Amazing good luck

[LiberalEsto]

I still can't believe it. I am just about walking on air.

I've been trying to trace some of my mother's family for years. Decades.
My mom was an only child and died when I was 23, so I never got to ask her much about her family. Her mother died when I was 2 so I was too young to remember her. Mom's father died behind the Iron Curtain when I was a kid. My parents were immigrants from Estonia.

I had very little information about her parents or grandparents. But when we got internet, I started Googling my mother's grandmother's name and posting it on ancestry boards. Never got a response. Tried alternate spellings - nada. Every year or two I checked the search engines again.


Yesterday I was trying different spellings and got a hit! My great-grandparents' names are spelled a little differently, but I'm positive I found the right people on a genealogy site called GENI. I emailed the person who had posted the information and am hoping he will get back to me.

Not only that, but there was info on ancestors going back to 1716.

I also looked up info on my dad's family. He had lots of relatives and some of them had posted family stuff on GENI. A total gold mine for me.

Then I Googled an alternate spelling for my mother's father's family and found a delicious bit on info on my great-grandfather, who was a noted Russian Orthodox priest and university professor of religion. I know some info on him but had never heard this anecdote.

His university in Estonia was celebrating an anniversary in 1903 and the faculty decided to hand out a number of honorary degrees to people who had major achievements. One of them was the noted writer Count Leo Tolstoy, the author of War and Peace, Anna Karenina, etc. My priestly great-grandfather adamantly argued against honoring Tolstoy on the grounds that he was atheist. (Tolstoy has been described as a Christian anarchist).

Instead, he submitted the names of three priests that nobody else had ever heard of, for honorary degrees. The faculty voted to compromise by honoring Tolstoy and one of the priests. However the chosen priest wrote back that he declined the honor because he didn't want his name to appear with Tolstoy's name.

It amazes me that I could plug away year after year and get only tiny bits of information, and then suddenly encounter such a tremendous amount of information in just one day.

[SheilaT]

1. Yeah, isn't the internet just amazing!

[elleng]

2. Great news, LibEst!

Similar experience here, kind of. NOT as far away as yours, but out of touch w birth mother's family for years; mother passed on when I was 8, Dad remarried, etc etc etc.

Did meet up w 1st cousin 15? years ago, and as daughter marrying soon (Sept 2) and cousin had been in Philly, googled and voila! Reunited w cousin at Philly wedding, cried, had dinner at her house/met husband + children, and saw family pictures, mother, aunts, uncles, another cousin, and Grandma and Grandpa! SO HAPPY we've reconnected!

[Celebration]

3. that's a great story

Love the Tolstoy story!

So happy that you are finding the information and that it is all coming together. I grew up knowing quite a bit about my ancestors, and it does make me feel a bit more grounded, I think.

[Kind of Blue]

4. What a great reward for diligence!

So glad you didn't stop searching. Thanks for sharing this remarkable story. I love the Internets!

[MorningGlow]

5. That's great!

I know how difficult it can be to trace a family history, so this is definitely major! (And thanks for the tip for GENI--I will check it out--I didn't have much luck with Ancestors.com).

Nearly all my elder relatives are gone now, and the ones who are still here, while still in their right minds, have...um...selective memories, so they'll bicker for hours about events that happened not even 50 years ago, let alone farther back than that. "That didn't happen that way!" "Yes it did!" "Ahhhh, you're CRAZY." etc. :rofl:

[WhiteTara]

6. My mom is so into this and has traced both

sides of the family back to the early 1100s Interestingly enough, my mother's family and father's family are from very close places in Europe before they came to the states early in the 1600s (his to the north and hers to the south.) Lots of interesting twists in the story for sure.

Thanks for the site info, I've sent it on to my mom.

[LiberalEsto]

7. Here's their web address

http://www.geni.com

[Howler]

8. SWEET!!!!!

Ancestry is such an interesting subject.I'm absolutely thrilled for you LiberalEsto.Wow.A priest and a professor of religion.
It runs in the family!!

[LiberalEsto]

9. He's probably rolling in his grave

if I'm one of his only descendants.

My mother told me he knew 17 languages and translated parts of the Bible. From what language to what language I don't know, but he spoke Hebrew and knew Aramaic.

He also believed in education for women and founded a couple of schools for girls. One of his daughters was among the first women employed at Tartu University, where he taught.

