Gerald- I may be in the same boat as you. Ever since I was much younger (and my little sis is guilty of this as well), I have always thought I was a product of recent immigrates. Well three sets of great-grandparents only started to immigrate to PA @1895. What I didn't know until I started delving into my grandmother's side was that her family has been in PA since the 1730's!!! Even now as I write it, it seems so hard to believe. I probably had very distant cousins in high school that I never knew about. And very possibly, my neighbors at my parent's house were related to us as well. What a small, wonderful world! --Larissa On Thu, 28 Aug 1997 GeraldWR@AOL.COM wrote: > As a child I had no idea of my ethnic background, until a teacher assigned > the class to find their ethnic heritage. My parents said we were German but > came before the World Wars. I was the only German in my school class. Class > mates made fun of me as someone their fathers had fought in WW II. This was > in Ansonia, OH. Pickled eggs was the ethnic food that I knew from pre-school > days in my home, but didn't connect it as anything ethnic until I started my > genealogical studies and discovered my PA-Dutch background. > > Gerald Rhoades > Harrisburg, PA >