My Ancestral Lines
While I know I'm not unique in my diverse ancestry, I do derive a sense of pride as well as fascination with my ancestors, who came from various parts of Europe to settle in America. Initially, my genealogical research focused on my maternal grandmother's New England ancestry, partially because early records for this part of the country are fairly easy to obtain and because I had so much personal family information (documents, bibles, photographs) at my access. Colonial New England is so central to the early American experience that having concrete documentation of one's ancestors from this time is, at least to me, nothing short of amazing. In my limited perspective of such things, these items seem so old!
However, my ancestry extends beyond New England and the British Isles heritage of these early settlers. My maternal grandfather's ancestry is certainly the most exotic legacy left to me, as his parents were of Hellenic ancestry, his father having been born in the village of Vathy on the island of Samos near the coast of Asia Minor. His mother was born in the ancient city of Constantinople, a descendant of the Greeks of Pontos whose Ionian forbearers settled these far shores. To peruse photographs of this beautiful young couple leaves me with great wonder, as their world was so vastly different from my own. I marvel at the strength and tenacity of these young people who traveled so far to realize their own particular dream.
My paternal ancestry is equally intriguing to me. My paternal grandmother's parents were of both early and more recent arrival, the Allreds of North Carolina having traveled from Wales to the port of Cape Fear prior to the Revolution, while my Sorensen and Thompsen great-great-grandparents traveled across the icy waters from Vejle, Denmark to settle in the vastly different land of southern Utah in the mid-1800s. Then, of course, there are the Russells of Scotland, bearers of the name of my birth. My Russell great-great-grandparents came from Lanarkshire, Scotland to the untamed frontier of the Wyoming territory in the 1870s.
So, here you have it, the people who, in part, make up who I am. For all their hopes, dreams, achievements, fears, faults and inadequacies, they are mine and I have taken great joy in learning of their lives. Come back and visit again, because my inquiry is an ongoing journey, and my pages are updated frequently.
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Laurel,
which I am
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