Interesting stuff

For my birthday, I received some wonderful gifts. Really. I am a lucky girl.

But probably the one that I was the most amazed by was the one my Step-mother really knocked herself out for. She is big-time into geneology. That's not been my interest in the past. But I understand her dedication to it. And my Mom has also gotten hooked.

So she gave me one of the family books for my birthday. And it is really amazing. I found out that on one side of the family I am related to over 800 people in my hometown region. I had suspected as much, as Catholic Slavs/Germans tend to procreate with abandon. But seriously...it's pretty impressive in print.

I also found out that one line of the family comes almost exclusively from Slovenia. The towns listed lack vowels, and might not exist anymore. I'll probably pull out the old Oxford Atlas in a bit and check it out. And just to make all the sectarian violence personal, there's the odd Serb thrown into the mix. And then there's the Austrian and German segments.

This completely leaves out the Scottish, Norwegian and Irish stuff that my mother is researching. But it does explain some of the very old country mental states that I've seen on exhibit over my lifetime. We're just not that far off the boat.

I'm just thankful that I never dated any of the very large network of cousins that I have!!! We'll call that kismet- or being careful- or whatever, and leave it at that!