I\u2019ve recently been taking a trip backwards through time; I\u2019ve been researching my family history. It\u2019s weird what you know about your family, what you think you know and what you\u2019re totally wrong about\u2026.like my family.<\/p>\n
I thought my mom\u2019s family was German.\u00a0 That\u2019s what I\u2019ve been told for as long as I can remember, and I never thought to question it.\u00a0 Her maiden name wasn\u2019t particularly Germanic, but lots of names got changed at Ellis Island.\u00a0 Since her people arrived in the mid 1880s*, I was sure it was the invention of some clerk.\u00a0 Only it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
I called the kids\u2019 Oma last week, she moved here in her 20s from Germany, and announced \u201cKnow how I thought I was German?\u00a0 I\u2019m not.\u201d\u00a0 I said relishing my discovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course not,\u201d she answered, \u201cyou\u2019re French.\u201d\u00a0 My mouth fell open in shock.\u00a0 How had she known what I only just discovered?\u00a0 She told me, \u201cYou look French.\u00a0 In fact, you\u2019re Norman French.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seriously.\u00a0 Why had I done research at all?\u00a0 What took me work she had known instantly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat makes you say I\u2019m Norman?\u201d the Norman me asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou act like a Norman.\u00a0 You talk to everyone.\u00a0 You\u2019ll say the sky is orange just to be able to debate it.\u00a0 Your temper and passions flare hot only to quickly disappear and you\u2019re ready to go break bread with people and have a glass of wine with no hard feelings.\u00a0 You\u2019re so French Norman.\u201d<\/p>\n
I just started laughing at this apt description of my personality.\u00a0 My whole personality was in my genes?<\/p>\n
\u201cNow the Computer Guy,\u201d she continued \u201cis more German than I am.\u00a0 He\u2019s frugal to a fault, stern and serious at work, and has a hard time relaxing from his responsibilities.\u00a0 He has fun when it\u2019s scheduled, but it\u2019s hard for him to lighten up unless the calendar says so\u2026.and don\u2019t try and throw away anything which might some day<\/i> be useful.\u00a0 He\u2019s German.\u201d\u00a0 But that was an easy one\u2026.of course he\u2019s German.\u00a0 We knew that.<\/p>\n
So I decided to test her.\u00a0 What about our friend E?\u00a0 She knows her; we know her.\u00a0 She was raised by distant relatives and can be a bit difficult and prickly.\u00a0 What about her?\u00a0 Who was she? (I knew, because it was her own history quest which spurred my own.)\u00a0 \u201cShe\u2019s Welsh.\u201d Oma stated without a second thought. \u201cHave you ever known anyone to carry a grudge like E?\u00a0 That\u2019s a Welshman for you.\u00a0 They hang onto hurt feelings and grudges like they were family heirlooms.\u201d\u00a0 Of course she was right.<\/p>\n
I grew fascinated by this conversation and began to quiz her about the people we know in common.\u00a0 She pegged the nation of origin of each and every one.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t need to ask, she knew them and had seen them and reeled off \u201cHessian. Italian, but Northern Italy.\u00a0 Greek.\u201d\u00a0 Without batting an eye.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only one who confuses me is L.\u201d She said. \u201cShe\u2019s German\/French but if I hadn\u2019t seen her, I\u2019d swear she was Russian.\u00a0 Nobody can complain like a Russian woman.\u00a0 It\u2019s like the Olympics of complaining to see two Russian women together, and three of them? Forget it.\u00a0 Anyone but another Russian would slit their wrists after listening to that mess.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Americans, we are raised on the ideal of individual determination.\u00a0 People are unique and their personalities distinct.\u00a0 The rest of the world doesn\u2019t think that way, it seems.\u00a0 National identity, to them, is more than home\u2026..it is the key to understanding not just where they come from but who they actually are and why they react to life the way they do.\u00a0 Part of it is our uniqueness, but part of it truly is breeding.\u00a0 It\u2019s a strange thought for this American girl\u2026the idea that my friendly nature is part me, and part the people who have come before me\u2026that my husband\u2019s calm reserve is not just training, but also what made his folks successful survivors in Germany.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s part of what makes being American exciting.\u00a0 It\u2019s as if God took all the temperaments in the world, put them in one place, and then shook them up to see what would happen.\u00a0 The result?\u00a0 A delightful mess of all kinds of voices learning to sing in harmony with each other.\u00a0 Pretty cool.<\/p>\n
*While my Grandma\u2019s kin got here just over 100 years ago, my Grandpa\u2019s folks were among the original settlers of Jamestown.\u00a0 Yup, we were here before the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth.\u00a0 Which makes my still being so easily identifiable as French even more interesting to me.\u00a0\u00a0 After 330 years here?\u00a0 We\u2019re American, but it\u2019s really cool now to know the how and the why of it all.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve recently been taking a trip backwards through time; I\u2019ve been researching my family history. It\u2019s weird what you know about your family, what you think you know and what you\u2019re totally wrong about\u2026.like my family. I thought my mom\u2019s family was German.\u00a0 That\u2019s what I\u2019ve been told for as long as I can remember, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n