand-new world to explore. My husband and I descend from old American families — back to the early Colonial period. Our newest family addition brings much more recent lines into the mix. It appears that her families emigrated from Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Germany in the late 19th century and early 20th, and I’ve just scratched the surface.

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 I have no idea where this genealogical adventure is going to take me, but I probably will need to dust off several language guides and locate maps showing the complex and changing borders of those European countries. I stashed them around here — somewhere. 

It’s been a long time since I’ve read ship passenger lists and looked for naturalization papers. This will be fun and a challenge. 

I can hear the accordions playing polkas already.