Know your roots?

[Wingnatic]

I've dabbled alittle in geneology , but my uncle has done research on the family for around 25 years and maintains a family website . I can only trace my fathers side back to around 1740 in NY where they immigrated from New France [[Quebec) as it sometimes referred to . The name [[Paquet) was changed slightly once they moved to the U.S. which was common back then to make it sound more American . My mothers side [[Trudeau) has been traced back further to around 1398-99 in France and didn't appear again until around 1450 in New France [[Quebec) , probably through bad record keeping back then as its believed they arrived in Canada around 1399 . The name has remained the same for us , but some Trudeau's did change the name when immigrating to the U.S. One variation is Trudo . In the 1700's there was a war between England and France and the English basically chased francophones [[the French) out of Canada , many went to Louisiana where they were know as '' Acadians/Cajun '' and thats where the french influence came about in Louisiana .
My Trudeau [[mothers side) heritage includes such notable people as the late Prime Minister of Canada Pierre Trudeau and cartoonist Garry Trudeau . Below is a few links , first one is my uncle's website [[about 99.9% francophones/French/French Canadian) and the last 2 is Acadian in case anyone may be looking to connect the dots so to speak with the same heritage .
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....s/surnames.htm
http://www.acadian.org/crests8.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acadians

[Jimaz]

... its believed they arrived in Canada around 1399.

Before Columbus in 1492?

[Wingnatic]

I'll check the website , no later than 1450 because I've seen a few

[DetroitDad]

My roots are pretty shallow, Polish and Maltese, and I met my great grandparents that came over here during the war. They, however, never left Detroit and my grandparents had fifteen kids on one side, which then just mixed with all of the many immigrants who came to this region. They were young rebells who really wen't against the grain and crossed the racial lines.

This is something that I'm not sure to be proud of or embarrassed about. My relatives and ancestors got in a lot of trouble for crossing those lines. I have some sort of natural aversion towards not sticking with my own kind. It is my genealogical gift I suppose.

[kryptonite]

Our families have not kept any information about their origins, so I have only hear anything by word of mouth from my grandparents.

My father was from Tennesee, his family supposedly originally came over from Scotland mid-1700s.

My motther's family is from Alabama, they were originally Dutch on her father's side, Cajun on her mother's side.

Any more than that I don't care to know.

[oladub]

That angle of DNA searching for ancestoral roots is fascinating. I sent in my 'Cheek Swabs" a couple years ago and got the Haplotype of R1b1b2. Unfortunately, so far it doesn't exactly match with the other Downings of the same numbers, always a few factors different. But my line came from Devon, and most of the Downing came from further north of the island. Maybe if I go back to BC I'll find a great gramps who worked on Stonehenge...... LOL

Ray, I was curious about what R1b1b2 was so I googled it and came up with a map of Europe showing the male haplotype makeups of every country. This genetic mapping is full of history and dispels illusions about racial purity. The Roman army left its southern European genes wherever it occupied territory. Scandinavians are about 30% Slavic and 4% Asian. Hitler would be ashamed at how small the Germanic component was in Germans.
Haplotype maps of Europe
Discussion of same

The above only pertains to male lines. Female lines are not as varied and for the most part correspond with male lines . However, wars and commerce even affect that. For instance, Icelandic male haplotypes are similar to Norwegians but Icelandic female genes have a much more Celtic genetic heritage. History is again reflected in one's genes.

I once came across a similar map of East Asia. It turned out that North Chinese were much closely related to Japanese and Koreans than to South Chinese. It was on a Chinese link and has since been removed; perhaps for political reasons.

One way or another, we all came here from Africa but the history revealed in genes is amazing. On the the Genographic Project page, there is an attempt to map the historical roots of Native Americans whose ancestors also came form all over.

[kryptonite]

With going back in time, you get 4 different people to research in every generation. On my dad's side I can only get back to 1885 when his grandfather arrived at a German colony in Alabama.

Gnome, do you know if the German colony in Alabama would be Cullman? It's one of the most beautiful cities in Alabama and has an old Lutheran church. Germans settled there to experiment with vineyards but Alabama is too rainy for good wine grapes. So the Germans switched to growing strawberries and other fruits. Ever industrious those Germans.

[Mama Jackson]

Well, my father's family came from Lincolnshire, England. The village of Friskney to be exact-that's located on the east coast of Great Britian by the city of Boston. My dad's great, great, great grandfather was the first born of 12, the only one to make it to maturity. He left once his father died, his mother remarried, the son married his sweetheart and left for the US. His wife had family already settled in Oakland County-Milford on land where the GM Proving Grounds are located now. They settled in that area with her relatives. I traced his lineage back to 1700's. I even visited the village where we came from a few years back, it's a farming community. Checked out a few cemetaries trying to find my relatives and found the name. Tried even to find some living relatives but didn't have time to place the calls. I did find his wife's family relatives name in the cemetaries also. Would love to go back without being rushed, visit and live in the area. I would love to hire someone to do the research with me.