Thanks

[Howler]

10. Whoa! How cool!

You come from progressive pioneers. 17 languages!!! that phenomenal.:toast:

[LiberalEsto]

11. And I barely passed high school German

Three years of German in high school, heard it spoken by my parents all my life, even spoke a little at age 6. But it obviously went in one ear and out the other. I certain;y didn't inherit his amazing gift for languages.

I learned to speak in Estonian as a baby; didn't learn English until kindergarten even, though I was born in the US. I'm still fluent in Estonian and have visited relatives there on two occasions.

Do you have any interesting ancestors? The vast majority of mine were farmers.

[Howler]

13. Bilingual is very cool too.

Don't sell yourself short.
I only speak the english language and mangle it pretty good. snort
We don't have anything half as interesting has your's
My ancestors on my Dad's side were from Denmark.Which actually explains alot. LOL!
My brothers and I seemed to have a quite a knack for going Viking when were younger.snort.

[LiberalEsto]

14. Estonians were Vikings too

Vikings came from all around the Baltic Sea, not only the Scandinavian countries.

I once read that a gang of Estonian Vikings burned down a church in Sweden in order to steal the church bell and melt it down for metal to make more swords. Estonia doesn't have metal ores in its territory.

The Danes are supposed to be some of the happiest people in Europe, and I've read that their cuisine is supposed to be fantastic.

You never know, you and I could be related from waaay, waaay back in the Viking days.

[Howler]

15. LOL! Now that would be very cool!

Its my thinking that Just about EVERYBODY is related in one way or another to the Vikings.
The vikings were really prolific and got around much of the planet.Their early trade roots put them in countries that most of the other civilizations didn't even know existed yet.

This is so cool Liberalesto! When I get back from taking Thurber to the vet i'm going to look up info on Estonia's history and their vikings.
I just gotta love a people who ripped off a church bell and turned it into swords. They are definitely my kinda of folks.:hi: :headbang: :rofl:

[LiberalEsto]

16. Here's some info

http://www.balticsworldwide.com/tourist/estonia/history.htm


800-1100 A.D. Raids and counter-raids by Vikings around the Baltic Sea, including by Estonian Vikings. Estonians kidnap Norwegian Queen Astrid and her son, future King Olaf Trygvesson—sell them into slavery. Estonians destroy Sweden’s main town, Sigtuna.

1219 Danes take North Estonia; first foreign occupation.

1227 Riga-based German crusaders conquer and Christianize pagan Estonia; the Germans become landed gentry and wield huge influence for 700 years.

1346 Fed up with constant rebellions by natives, Danes sell northern Estonia to the German Teutonic Order for 19,000 silver marks. The Teutonic Order then sells the territory to the German Livonian Order a year later—for a 1,000 mark profit.

[Howler]

18. HOLY MOLY!!!!1

Talk about struggles.
Sweet! "The singing revolution" What a resilient people.I'm going to check out the art and literature of the Estonians.
I just know its going to be colorful.

Thank you LiberalEsto.

[LiberalEsto]

21. But the Estonians were so annoying

back in the Middle Ages, that the Danes could hardly wait to get rid of them! :D

[Howler]

22. LOL!

Eh, I think the Danes seemed to have a short attention span in the middle ages.
They took what they wanted and left.Its the whole nature of that Viking thingy.LOL!

I'm just so glad The Estonians FINALLY got their country back after The Danes,Germans,Russians,etc. Oh to be so brand new., :)

[Howler]

20. This is about their music.

http://www.ce-review.org/00/27/mortensen27.html

What a vibrant culture and peoples.

[LiberalEsto]

17. Here's the church bell story

Livonians were threatened from the north by Estonians, who, like the Vikings, used their longboats to cross the Baltic in search of prisoners and booty. Henry's description of Oeselian (from an Estonian island) pirates encountered by crusaders off the coast of Gotland:

They had recently burned a church, killed some men and captured others, laid waste the land, and carried away the bells and belonging of the church, just as both the pagan Esthonians and the Kurs had been accustomed to do heretofore in the kingdom of Denmark and Sweden.(10)

from:http://department.monm.edu/history/urban/articles/VictimsBalticCrusade.htm

[Howler]

19. Check out these Eastonian painters.....

http://www.lilithgallery.com/arthistory/european/Estonian-Artists.html


Beautiful!!!!!!

[kimmerspixelated]

12. DOn't you see? It's because you merely asked..

You asked of the universe and it delivered.