Think You Know Your Name?

[tnguy]

1st generation immigrant so I know where I came from. Don't really know about the ancestry though, that seems to be a particularly American obsession (unless you own castles and suchlike).

[RobertNashville]

Back in the mid 1960s; my fraternal grandfather had a professional geneaoligst trace our lineag back to 1600s Germany although the surname apparently has fairly ancicent German orgins going back much further.  As the story goes, my ancerstors either were a "noble" house or at least considered themseves to be.

 

Anyway, as the story goes, one of my ancestors married a "common girl" and the family patriarks kicked him and his new bride out of Germany...they came here and settled in Virginia no long after the Revolution.  There are two spellings of my surname (no one is 100% sure which one is the most correct) and there are approximately 100,000 peple in the country wiht my surname.

 

At the end of WW2 my father stayed in Germany as part of the occupation army (much to the dismay of my Mother) and apparently was able to track down some of the family that still live there.

Edited August 12, 2013 by RobertNashville

[tnguy]

Thing is, if you go back far enough, it would be hard *not* to find some royalty or nobleman in there somewhere.