16 posts tagged “family”
I love Buffalo. In a real sense, it's my ancestral homeland. My ancestors came from Germany, Sicily, Switzerland, France, and England, but they all ended up in Buffalo. Most of my relatives live there still. Buffalo is the "home base" for nearly every family gathering. I have lived in Ohio since I was a toddler, but I was born in Buffalo and it feels like a second home to me.
Western New York is not glamorous. The glory days of steel are long over. The winters are cold and windy and gray. The local accent is too nasal to make it on any TV show that is not the local news or Roseanne. And yet, there's a charm to it, and a deep history.
Anyway, I miss it. And my family. And the amazing beef-on-weck I had at this place over the summer. YUM.
Sibling teasing is a time-honored tradition throughout the world, and has been one of the biggest perks of being an oldest child.
My roommate was telling me the other day about how her older sisters would tease her by telling her she was an "oops" baby. (She wasn't.) My mom and her sisters would tell each other that they were adopted. (They weren't.)
I feel like I missed out on this fun. But when you come from a family where two are adopted and the other two are "mistakes", that area of teasing is pretty fruitless! ;-)
In honor of Bastille Day, we'd like to know: What's your favorite thing to come out of France?
I thought of Victor Hugo, but he was beaten out by:
and
Some 4th of July pictures taken at a family par-tay.
My aunt and 6 year old cousin having fun:
Other cousins and siblings:
I really liked experimenting with these pictures!
I also got some fireworks:
Check out this picture of Grandpa Carm and Grandma Mary. I think they're the handsomest couple...she looks like a silent film star, or Madonna, according to my roommates.
I've been continuing my geneology stuff, thanks to information given to me by my paternal grandmother, and it's been just as fun. She has many, many traceble ancestors since her lineage is exclusively British. I've gotten back as far as 1040, which is incredible. There are also many knights and castles and stuff, which is fun if basically meaningless. :-)
One of the coolest things I found were records of the first immigrats to America in my family, who came over in the 1600s. Many of them converted to the Quaker religion, and one set of sisters were Qaker women revolutionaries of sorts. Here is an excerpt of the sister I am a descendant of:
The oldest sister, Mary, who was 18 at the time of Dyer's death, traveled by herself to Boston a few months later. She went to demonstrate against the hanging of Mary Dyer, who after she had been banished, returned to Boston to continue preaching. Mary Wright, along with several Quakers from Salem, Mass., were all immediately jailed.
The rest of the sisters were even more fierce. I would encourage you all to read about Mary Dryer and Anne Hutchinson in Wikipedia. Their stories are very cool. And it's educational! I had no idea Puritans had laws that put Quakers to death just for being Quakers. Craziness.
Of course, a later relative was disowned in the 1800s for marrying a non-Quaker, so it's a bit of a double-edged sword.
As many of you know, I've always been fascinated with the origins of my family. I love to learn where my family came from, what they've been through, what traditions they brought over. Lately I've been messing around on Ancestry.com. It started off looking for potential Christmas presents (the grandmothers have been hounding me for a list) and ended up with me spending two hours making a family tree. You can start one for free and it links up to other trees with the same people. I ended up finding a lot of overlap between my tree and a few other, more well-informed people's trees. Here are some interesting (to me) facts unearthed about my fam.
- I'm a little bit Swiss!! I never knew that. My great-great-great-great grandfather immigrated to the U.S. from St. Ursanne, Switzerland. Here is a blurb about him:
Dominique is shown on the Buffalo City Directories from 1853 to 1857. His occupation is given as stone cutter. He was naturalized 9 July 1856. A deed was issued for the purchase of property on Batavia and Elm Streets, Buffalo, N. Y. in 1853. The Buffalo Daily Currier published his death notice 8 June 1868- "In this city June 7th at 7 2/3 o\'clock p. m. Dominique Boillotat aged 46 years, 4 months, and 5 days. The funeral will take place on Tuesday, June 9th at 9:00 at St. Peters Church. Friends and acquaintances are respectfully invited to attend." This was also printed in the New Orleans, Detroit, and St. Louis newspapers indicating relatives were living in these locations. Dominique married 14 October 1850 Eleanora Besancon whose family also immigrated from St. Ursanne. They had two daughters Amelia Josephine born 18 Feb. 1853 and Marie born 1851.
- I found out some of the home cities/villages of other ancestors. One set of great-great grandparents from Sicily came from Racalmuto, Sicily. One great-great grandfather was from Steinfeld, Germany. There are apparently many towns bearing the name of Steinfeld, but I'm almost positive he was from the one in Bavaria.
- My great-great grandmother's maiden name was Carmela Vella. How fantastic a name is that??
- Apparently I have many ancestors that hailed from France. There were also quite a few from Quebec, as far back as the 1600s!
I'm in a bloggy mood right now, so apologies if no one finds this interesting but me. :-)
Last year I found out I was a "mistake". I was sitting there thinking, "Aw, my parents are celebrating their 19th anniversary. Wait a minute, I'm turning 19 this year. January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August...huh." Recently my mom brought it up and cleared up lingering thoughts, like how everybody reacted and the fact that no, they didn't get married because of me. (My mom actually found out she was pregnant as she was leaving for the rehearsal dinner. Surprise!)
At first I was kind of embarrassed that it took me so long to figure it out, but on second thought it's actually pretty cool, because I never once *felt* like a mistake. I'm the first grandchild on both sides, and I've always been the apple of everyone's eye. Hurrah for secure childhoods.
It is amusing to me to realize that I was the only unplanned one out of my siblings. I assume my sisters came as a shock to their bio mom, but their arrival was probably the most thought-out of our family! ;-)
My camera made the sun gigantic again.
I'm heading to Florida (yay warmth!) in a week and a few days, and I'm driving. With my family and the dogs.
What I am asking, nay, begging, in this post, is for some music recommendations. Basically I like songs that make me want to dance. Here are some examples of songs I enjoy:
- Flathead by The Fratellis (which is kind of a redundant name, as "fratelli" means "brothers" in Italian)
- Birdhouse In Your Soul by They Might Be Giants
- Pretty much anything by The White Stripes
- Sunny, mellow songs featured in Apple ads, like New Soul by Nael Yaim and 1234 by Feist
- Awesome older songs by The Rolling Stones and such
I have a pretty eclectic taste, but I tend to prefer songs with less digital wizardry and vocal distortion, and I like the lyrics to be semi-clean. Whatever you all recommend will be awesome, though, I'm sure. If you wonderful readers could help me out, that would be awesome!
Also, if any of you are Wodehouse fans, what are some of your favorite books aside from the Jeeves series and the first three Blandings novels?
