Tag: St. Patrick’s Day

Is it my Irish eyes that are smilin’?

Peace from Roger O’Green.

I haven’t scheduled it, but I think I need to take one of those DNA testing kits. I haven’t investigated how precise they are yet, but there are three things I’m hoping to discover:

1) Was the picture on my maternal grandmother’s wall of one of her ancestors, and therefore one of MY ancestors, English or Irish? I’ve heard both.

If the latter, I’d be one of 33.3 million “who claimed Irish ancestry in 2013. This number was more than seven times the population of Ireland itself (4.6 million).”

2) Were ancestors on my fathers side Dutch or “Pennsylvania Dutch,” which is to say, German? Here again, the lore conflicts.

3) I want to get into one of those registers to try ascertain whether I can find a match that will tell me who the biological father of my father is?

Not sure which product, MyHeritage or Family Tree DNA, or LivingDNA or 23andMe or Ancestry.com’s product or something else is the best for the price and will give me the information I want.

Have you folks used any of these products? How satisfied were you with them? What did you learn that you are willing to to share? Your feedback, if any, will probably have an impact in my decision-making.

I’m also curious about why, if you considered doing one of these tests, why you did not? Cost? You already know? Lack of curiosity?

For me, the results might inform my travel plans when/if I ever retire. This is not merely an academic query, though I would like the Daughter, who has relatives she can trace back to the 14th century on her mother’s side, to have a clearer record on her father’s.

Of course, on this St. Patrick’s Day, I’ll always be a bit Irish. They color the Chicago River with my last name, FCOL. Peace from Roger O’Green.

Surname of Green

Sometimes the surname Green can be of Irish origins.

St-Patricks-DaySomeone in my office recently asked me the derivation of my last name. I instinctively knew it was rooted in Great Britain and/or Ireland, but I had not looked it up in a while.

This is what I found HERE.

Recorded in the spellings of Green and Greene, this is one of the most widespread of English, and sometimes Irish, surnames. It is usually of pre 7th century origins, and derives from the word “grene” meaning green.

As such it may be topographical for a person resident by a village green or even a place called Green, or as a status name for a young man who played the part of the mystic and fertile “Green Man” sometimes known as “Jack in the Green”, in the May Day fertility celebrations. In this context “green” was symbolic of youthful ardour, spring, and the re-growth of nature.

Sometimes the surname can be of Irish origins, and a translation of the ancient Gaelic given name “Uaithne”. As this also means “green,” it probably has the same basic meaning and origin as the English form.

Green is the 37th most popular surname in the United States, I’ve read multiple places.

Truth is that I’m not certain of my English and/or Irish roots, though surely I have one or both, based on family lore. But on St. Patrick’s Day, I’m willing to yield to the wearing of the green, just in case.

I really am Irish, I guess

This is fascinating, because all the Census records I came across suggests that she was black.

I discovered only recently that my maternal grandmother’s brother Ernie, born in 1904, was arrested in 1928 near Syracuse, NY and that he spent nearly five years in prison in Auburn, NY. Apparently, he was spending time with a young white woman, her father didn’t like it, and helped manufacture a charge of rape against Ernie.

In the mounds of papers filed in anticipation of him being paroled in 1932 was this “social history” such as his education, his military service (none), religion (Catholic – I did not know that), marital status (single), and family background. His father, Edward Yates, had died in 1910 at the age of 58. His mother, nee Lillian Bell Archer, remarried to Maurice Holland in 1911. (His Census track is fascinating, born either in Texas or Mexico, depending on what Census one checks.)

This, though, was the kicker for me. It indicates that she was of Irish descent! This is fascinating because all the Census records I came across suggests that she was black. Surely she was partially black, but as the rules of the time would suggest, anyone partially black was considered black. And that’s still largely true of most mixed-race people; see Barack Obama, Halle Berry, etc.

