[Volfe]

Hey no fair... how'd I miss this thread ?


I think knowing one's heritage is great! And if you grew up in a different culture than, hey, now you have a great new adventure in discovering the 'new' heritage...!

I have such a mix but I stick with the Irish. The hair reflects that. LOL... I wanna go visit! Let's all go visit together! Dad's working on the Early Lousiana/ Spanish/ Canary Island information so I'll have plenty to tell the kids when they are older and into that stuff.


And I love the celtic knotwork... And the Book of Kells artwork... and and and... My middle name is our clan name, a castle still stands on a coast of Ireland. I find that so intrigueing.

Yanno, once I told a teacher to pronounce Celtic with a K sound. She didn't believe me... she said she'd have to look that up. Duh.

So glad to see the Irish contingent.

Maia

PS Irish or not, most everyone gains Irishness on St. Patty's Day! (at least in New Orleans they do).

[pamalou00]

I didn't mean for my reply to sound rude. It wasn't meant that way at all.
Next year I plan to take my three daughters to Scotland. My husband passed away last year and he never made it to Scotland so the girls and I are going to scatter a lock of his hair in the highlands while we are there. Then a part of him will always be in Scotland.

I told my girls I want a celtic harp for christmas. My Mom asked me whatever for? I said, to learn to play it of course.

[mamottawa]

funny story
Something funny happened to me last year during st-paddys, and NO its not because i had drank . I was walking down the street and some people just wished me a happy st-paddys and wondered " what part of Ireland are you from"? I was very surprised. I was born in Ottawa, Ontario and i didn'T know these people. I couldn't figure out why they'd say that.

The only explanation is maybe because of how i look ( dubious i know but still). Bright red beard( even though i have natural brown curly hair) and i happened to wear an Irish hat ( don't know what's its called though.) I just found it was funny to be "identified" by strangers hehe

M-A
Ottawa,Ontario

To Pamalou00, don't worry hehe. I think what you and your girls plan in doing is amazing, congratulations.

[pamalou00]

M-A...Love the story. My husbands hair was sandy blonde and his beard was red, so yours doesn't surprise me at all.
Thanks for what you said.

The one thing I am curious to ask my bmom is why she didn't give me a name on my original birth certificate. It kind of made me sad when I received it and I had no name. But as always, life goes on.

I hope everyone who reads this has a wonderful Christmas.

[Volfe]

Pamalou -

Sometimes we feel we have no right to name the baby. Or sometimes bmoms are TOLD they have no right, and sometimes, like with my son, I felt it was meant to be for him to be raised with them... and it was meant for them to give him his first - and only - name.

With my daughter her father named her - and I find that special. Though of course her amom insisted her name was the name they gave her... very selfish but regardless, she will always have two names whereas my son has but one.

Also, I'm a terrible 'namer' !

Mam - I think that beard IS your Irish side coming out...!!
Pam - I hope you get that harp I think I'm jealous now...

Maia

[mamottawa]

harp eh?
I can'T help but wonder where one could acquire a harp.... a music store? Wal Mart . I know where i live in Ottawa, there is really cool Irish Store ( O'Sheas Market Ireland) that has traditional irish clothing and information on different family trees from Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Wonder if Santa could give me a bagpipe for xmas without calling the noise police on me...



Still, when i look at my non-identifying info, there is something that surprises me a bit. It says that my bio-mother hoped that i would be adopted by a catholic family. ( fyi: the agency that placed me wasn't a religious one). Although i was adopted by a french quebec family, i find that a bit curious but somehow satisfying to know that she DID want something for me and i guess for that i'm grateful.

I wonder if religion is of any particular importance to Irish people ( protestant or catholic for that matter)

[pamalou00]

[Edited To Remove the URL to a Retail or “Fee Based Service” website.]

Please remember that the posting of Retail Websites on the forums is not allowed, this includes links to eBay auctions.

[InionGrinn]

I recently got my non-id info revealing that both b-mom and b-dad were from Ireland.... apparently my bdad is still there and bmom may have emigrated here in the '70s. I love finally knowing that and am still getting a handle on 'being' Irish -
like other posters here I also feel influenced by my parents' nationalities/cultures of German and Italian.

MamOttawa - YES religion is very important to many Irish. My birthmother also requested I be adopted by a Catholic family, which I was. Additionally, I found out that I was baptized by my birthmom before I was adopted! I was also named - you guessed it - can you get any more Irish Catholic than.....Mary? Yep! I was re-baptized by my adoptive parents. Maybe so they could have a party.

I've had those little Irish incidents throughout my life. I love yours!

[Pathfinder]

I, too, am now able to claim my rightfull roots as Northern Ireland'r. And the line has been traced, so far, back to the late 1700's.
Something that I was never able to acknowledge in the past. This gives me a place and time. I am now a member of this ground. I belong to this world and it's history, in a way that I never knew existed. The concept was always so, well, foreign... but not anymore. This is a further affirmation of my place. I am real!

[tricia3]

Scots - Irish thru and thru , up one side down the other.

I'm suprised at what a historian I've become, since locating my family and learning my heritage. I spend wwaaayyyyy too much time in cemetaries and on a popular website you've all heard of, combing over census records and anything else I can dig up on my subject. The other day while working on my families trees I discovered that 100 years ago my a-family and my bio-family actually lived in the same town, in a rural part of NC. I often wonder if they knew one another.
It is an incredibly powerful thing to know ones heritage when it had been denied all these years. And too many people take this knowledge for granted.IMO, who your people were is a very important thing. How they lived, where they worked, who their neighbors were..... to me knowing these things are important.

[Averne]

I realize that this is an old thread, but I felt compelled to jump in with the Irish love! I discovered my real roots last year when I met my birth mother for the first time.

The interesting thing is, my amom is full-blooded Irish, and I've always felt a greater affinity for her side of the family than for my adad's non-Irish family. I've always had a deep love for the Emerald Isle; something about it felt like "home" to me. When asked the Big, Important Question of my heritage when I was little, I always replied that I was one part Irish, one part English, and the rest of the way American (my bmom's place of birth was listed as a location in England on the copy of my original birth certificate; turns out her father was in the military, stationed in England at the time of her birth, so she wasn't really English, which is fine by me! That leaves room for more Irishness in my blood!).

It's so empowering discovering your true bioligical roots.

[mamottawa]

What do you know, it seems my birthmom's family's roots were from Northern Ireland, particularly in the region of Tyronne County ( sp.?). I verified this online as well as at a local Irish shop in Ottawa ( O'Sheas Market Ireland on Sparks st.) that does genealogy and family motos searches. Anyway, found out my birthmom's side of the family was the Devlin or sometimes ( from way back) it was O'Devlin, catholics in the area. Just thought that was pretty cool stuff.

Just thought i'd mention it, seems like the appropriate thread.

PS: my friends thought it would be funny if i sued Notre Dame University for improper use of my face for their sports teams logo ( the fighting Irish)