Gardening but then Play

[digitS']

@seedcorn 's rule makes sense to me. Here's a way to hijack .

Gardening:

@digitS' , Ja, ich stimme zu.
Du bist nie zu alt, um im Dreck zu spielen

Play: @ducks4you , I had to look up "stimme" . Okay! "Yes, I agree. You are never too old to play in dirt."

German was my foreign language choice in high school but I was already experiencing hearing loss and it was a "start strong, stumble across finish line" experience. Because of my college major, I was required to have more credits. I thought that was fine but escaped some of it by sneaking off into a "translation" course. Then, of course, I haven't really used it since .

It occurred to me to use that for a signature (below) because I planned to mail some seeds to @AMKuska . My family name is Dutch, although that Dutchman apparently arrived in N America during colonial times.

There was a prominent Mormon family with the name. That's both helpful for my genealogical curiosity and a hindrance. Somewhere about the time of the Civil War, life for a couple of generations became seriously disrupted. No surprise there, right? Anyway, I think that the church genealogy went off-course but it now seems to be LDS "gospel."

Dutch but someone well-known was South African. Some have looked at his heritage and gone off in 2 different directions for name origin. It's funny that it isn't likely so grand. But, one direction is to suggest that the name is a variant spelling used locally of one that is very common.

These sorts of things are likely with everyone's family name. Who were the parents of the first John in the Johnson family? Who first arrived in that meadow in the Meadow family and where did they come from?

I guess that Smith is the most common English name. For name origin, it is an occupation so every village has a smith. But, what is the origin of the word? Etymology ... a difficult science.

Steve

 

[AMKuska]

Ah, my family's immediate name history is lost to time. On both sides a few generations back were immigrants, who moved to America and refused to talk about their past life including where they came from. My grandmother believes they're Russian from the sound of her maiden name, "Masky," but her parents only ever said they were American now, and would never say where they were from originally.

Personally, I think it's a cool way to look at it, so I don't mind not knowing.

 

[ducks4you]

@digitS' , Youngest DD took 1 year of it, in MS, transferred to a school that only taught Spanish, but took 2 years of it at our local junior college and fell in love with Deutsch!
Her professor was a University of Illinois English professor moonlighting (as many do) at Parkland CC, and she was born/grew up in Austria.
DD had a co worker at the previous SA's office From Germany, who also lives in her little town and they often correspond, and thus my DD can work on her language skills. There were co workers who wondered by WHY DD was getting copies of Der Spiegel in her mailbox at the office (from her friend)!
We have an old family restaurant about an hour from us in a small town:

Bayern Stube Restaurant

www.bayernstube.com

You HAVE to have a reservation to eat there, but it's worth it. We plan on $125.00 bill for 4. Not cheap, but the only food I haven't liked was the elk sausage for "Hunter's Feast."

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

Ich habe funf jahren Deutsch im Gymnasium. Hoch Deutsch. Und eins jahren in College. Aber ich forgesse alles. Mich sad.

 

[digitS']

But, @AMKuska , those grandparents living before their children came to America didn't want to be forgotten. (I know, a moot point.)

I look back thru the fog of time, knowing so little about lives. Location helps the imagination. Some, wrote down a little on their lives and thoughts. I have 2 of those documents. One is a copy of a speech given about 150 years ago.

My mother's father apparently had a falling out with his family. I don't believe he ever saw his parents again after he immigrated to the US. And, they liked in the Vancouver BC area and he returned to live there as an old man.

Grandfather must have had a better relationship with his own grandfather. The first few years in the US, he used an assumed name, his grandfather's! For the remainder of his life, his friends and co-workers knew him as Jack, his name was neither Jack nor John!

I think that a great majority of immigrants had a difficult time in their home countries. It must have been that many felt that they had no choice. Some were orphans, authorities made decisions, and children were sent to colonies.

Steve

 

[Zeedman]

In high school, I took one semester of French, and one of German. I remember little of them both now, but what little I knew came in handy several times during my time as a mariner. Probably saved my life once (another story...).

Of my grand parents, only two surnames are traceable... my paternal grandmother, and maternal grandmother. Both were from large extended families who hold periodic reunions, and with whom we still maintain contact.

Both grand fathers had names which were apparently changed. One, from Germany, apparently changed the umlaut "o" to "oe"... which is a common Americanization in this highly-German area. We know little about him, he disappeared when my father was young & was never found. There are still families in Germany who use the original spelling, but we have been unable to find any genealogical connection.

The maternal grand father, who apparently emigrated from French Canada, is a mystery. To his dying day, he would never give a straight answer as to his heritage - even to my mother. The spelling of his name does not show up in searches; but a French phonetic derivative does. We believe his evasiveness was to cover up possible Native American ancestry; but the one relative who claimed to know something passed away while I was away in the Service, so that mystery may forever go unanswered.

 

[flowerbug]

These sorts of things are likely with everyone's family name. Who were the parents of the first John in the Johnson family? Who first arrived in that meadow in the Meadow family and where did they come from?

I guess that Smith is the most common English name. For name origin, it is an occupation so every village has a smith. But, what is the origin of the word? Etymology ... a difficult science.

Steve

on the one side of my family two of the four names are directly from river, one is related to hill and the other to heath. on the other side it is a color and something else i can't translate Italian and i'm not sure of the spelling.

words are always fun to ponder.