Weeks 14-17: 52 Weeks of Genealogy

Week 14: Language - Polish Grandma Words

My paternal Grandmother was a wonderful baker. When we were kids, she used to make us what we called Punschska's (Poon-sh-ka's) sometimes they were filled with strawberry jam, sometimes poppy seed jam and they almost always had icing on them, but recall them as baked. After I left the greater Wisconsin area, I learned about Paczki's (Poon-ch-ki's) which looked and mostly tasted like donuts, and NOT Grandma's Punschska's. But if you look up Paczki's you find they are traditional Polish fried donuts, filled with custard or jam and iced. Were they same? I don't know, my Aunt saved many of my Grandma's recipes and shared them with me, but there was no recipe for these wonderful treats.

Grandma went to Honolulu, Hawa'ii with her sisters in the late 1960's. It is a long flight from the Midwest to the Hawa'iian Islands. We received a post card from her that noted the long plane ride and commented. "Oh my aching dupa!" Dupa is the Polish word for your butt. Every postmaster between Honolulu and Milwaukee knew my Grandma's butt hurt! We still tell this story and we still use the word Dupa!

Week 15 (Apr. 9-15) Big Mistake

Big mistake? I don't think so, at least, not yet. But, lot's of little ones, absolutely! One of biggest mistakes is inadvertently adding duplicate people in trees. From time to time I go through my people list on Ancestry and do a compare. It would be really nice if Ancestry had a feature to search through your tree and find potential duplicates.

Week 16: Oldest Story - Furthest back generation

My great, great, great, great, great, great, great Grandfather (7x) is presumably Nicolaus Longfils Loffi (1694-1780.) Loffi became Lofy. All of them were born and died in Morscheid, a municipality in the Trier-Saarburg district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. My 3rd great Grandfather was born in Morscheid, came to the US in 1845 and changed his name to Lofy. Though as a preview to the next post on DNA, he lists his country of origin as "Prussia."

Week 17: DNA - Polish, German or Prussian?

My entire life I grew up believing I was pretty much all Polish. Turns out, it's not true! Now we know inheritance is random and I am probably not an even split of my parents, just 50% of their DNA. According to Ancestry, on my Dad's side, I am 48% Central European or Polish; 2% Germanic Europe, this makes sense, they came from the what was Prussia, specifically near Posen and all census data said they spoke Polish and origin was "Poland." Per Wikipedia, the Posen area of Prussia was the only area of Prussia where the primary langauge was Polish.

My mom's side was a completely different story. On my mother's side, I am 33% Germanic Europe, 9% Central Europe and what? 6% Scottish? We knew her Great Grandmother's were also Prussian, but German, not Polish. On censuses they spoke German, country of origin was "Germany." My oldest generation 7x Great Grandfather lists his country of origin as "Prussia" but is a part of Germany today. One Great Grandmother married a Polish man, so I suspect that is part of the Central Europe I inherited from her. My paternal Grandfather is a bit of a mystery as I've shared earlier, but perhaps that is where the Scottish comes in! Oh yes, and 2% Baltics, which was a part of the Kingdom of Prussia.

Given the size of the Prussian area and all of the places my greats were born with that area, I am 94% Prussian and 6% Scottish!

I've talked to my parents about doing DNA tests, perhaps I will try again.