The Black Irish.
They don’t all have red hair.
One of Michael Connelly’s recent books is Fair Warning, about a mob akin to 23&Me who were definitely using the results for nefarious reasons.
One Christmas I gave mum one of the DNA testing kits. She loves that sort of stuff. Passionate science loving atheist.
We had Christmas dinner at my aunt’s place. Hillsong religious comically ill-informed.
Aunt brought her friend from church. South African bloke who had fought in the SA army against the blacks to keep Apartheid intact. He had been married for a very short period until his wife divorced him, but he vowed to never remarry because god doesn’t believe in divorce. Extremely holier than thou, absolute definition of a moral hypocrite.
I cannot stress how magical the moment was when my excited mum started explaining a DNA ancestry kit to the most fundamentalist insane Christian I have ever met. Oh how I wish there’d been a tv camera. Absolute comedy gold.
7 Likes
My brother spent a lot of time doing our father’s side and traced it back to the fishing village of Bantry in County Cork, Ireland.
The family name back then had an O’ in front of it, which disappeared at some point when more recent ancestors moved to England.
1 Like
I have found a string of behaviour in many of my ancestors.
My Paternal Grandmother was married at least 4 times having 10 kids from 4 different blokes. Paternal Grandfather was married twice before he married GrandMa. Through DNA testing from a 2nd or Third Cousin in Qld, who has been married three times and her journey has been very similar to mine. And there are others who have multiple visit to the marriag ealtar and are not keen to discuss it. My Qld Cuz and I agree it does indicate a major genetic flaw in both sides of the Family.
3 Likes
I started researching about 11 years ago. I have two Tasmanian convict ancestors (one male, one female, who married each other). “Australian Royalty” as Jack Thompson put it.
So, based on them and a couple of other ancestors as far back, I’m either 5th or 6th generation Australian. Are we counting from the first person to arrive or the first person to be born here? (Seems a bit harsh on the families that came with young kids if they don’t get counted!)
That happened with my grandmother’s older sister and younger “sister”. I think that sort of thing was relatively common. I was watching 'Who Do You Think You Are" recently and it happened in Natalie Bassingthwaite’s family.
1 Like
The other thing you find, or we did in my Family, that birthdays and marriage date are often close. My Cuz worked out that in one branch of the tree of 10 brothers and sisters, six out of seven girls either had very early babies or were pregnant and two of the three boys in a similar situation. And the big shock was that I had celebrated my older sisters birthday in December for years to find she was born in August and my Parents wedding anniversary was not in April but in late May. I have not mentioned it to my Sister yet, but if LNP win the next election, I will do it election night.
6 Likes
Your name is Mr/s BITV?
5 Likes
When there weren’t any wedding pics to be found …
1 Like
Actually Big A, I do have wedding photos of Mum and Dad, none show her in profile though.
2 Likes
Is it dated?
Nah , but their marriage certificate is !!
1 Like
I’ve checked back and discovered that half of my descendants were boozers, whores, gamblers, womanizers, rackateers or gigolos.
The other half never aspired to anything.
6 Likes
Righto, George Best.
3 Likes
My great grand father got married for the first time at the age of 59. Then sired 8 kids. Certainly made up for lost time!
2 Likes
So I can count 7 generations counting from the first ancestor born in Australia (1811), with all great-grandparents born in Australia and only 4 of the great great grandparents born overseas (all from the British isles - very white bread).
Most disappointing thing is knowing one ancestor made a monster fortune in Ballarat during the gold rush. But lost it all on unsuccessful further mining speculations, and who knows what else. (Actually we do know, I think he drank so much of it he ended up buying the pub and living out his final days as a sozzled landlord.)
1 Like
I’m pretty much a mutt. My mother is Polish-Norwegian with some German and English thrown in - we have one line that traces us back to the 6th Earl of Spencer or something like that, which actually makes us (very) distantly related to Princess Diana. My maternal great-grandfather migrated to the US from Poland in the early 20th century. I didn’t meet my mother’s father until he was literally on his deathbed. He had a family full of golfers who he never knew, which woulda been nice for us since he was friends with Arnold Palmer and had played Augusta National a few times. But he was also a Nixon-loving fascist D-bag, so…
My mum’s great-great-great grandfather and uncle on her dad’s side came from Norway and settled in Decorah, which is this super Norwegian enclave of a town in northeastern Iowa. They both fought in the civil war… on the good side.
My surname and lineage on the paternal side go back to 17th century Scotland… I am descended from the Clan Rose of Kilvarock. We still have a big-■■■ castle near Loch Ness that I really need to see before I die. They migrated to the US and settled in Dickinson county in southwestern Virginia, where hordes and hordes of Roses still live (some of which marry their cousins). A lot of them were coal miners or coal truck drivers. My dad’s mother is from a family of Swedes and Germans who grew up as dirt poor watermelon farmers in Oklahoma. A recurring theme in my family is that a lot of us came from very, very modest means.
And now I live in Australia with two American-Aussie sons and a wife who is 1/4 Scottish and 1/4 Cornish. My father-in-law grew up in Strathmore on the same street as Ken Fraser and Mark Harvey’s parents and saw Coleman play. My mother-in-law grew up in a house with Archie Roach.
6 Likes
My great-grandmother’s sister came out from England with her and her husband, my great-grandfather in 1868. They settled in Ironbark in Bendigo and the sister married the gold mogul of Bendigo. When he died in 1906, he left a fortune of six million pounds, and my side of the family didn’t get a zac of it. The family home has been privately restored and hosts lunches, teas, tours etc every fortnight or so in season. Fortuna Villa is the name.
My paternal grandmother’s family is from Newlyn outside Ballarat. I gather they immigrated before the famine.
1 Like
You’ve beaten me by about 30 years and only 5/8 great-grandparents were born in Australia. I’m 3/4 English, 1/4 Scottish, but my wife’s side is Italian, so I’m mixing it up a bit! 
So you must not have given your kids a good example then
1 Like