yeah just talk to your grandparents if you want to know this stuff goodness sake. Any ancestral connection to a place past 5 generations is wiped out anyway
It helps that my family doesn't give a shit about where our ancestors lived and care more about how we're related to other members of our ethno-religous group. Like they'll meet someone with a certain last name, ask a few questions about grandparents and your mother's maiden name, and figure out you're second cousins three times removed, that sort of thing. No one's looking back to see which corner of eastern europe they could claim right of return to just because their great-great-great-great-grandfather lived there
yeah just talk to your grandparents if you want to know this stuff goodness sake. Any ancestral connection to a place past 5 generations is wiped out anyway
It helps that my family doesn't give a shit about where our ancestors lived and care more about how we're related to other members of our ethno-religous group. Like they'll meet someone with a certain last name, ask a few questions about grandparents and your mother's maiden name, and figure out you're second cousins three times removed, that sort of thing. No one's looking back to see which corner of eastern europe they could claim right of return to just because their great-great-great-great-grandfather lived there
It helps that I'm largely just from several generations of Polish peasantry. That could feasibly mean anything, but nothing too remarkable.
The three grandparents who are dead, or the one who's descending into dementia?
Or the ones who might not even actually be biologically related, but they might not know that?
How about the ones who were adopted?