Everyone’s ancestors that recently came from Europe have ancestry that originates someplace in the world different than Europe or western Asia. All of our ancestors originally migrated from Africa but the route to Europe wasn’t the same for everyone.
This sort of thing is becoming very, very common. My neighbor and good friend got a surprise call last summer. From the half-sister, he never knew he had. It was the usual tale, his mom got pregnant as a teenager in the 1960s and gave the baby up for adoption. Nobody in the family knew a thing about it and then…
The past is a foreign country. If you visit it at all, you have to be ready for whatever you find there. The place you think you know can very quickly turn out to be a place you had never really known at all.
This is my wife’s story. She was adopted as an infant in the late 60’s. Found her birth mom through the adoption agency and has reconnected. However, the father was unknown. She did the 23 & me about 6 years ago. Nothing for over a year other than a few very distant cousin links. Then, she got an email from 23 & me that she had a uncle on her father’s side. Long story short, she figured out who her father was, but he has passed over 10 years ago. His family was shocked, which I can’t blame them. He had no other children.
My ancestry on my mother’s side is virtually 100% Finnish with a fair amount of Saami (Laplander) mixed in. My father’s side in a mix of Austrian and Swedish. Supposedly our name Jarl was given to my great-great grandfather while he was in the Swedish army. The story is that his name was Johannsen and there were many with that name. So, to avoid confusion they assigned some of the guys different names. Would like to verify that story someday. Both my dad and my sister have done the dna genealogy, but I forget the exact percentages.
You are only Norwegian or Swedish or English until somebody finds that offensive. Then you will be something else or maybe a European it.
So, to avoid confusion they assigned some of the guys different names. Would like to verify that story someday.
Name-changing and alterations were common when people immigrated. Either by mistake or on purpose. One of the most common was immigration agents often “Anglofied” names to take on the Anglo-Saxon spelling. So Tomas became Thomas, Jonas became John, etc.
The best way to verify name changes is to go back to the records in the old country to find the real names. Obviously, this can be difficult when a name may have been changed, you generally need another piece of the puzzle like the parent names for your immigrating ancestor so you can look at the names of their children.
My great-great grandfather immigrated from Bohemia in 1856. He came with 4 of his brothers, the 5th brother was the oldest and inherited everything, so the other 4 had nothing to hang around for.
All of their names Anglofied when they arrived in Boston. I have not been able to verify what my GG grandfather’s real name was, it was changed to “George”, but there was no such name in common use in Bohemia so it had to be something different.
Just sayin
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