Lillian, my great-grandmother though, at least on this document, was Irish, and that’s reason enough, besides my name, to be wearing the green. Oh, and Ernie, who agreed to live an “honest and upright life” married Charlotte Berman, a white woman of Eastern European descent, in 1937, and did just that until he died in April 1954, just 50 years old, when I was but one. I have no first cousins, but most of the second cousins I’m close to, including the one who retrieved this prison record, are his grandchildren, who, I suppose, are all a little Irish, too.
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Creepy old Simon and Kirby comic: Nasty Little Man

Green Light, Red Light

Arthur’s maybe a little Irish

Everyone wants to be Irish, now

It seems more likely at that time that an Irish woman, who was of lower social standing, would marry a black man than an English woman would.

I go through this periodic rushes of interest in my genealogy, stifled primarily by life getting in the way. When I was growing up, I was told I was, in addition to being black, American Indian, probably Iroquois, on both sides; having seen my maternal grandmother, it was quite evident at least in her heritage. I was Dutch on my father’s side, though it COULD have really been Pennsylvania Dutch, which was actually German.

On my mother’s mother’s mother’s side, there is a picture – a daguerreotype, I think  – of a white woman who is an ancestor. She came from the British Isles, but was she English, or Irish? I rather fancied the latter, especially after having read the book The Sweeter The Juice, a true story about an Irish woman and a mulatto man marrying after the Civil War. The Irish had not achieved “whiteness” in the United States right away; it took a couple of generations before beginning to assimilate.

So it seems more likely at that time that an Irish woman, who was of lower social standing, would marry a black man than an English woman would. The particulars of my specific past, however, remain a familial mystery until that purported “free time” I seek allows a greater investigation into this matter.

One thing I could easily do is take one of those DNA tests that I got from Ancestry.com several weeks ago. It wouldn’t likely distinguish between German and Dutch, or English and Irish, but it would be broadly informative.

As you may recall, it was discovered that Barack Obama had Irish ancestors; lots of O’Bama jokes ensued at the time.

I’ve always been Roger O. Green, or Roger O’Green, if you will. Some day, maybe I’ll discover whether I come by my faux designation legitimately.

Kegs and Eggs Riot, plus one year

The solution designed by UALBANY was to have its mid-semester break, not during Presidents Day week and/or around the Christian Holy Week, but rather this past week.

Apparently, for years, there had been these “kegs and eggs” parties, although I had been blissfully unaware of them until 2011. I gather the “point” of the activity was to drink beer all night, have some eggs for breakfast, then continue to “party” through that day’s St. Patrick’s day parades and other celebrations.

Except that, in the “student ghetto” a half dozen blocks from my house, the morning marauding after breakfast turned into a riot; check out some pictures here.

Interestingly, some students objected to the term “riot” for their behavior. Let’s look at the dictionary: 1) a noisy, violent public disorder caused by a group or crowd of persons…, 2) Law. a disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons acting together in a disrupting and tumultuous manner in carrying out their private purposes. 3) violent or wild disorder or confusion. Yup, it was a riot all right. I think some rejected the term because it’s something that someone ELSE does.

In any case, the solution designed by UALBANY was to have its mid-semester break, not during Presidents Day week and/or around the Christian Holy Week, but rather this past week. Unfortunately, St. Paddy’s Day is on Saturday this year, and I have to wonder if a bit of partying stupidly by students will still be taking place tonight. Or last night, for that matter, with students crashing at the houses of townie friends.
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Almost everyone in America deigns to be Irish on this day, whether they actually are or not. As it turns out, Barack Obama, back in 2007 during his initial campaign for the Presidency, found out about his Irish ancestry. “Last year, he traveled with the First Lady to pay a visit to Moneygall, the town of 300 people where his great-great-great-grandfather was born, and jokingly told a crowd there: ‘My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas, and I’ve come home to find the apostrophe we lost somewhere along the way.'”

Naturally, his reelection campaign has seized on the opportunity to sell T-shirts. $30? You’d think it was a rock concert. Or maybe campaigns ARE rock concerts.

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