My maternal grandparents escaped another European war to come to the USA as teenagers from Austria. They met here. Another greatgrandfather came from Sweden. I have his trunk. I wonder about others.
Wonderful story, thank you Glenda! Also have Scots ancestry--my father's relatives from Paisley, prosperous business people, it seems, who wound up in Quincy, Illinois. I still have my Scots-origin grandmother's circular for the Robert Burns celebration that once took place in Quincy. On the maternal side, I have been able to trace my great-uncle's membership as an "intermarried white" in the Chickasaw tribe of Oklahoma, including his access, through this marriage, to specific allotments of land in Indian Territory set aside for natives. The Chickasaws had been removed from the Southeast along with the other indigenous nations that made up the "Five Civilized Tribes." Somehow my great-uncle had managed to marry into a very prominent Chickasaw family, the Burneys [native leaders, elected officials and educators], after which Burneyville OK is named. As children, we ate collops and finnan haddie, fortunately no haggis. No one talked about Oklahoma origins and connections, except for vaguely mentioning a "Choctaw allotment," and no one said whether the "allotment" had once increased our personal wealth and by how much in today's dollars. As a professional anthropologist in the 1980s advocating for the international recognition and protection of native peoples, I didn't suspect all that has come to light so far through my own family history. Full circle.
Although my parents could have taught me a lot of family history I found it out myself by doing my genealogy. It is good to know who you are.
My maternal grandparents escaped another European war to come to the USA as teenagers from Austria. They met here. Another greatgrandfather came from Sweden. I have his trunk. I wonder about others.
Wonderful story, thank you Glenda! Also have Scots ancestry--my father's relatives from Paisley, prosperous business people, it seems, who wound up in Quincy, Illinois. I still have my Scots-origin grandmother's circular for the Robert Burns celebration that once took place in Quincy. On the maternal side, I have been able to trace my great-uncle's membership as an "intermarried white" in the Chickasaw tribe of Oklahoma, including his access, through this marriage, to specific allotments of land in Indian Territory set aside for natives. The Chickasaws had been removed from the Southeast along with the other indigenous nations that made up the "Five Civilized Tribes." Somehow my great-uncle had managed to marry into a very prominent Chickasaw family, the Burneys [native leaders, elected officials and educators], after which Burneyville OK is named. As children, we ate collops and finnan haddie, fortunately no haggis. No one talked about Oklahoma origins and connections, except for vaguely mentioning a "Choctaw allotment," and no one said whether the "allotment" had once increased our personal wealth and by how much in today's dollars. As a professional anthropologist in the 1980s advocating for the international recognition and protection of native peoples, I didn't suspect all that has come to light so far through my own family history. Full circle.