Jody et al., I'm just catching up on this whole discussion, and I saw your comment about not knowing anyone who has connected to a living cousin through a genealogical DNA test with a connection that can also be verified through records. I have, but it's not in a DS branch of my family. I found a close cousin (half first cousin, once removed) that I'd never heard of, and the records bear it out. But that's a really close connection, and it's only because of illegitimacy and adoption that I'd never heard of him. I haven't been able to verify any of the more typical genealogical matches. As for DNA ethnicity, my results had my DS ancestry show up as German with a couple of trace elements (less than 1%)--one of Eastern Europe and one of West Asia. So, if there was intermarriage in my genetic history, it was very, very slight. As far as the whole nationality thing goes, my mother, instead of calling her grandparents by their names (e.g. Grandma Margaret or Grandma Svoboda), called her grandparents "German Grandma" and "Swedish Grandma." Her DS grandparents were simply German in everyone's minds, without any complex geographical, sociological, or historical thought about it. They considered themselves German (almost to a fault). They, along with a bunch of other immigrants from Gross Scham, moved to a suburb of Chicago with a large Bohemian population. Because they had a name of Bohemian origin (from a single Bohemian ancestor somewhere in the 18th century), they were often mistakenly thought of as Bohemian by their neighbors. They found this insulting--they were German, goshdarnit, not Slavs. They had a prejudice that being German was better than being Slav, a prejudice that probably came from growing up in the Banat with the enmity between the German and local Slav populations. Robin

Thanks for the info about the DNA test. My family was flabbergasted when I found that "Vrbanac" is a very Croatian name though we are "German" from (supposedly) Bavaria via Austria-Hungary (Wrbanek is Americanized). My great grandfather who immigrated always thought of himself as German. And many people have assumed I'm Czech based on the name. John Wrbanek -----Original Message----- From: donauschwaben-villages-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:donauschwaben-villages-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of robin pruter Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2014 12:16 PM To: donauschwaben-villages@rootsweb.com Subject: [DVHH] Connecting to cousin through DNA Jody et al., I'm just catching up on this whole discussion, and I saw your comment about not knowing anyone who has connected to a living cousin through a genealogical DNA test with a connection that can also be verified through records. I have, but it's not in a DS branch of my family. I found a close cousin (half first cousin, once removed) that I'd never heard of, and the records bear it out. But that's a really close connection, and it's only because of illegitimacy and adoption that I'd never heard of him. I haven't been able to verify any of the more typical genealogical matches. As for DNA ethnicity, my results had my DS ancestry show up as German with a couple of trace elements (less than 1%)--one of Eastern Europe and one of West Asia. So, if there was intermarriage in my genetic history, it was very, very slight. As far as the whole nationality thing goes, my mother, instead of calling her grandparents by their names (e.g. Grandma Margaret or Grandma Svoboda), called her grandparents "German Grandma" and "Swedish Grandma." Her DS grandparents were simply German in everyone's minds, without any complex geographical, sociological, or historical thought about it. They considered themselves German (almost to a fault). They, along with a bunch of other immigrants from Gross Scham, moved to a suburb of Chicago with a large Bohemian population. Because they had a name of Bohemian origin (from a single Bohemian ancestor somewhere in the 18th century), they were often mistakenly thought of as Bohemian by their neighbors. They found this insulting--they were German, goshdarnit, not Slavs. They had a prejudice that being German was better than being Slav, a prejudice that probably came from growing up in the Banat with the enmity between the German and local Slav populations. Robin ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DONAUSCHWABEN-VILLAGES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message