1. I currently live in Colorado, which was a mere territory at the time of the Civil War.
2. I was born in raised in Oklahoma, which was in the same status.
3. I lived for about 1.5 yrs in Texas, which I believe was it's owm country at the time.
4. My dad's mom's parents were in Sweden at the time.
5. I'm not really sure about my dad's other ancestors, but my Dad thinks they were in England at the time.
6. My mom's parents own a farm which has been in the family since the land run. I don't know where her ancestors were before that. My brother claims that from her side, there were people who fought on both sides of the war.
7. My husband just got here from Romania this decade, and his ancestors are Romanian and Italian.
8. Last, but certainly not least, I was born over 100 years after the Civil War ended!
...so, based on all of that, how could I be a Yankee OR a Confederate??? I'm just immigrants and pioneers. People - the world is bigger than this!
OK - now that I'm getting into geneology, I might as well re-post this post from an HSA thread in 2005:
My maiden name is Giles (it's greek origin is either shield bearer, or possibly goat skin - I prefer the former), which of course is very English. Supposedly, we are the direct decendents of the brother of the Mr. Giles who tutored Charles Dickens, there are also supposed to be nearly 7 consecutive generations of ministers in that line, also someone who helped in the translation of the King James version of the Bible.
My great-great aunt (who passed away a few years ago, but not before I had the pleasure of meeting her - my family says I'm alot like her) went to her senior prom with one of Calvin Coolidge's sons. Her father (my great-great-great grandfather) was in his mayoral cabinet, and was asked to join the cabinet when Coolidge became governor. He declined because he didn't want to move his family. However, it is speculated that had he accepted, he may have gone on to become vice-president, and possibly even president
My great-great-aunt and her husband were on many TV gameshows. She also wrote a manuscript on the national highway project, which I would love to get my hands on. My great-grandfather worked at Bell Labs at the time of the invention of the transistor, though he was not on that project.
My grandfather was a fire fighter involved in the first academization of fire safety, and wrote much of the fire safety codes/manuals that are in use today, and taught fire safety at the university. My grandmother was a secretary at the university. She started secretarial work by working at the Avon headquarters in New York. They came to Oklahoma from New Jersey b/c OSU was one of the only universities in the country that had a fire safety department at the time.
My mom's parents own a farm in rural Oklahoma which has been in the family since the land run. My grandmother taught a one-room schoolhouse for a short time, as a child she lost her house in a tornado while she and her mother were in the basement. My grandfather taught agriculture at the university. Sometimes they talk about the dust bowl and the great depression.
Somehwere on her side is an ancestor who came from Bohemia (now the Czech Republic?). The rest, as far as I know, were English and Irish.
I also have a spattering of Welsh, and Scottish ancestries - but I don't know all the history there.
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