[Wintersmommy]

I am blessed to know a TON about my family. As it turns out wealthy people leave a pretty good trail. My paternal grandmother and I were very close and she happened to have been born into a family of means. They [[and she) left behind fabulous pictures, antiques and memories for me to enjoy and pass along to my daughter someday [[God willing she cares about them and preserves them for future generations)

I can trace my grandmothers paternal line back to 1694 in Quebec and to 1724 New York
and her Maternal line to 1810 New York, Almost all of the pictures and family treasures I have come from these lines

We are very strongly French and German on my Paternal side , and English & Norwegian on my Maternal side. Being that my Maternal Grandparents died when I was very young I never had a connection to this side of my family, and only researched my paternal side. Though I do have several family Bibles from Norway dating back to the mid 1800's from the mothers side of the clan.

Most of my family setteled in the Toledo area from the 1850's to the 1950's when my father and his parents moved to the middle of nowhere [[Houghton Lake). As far as I can tell I have limited Detroit connections. One ancestor is recorded as being born here in 1771 and another in 1777, they came by way of Quebec and passed on through to OH.

As I mentioned before wealthy people leave a trail, and that trail led me to a little town in OH called Elmore. In Elmore OH is a little library, and in that library are volumes and volumes of my family history preserved by a saint of a women who recently passed away. In her honor the library is preserving and digitizing their genealogy records
So far they have scanned 55 records & pictures [[ there are hundreds) belonging to my family

Also in the lovely town of Elmore exists the family homesteads still intact and still being lived in!!
My Family owned a good deal of farm land 260+ acres and built a farm house that is still standing and the land is still being farmed
In town they had a beautiful city home that has been broken up into apartments. Its still standing though and looks much the same now as it did then.
its the 2 story brick house on the south west corner
http://maps.google.com/maps?layer=c&...O5-CyQSbr4D9DQ

My prized possession, and the 1st thing non living that I will grab in case a fire breaks out in my home is a christening gown that has been in my family since the early 1850's. I was the last family member to be christened in it in 1979. 130 years worth of babies where Christened in that gown and I find it absolutely amazing that it has survived all these years intact. About 2 months ago I contacted the DIA in hopes they could lead me to a textile conservationist that could tell me how to preserve it. Long story short but my gown is now being worked on by the head of Textiles for the museum and I get to pick up my restored gown in 2 weeks! I am beyond excited to see how it looks with all the extra TLC. Hopefully it will last another 150+ years.

A few of my family members were promient in Toledo belonging to things like the Toledo club and a yacht club of some sort, and one even helped to start a railroad.
Theodore Scmitt was my great great grandfather and he helped to start the Toledo, Port Clintion railway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo,...keside_Railway
he and his son where also featured in the Lucas County Biography[[s) Theodore Is the one that brought the christening gown to the US and his son Theodore was the 1st child on US soil to be baptized in the gown. I have a picture of him in the gown when he was baptized in 1883
http://www.onlinebiographies.info/oh.../schmitt-t.htm
rumor in the family is that he and his brothers owned a great deal of miami beach [[ i have tons of pics from my grandmother there in the teens and 20's ) and sold large parcels of land/beach to the state of Florida and split up a large share of money between family members...some were said to have lost a fortune in the stock market crash. I cant find proof of any of this however

[Wintersmommy]

I do have a question about a relative that married a Detroiter and Died here shortly after...

her madian name was Clara Dolph and she married a Mr. John H Laurie. They were married on Dec 17, 1891 in Elmore OH but the couple lived in Detroit, it was said that Mr. Laurie was from Detroit

I have a very hard to read photo copy of a newspaper article about the couples wedding that details every gift they got and who it was from, what the bride wore and who attended and who couldnt attend, who sent flower arragements and what they looked like ect..

at the end of the article it says
" Mr. Laurie is a contracter and builder from Detroit, a gentleman of fine ability and appearance, and Mrs. Laurie is too well known in our midst to need an introduction, born and reared in our village. Her parlor has been always wide open to her young friends and it will be long ere they forget her hospitality.
On the 7pm train they left for Detroit, where the groom has in readiness a home for his bride. May the fires of true love never go out upon thier hearthstone and in the close of life may they something somthing somthing with hands."

I would like to find a copy of her Obit and some info about her husband...maybe even where they lived in thier short marriage. I believe that Clara died in Detroit in 1897 and had no children
where would I go to find out info about thier life in Detroit?

[Ray1936]

Wintersmommy....that's a great story, and how fortunate you are in having all that family history. I can pretty much equal it, but it's taken fifteen years of heavy research....just hope my future generations will maintain it all.

