I have this overwhelming fascination with finding out what my nationality really is (besides American).  There’s a part of me that feels like I’m missing out on something. It’s the part that surfaces when I go to my friend George Kazas’s Greek restaurant The Parthenon, when I watch French Kiss,  and when I listen to the stories that my boyfriend Scott tells about his Polish grandmother making pierogies (which are delicious!).

Back in September, I was reminded of this again when my cousin Amber (1st cousin, 2x removed) contacted me about a school project she was doing.  She needed to write a generation paper to find out where we came from and how we immigrated here. Her aunt Lisa (of custom screen printing and Fleming photo book fame) suggested that she contact me so she could see the family tree.

Oh, if only it were that cut and dried!

I remember doing something similar when I was in school. I asked my Mom and Dad and somehow ended up with the notion that I was German and Czech from Mom’s side and Irish and English from Dad’s side.

Once I started working on my family tree, things got a bit more complicated.

The KUNZ connection to Germany was almost immediately apparent. My Mom’s paternal great grandfather John Michael Kunz emigrated here with his wife Christinea Winegar from Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany, in 1857.  Definitely German. Their son Hiram Frederick Kunz married another German gal named Amalia Lee. Which makes my grandfather Earl Daniel Kunz German. 100% German. (as far as I know)

I thought that my HARTSOCK (Hertzog) ancestors were from Czechoslovakia, but now I’m almost positive that isn’t true. I don’t know where I got that idea, and Mom doesn’t remember telling me that.  But I guess that’s what happens when you’re in grade school.  Limited attention span.  Now what was I saying?  Oh yes.  So far I’ve traced the Hartsock line back to 1789 Pennsylvania, and that’s it. There’s more info on the web, but it isn’t sourced so I haven’t dug too deeply into it yet.  I checked Public Profiler for this one and it says that Strasbourg, Alsace, France has the highest population of people with the surname Hertzog.  France?  Really? Then I checked… yep!  It’s just West of the German border. I found anothergenealogy site with a great map of the area, you should check it out!

The FLEMING side is supposed to be from Ireland. It sure sounds Irish! I’ve only made it as far back as my Dad’s 3rd great grandfather who was supposedly born in Massachusetts ca 1790. His wife Matilda is listed on Census forms as coming from either Ireland or Massachusetts or Maryland depending on which one you’re looking at.  Upon researching the Fleming name, it’s translated from French “le Fleming”, or “from Flanders” and the first Flemings were 12th century merchants from Flanders.  Surname origin: Norman.  Okay! There’s also an impressive one-name study on the Fleming name and origins at One-Name.org.

That leaves me with WAIT, or in past generations, WAITS. Since the connection to Richard Waite and Sarah Blake has been disproved, the furthest I can follow them back is John Waites who was born about 1730 and married Ann Deloss in Pennsylvania in 1750.  According to the Public Profilerwebsite, the place with the highest concentration of WAITES is in Middlesbrough, North England, United Kingdom, right under Scotland. WAITS comes back with a top city of Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. That sure makes things interesting!

So where does that leave me?

I would say that I’m a Hybrid of 25% German and 75% American.  My other three lines have been in the U.S. for over 200 years. So long, that every other part of ethnicity seems to have been blended into something else. I have my Mother’s brown eyes and my Father’s blonde hair. I was raised in a meat-and-potatoes household with the occasional homemade Runza treat. Heck, I didn’t even eat at a Mexican restaurant until I was in high school! We always ate around the dinner table and if we actually did go out to eat, it was for pizza or diner food.

Yep.  I’m an all-American girl! Yet I still have hope that I will discover what makes up the other 75% of me. That’s the piece that I feel like I’m missing, and probably the reason that I’m so drawn to Genealogy. But I feel confident that through additional research and scientific advancements like DNA Testing, I’ll get it all figured out.  Maybe then, I’ll feel complete.

I dreamed about genealogy all night last night!  Who belongs to who, who lived where, and what happened to William Mathews from yesterday’s post.  So when I woke up this morning, I hopped right on the computer and started searching for people in that family cluster.  One thing led to another and soon I was looking at a list of WAITS marriages in Clermont County, Ohio from 1800-1850.

Very few of the names looked familiar when I scanned the page, but I thought I would transcribe the page and add it to my Wait Heritage Group so others could compare their trees to it.  So I was typing away, and came across this entry.

Charles lost his wife Mary Goble Waits in May 1838, just months after the birth of their 12th child, David.  Another two month later, David died as well.

Catherine lost her husband Michael Moyer at about the same time that Mary died, leaving her with 4 children. Until last week, I had only seen her listed as Catherine MOYER.  Then I was reading through a family reunion book that a descendant of Reason Waits sent me, and she was listed as Catherine Weaver Moyer.  There isn’t a source listed, so I kind of kept it in the back of my mind.

Charles and Catherine married March 23, 1839, according to all sources I’ve seen.  So it makes sense to me that this marriage entry is my Charles and Catherine.  The date is right, the place is right, they’re both widows.  The only thing that differs is Catherine’s last name. I plan on doing more research with the HAYNS last name (it could even be HAYNES, since the entries aren’t without error).  I’d like a couple more sources to back this up, but thought I’d share what I found so far!

The 1840 census shows Charles and family in Jackson Township, Clermont County, Ohio.  They have 13 children between “under 5″ and “15-20″ living with them. What a houseful!

Between 1842 and 1849, Charles and Catherine had 3 more children, bringing their grand total to 19, including the ones who died young.  WOW.

I finally found James G and Susannah (Susan) WAITS and family in the 1870 Census!  They’re in Ohio for the 1860 census and in Nebraska by 1880.  So I decided to look at every census form of anyone with a name anything like WAITS.  There they were in Illinois, of all places!  Pittsfield in Pike County, to be exact.  Thankfully they have a really big family!  They were listed with the last name of WEIT.  Sweet!

My 2nd great grandfather William Henry was listed there at age 26 with his parents and brothers and sisters.

There was also an 8-month old infant named “Will”, born in October 1869.  I’m not sure how he fits into the family, though. In 1880, he shows up again as 10-year old Wm Mathews in Platte, Hamilton County, Nebraska living with his grandmother Susannah and her son Thomas Boyd Waits who is 22 years old and has the “Chills”.

I wonder if he’s Sarah Waits’ son?  Someone else’s tree on Ancestry.com says that she passed away in 1869 at the age of 26.  So it is possible that she died in childbirth.  I’ll have to check marriage records to see if she married someone with the last name of Mathews!

Boy, it sure helps to talk this all out here!  Thanks for listening!

Ancestry.com just sent me an email about a possible match to my great grandfather, Frederick Hiram Wait!  It was the 1910 Census, which I’ve been searching on/off for since I started on him a few months ago.  I thought I’d just let it sit for a while and come back to it when I was ready.  Well, they must have decided I was ready today, because they found him!

No wonder I couldn’t find him!  Every single name on the list was different than what I was searching for.  You’d think I would have gone in and checked again for this census after finding Elvie listed as “Anetta E” and Harriet listed as “Loretta S” on the 1920, but I didn’t.  Oh well, this saved me some time reading through all of the census forms. 

I’ve been hitting dead ends looking for Ray and Roy, so maybe this will steer me in the right direction!  Although it’s a little disconcerting… my Dad was named after his dad Roy Frederick… now his name wasn’t Roy at all?  Then how is my Dad a Jr?  Oh dear…