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Ancestry Research Leads to Surprises
I had no idea these lines existed
For the majority of my life, and especially in childhood my dad always said we were Irish. He guessed we might have some other ancestry maybe English, but this was a guess.
On my mom’s side, an aunt had done some ancestry research and discovered we have Native American lines, Cherokee. Excited by this I decided a few years later to do my own research.
I found the Cherokee line and discovered it went back into, the Powhatan and Shawnee tribes as well. And we were part of the Wolf Clan, was this why I love wolves so much?
Excited by these discoveries, I decided to take a look at my dad’s lines. I knew we were Irish but because his biological dad wasn’t in the picture for most of my dad’s life (long story) we didn’t know what his other line might be.
This is when things got very interesting.
I found hidden family lines
I was able to confirm my grandmother was indeed Irish on her father’s line, her grandfather had hailed from Dundalk, Ireland. But what I discovered was her mother’s line was German.
I told my dad about it and got a blank expression, “No we’re Irish.”