That christening gown is priceless. The best "family antique" I can brag about is a 1859 tintype photo of my great grandmother, Hannah. When I look at it and realize it's been sitting god-knows-where for 150 years, my head spins.

[Wintersmommy]

Wintersmommy....that's a great story, and how fortunate you are in having all that family history. I can pretty much equal it, but it's taken fifteen years of heavy research....just hope my future generations will maintain it all.

That christening gown is priceless. The best "family antique" I can brag about is a 1859 tintype photo of my great grandmother, Hannah. When I look at it and realize it's been sitting god-knows-where for 150 years, my head spins.

Ray she is beautiful!

I feel increadibly blessed that so much of the research was already done for me and the trail was easy to follow...I think that I am going to look into my paternal grandfathers history next. They were from the "other side of the tracks" and he married my grandmother in a shotgun wedding *hint hint* I know they were German and I know they owned a bar in Toledo but beyond that I have very little info on them

My mother and I got into a very heated argument [[mostly the heated part was on my end) when I was cleaning out her basement looking for a yearbook after my dad had passed. I got to the bottom a pile of JUNK near the floor drain and low and behold I find a squished cardboard box with blue plastic sticking out of it. I almost threw it away but when I opened the box guess what I found? yeap the christening gown...I stomped up the stairs and asked her why the h*ll this was in the basement on the floor next to a drain...her response was well it was in plastic ans she didnt know where else to put it. UUUGGGHHH I was angry
Turns out when I took it to the DIA the curator told me it was in excellcent condtion for something so old and its location for the past 30+ years had acutally perserved it, the area was dark, dry, cool and free of bugs.....How this stuff survives is beyond me!

However not one drop of that money ever got handed down LOL

[Wintersmommy]

Here is a picture of the house that is still standing in Elmore, OH
and its owners my GGGG GrandParents
Aaron & Lovina Dolph

[Ray1936]

"However not one drop of that money ever got handed down LOL "

Yeah....that's my story, too! Lord, they were cattle dealers, home builders, and county commissioners, but nary a nickel trickled down!

Great photos. Each one is a treasure and a snapshot of an instant of time, long gone by. I've been fortunate in digging up quite a few, aside from what were in old family albums.

[Wintersmommy]

"However not one drop of that money ever got handed down LOL "

Yeah....that's my story, too! Lord, they were cattle dealers, home builders, and county commissioners, but nary a nickel trickled down!

Great photos. Each one is a treasure and a snapshot of an instant of time, long gone by. I've been fortunate in digging up quite a few, aside from what were in old family albums.

Really Ray where does it all go?? In the case of my Grandmother she went from living high on the hog to marrying the son of a saloon owner, and just that quick all the money and upbringing were gone. I have not had the fortune of meeting the other branches of the family, so for all I know they could have all the money? Or perhaps in the span of a hundred or so years it just gets chipped away...either way we are lucky enough to live/know their legacy

I find all of this very interesting...I could look though peoples family history all day

[Lferg]

Hi Wintersmommy,

Try an archive search in the Detroit Freepress for the obituaries. I ran a quick search and found 8 hits for John H. Laurie.

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/freep/advancedsearch.html

Also, check the record pilot site at Family Search, they show a John H. Laurie who was a widow as of the 1900 census.

http://pilot.familysearch.org/record...art.html#start

You may get lucky and find a death certificate on www.seekingmichigan.org, but make sure you use the advanced search features to narrow down the hits.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

[gnome]

Gnome, do you know if the German colony in Alabama would be Cullman? It's one of the most beautiful cities in Alabama and has an old Lutheran church. Germans settled there to experiment with vineyards but Alabama is too rainy for good wine grapes. So the Germans switched to growing strawberries and other fruits. Ever industrious those Germans.

Yep, Cullman it is. The bride and I took a visit about a year ago and met up with a cousin who still lives on the old family estate. The great grandfather gave/sold the property to build St. Bernard College.

To be truthful I didn't find much charm in Cullman. Sort of a peckerwood backwater valhalla, but interesting nonetheless.

[SMRJim]

I haven't read through all the posts, so someone may have mentioned this, but the Mormons keep all kinds of genealogy-related records [[no, I'm not Mormon). I started looking into my roots after my mom passed away, and found some things at the Mormon Library - I don't think that's the actual name, it's on the west side of Woodward near Lone Pine. My dad's family was from Ireland, and I found a census form from 1901 that had my great-grandfather's family listed. Obviously there are lots of web resources now, much more so than when I was researching back in 2003. Someone on my mom's side did the research back in the early 1900s and I have a whole book about the Schermerhorn family going back to the 1600s.

[Wintersmommy]

Hi Wintersmommy,

Try an archive search in the Detroit Freepress for the obituaries. I ran a quick search and found 8 hits for John H. Laurie.

