Genealogy is about personal identity

“Genealogy is about personal identity, not ethnicity.”  I stole my title from this Irish Times article  https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/why-we-find-irish-roots-for-famous-visitors-like-meghan-markle-1.3571339.  This article, which I heard about in the Extreme Genes email, points out how important visitors and people researching family history are to Ireland.

And from there you can go to the Irish Family History Centre at this link:  https://www.irishfamilyhistorycentre.com/.  This site offers a “how to get started” button, research tips, webinars, chat, ask the experts, free digital genealogy magazine, free newsletter…need I go on? 

What if you are not Irish?  I’m not Irish.  At least not much.  I’m Croatian.  More than a few years ago you wouldn’t have heard me say that.  I wasn’t raised to be Croatian.  I knew my grandmother was born in Croatia.  I knew she spoke German and Croatian as her first languages.  I knew she got on a ship when she was five and traveled in leaky steerage to get to Ellis Island.  But we never called ourselves Croatian. 

When my great-grandfather Frank Ferencevic boarded the ship in Bremen, he stated his “Nationality” as Hungarian and his “Race or Ethnicity” as Croatian.  In the subsequent US Censuses his birthplace was Hungary, Austria, then Yugoslavia.  His birthplace didn’t move just the political boundaries. 

So when did I become Croatian?  When I found an Australian whose DNA matched mine and whose great-grandmother Juliana was my great-grandfather Frank’s sister.  When I friended him on Facebook and saw him proclaim “I’m Cro and I’m proud”.  

I only know the World Cup is on when he starts to crow about his national team.  This year I followed the Croatian team to the semi-finals when they were the third smallest nation to ever get that far.  And when they made the finals, my cousin Tom and his father Josip hopped on a plane to go to Croatia.  In the middle of the night Croatians were gathering in the Dubai airport to get home for the final game.  And when they didn’t win, I celebrated being second best in the world and Tom raised a glass with all his friends and relatives in the homeland.  Maybe next time I will get a red and white checked shirt and join the Croatians.

I believe genealogy is about personal identity.  My DNA doesn’t say Croatian.  At some testing services it doesn’t even say Eastern European.  When people don’t chase down their matches, they are missing the hidden gold, the richness buried in their genes. 

We all have roots somewhere whether its lederhosen, kilts, or checked shirts.  Many nations have sites and resources like the Irish above and we can have fun exploring them.