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/freep/advancedsearch.html

Also, check the record pilot site at Family Search, they show a John H. Laurie who was a widow as of the 1900 census.

http://pilot.familysearch.org/record...art.html#start

You may get lucky and find a death certificate on www.seekingmichigan.org, but make sure you use the advanced search features to narrow down the hits.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

Awesome thank you for the advice

[mikefmich]

Only speaking to my Detroit roots.....
GG grandparents ran a large orchard-farm along Connors Creek. Farmhouse was on Connors just w. of Harper, extended down to Chandler Park.
John & Elizabeth Vokes Johnson. Same family as Judge David Vokes of Recorders Ct. fame. Vokes also owned the brickyards on Gratiot nr. Belvidere before that area was part of Detroit. Judge Vokes had written a little book on those brickyards some 45-60 yrs ago.

John & Elizabeth had 9-10 kids, 4 of which married into the Beaubien & Binge family...Beaubiens being part of the old French crowd, and Binge being of radio fame in mid-20th century.

My other Detroit branches were some hard drinking Belgians that immigrated in the 1870's...Van Leeuwe aka Van Lyon aka Lyon. One was a fine woodcarver, the rest tended to saloons, bookie joints, racing pigeons, and other such endeavors. Most were located along the Dequindre ditch from Eastern Market down to the riverfront. They all attended Lady of Sorrows on Meldrum, where Mass was given in Flemish. That is...on Sunday mornings they managed to get up. lol

[tponetom]

Ray 1936
Your original post caught my eye and curiosity ensued. To wit:
Circa, 1940.
Murray Street, our side street playground. Four houses on the north side and two houses and a four family flat on the southern side of Murray, sandwiched in between two alley intersections.
Brothers Danny and Tommy Downing lived in one of the houses with their parents. I was 12 years old and the brothers were about ten years my senior.
In previous posts I mentioned the plethora of young males in our neighborhood, ranging in age from 5 to 25
Danny and Tommy were the oldest and they were nonpareil as roll models for us younger boys. Educated, polished in their speech and actions, and good athletes.
When the "big guys" were playing a game of 'touch' football, they would always call a couple of us kids to play with them. WOW! That always got our little hearts pumping pure adrenalin.
If Danny and Tommy were typical of the "Downing" blood line, it must be blue blood. You know what I mean.
A second thought. Another neighborhood "good guy" was an outstanding athlete. Same age as the Downings. Also, A Detroit Police Officer. The spelling of his name is suspect. We always called him ART, and we thought his full name was Artendale Lenzie or something to that effect. He must have been born around 1915.
I often wonder about those 'good guys'.

Final thought. McClellan Ave. - McMillan ???? Hmmm

[SCS_Scooter]

I can only document back to England in 1747 when Martha Kendall was born. She is my GGGGGGGGrandma! I am addicted to Ancestry.com. I can spend hours on there perusing all the documents and stories.

[G-DDT]

Cincinnati [[Hamilton County) Public Library has a huge genealogy department at it's top floor. That letter and three numeral prefix to your DL# applies to your name and genealogy code. Always a wise thing to pay attention to those who pay waaaay too much attention to geneaology. This was a biggy for the Eugenics movement in this country.
As for me, I was told my great-great grandmother on my mom's side used to sing opera for the court of Romania, back in the day. Always been a string of illustrators going down my dad's side.
When I was growing up, I hated when kids said my ancestors used to own their ancestors. I had to squint and strain my childhood brain in an unusual way to come up with these three common sense points: 1.) My ancestors came to this country in the early 20th century. 2.) They were too poor and huddled in cramped conditions, much less hire a servant. 3.) -and whatever my ancestors did has no bearing on who I am today-so, stow the "sins of the father/sins of the son"-"fruit doesn't fall far from the tree" crud-ideology that so many Eugenicists and conservatives thrive on in their anti-biblical way [[check out Ezekiel 18).

[carolcb]

Part of me feels bad for asking you all this - but I guess at 58 I should be past that. In August I finally found out through my birth mother who my birth father is. I went on Ancestry but it seemed like he didn't exist.
So here is my question - does anyone know of a William Hodson? Lived in Grosse Isle or Trenton in 1956? Was stationed at the Naval air base there? My uncle also said that he worked at a car dealership in the downriver area in 1956. I have known who my birth mother is since 1982 or so - she is from Trenton - wants no contact and so it goes. If anyone could give me a smidgen of information I would appreciate it. I do think he has passed in 1993 - but I would like to know if I have any other living relatives as well. If you want to know how I found out, I sent a letter to my birth mother saying this is the least you can do, and she answered the letter. Thank you for reading this and sorry for breaking the topic in a sense.

[carolcb]

Thanks for all the input and ideas. Thanks for the caring!