AW1Steve
Posts: 14507
Joined: 3/10/2007 From: Mordor Illlinois Status: offline
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ORIGINAL: Mynok BTW, sailing is the fine art of getting more 24 pounders to bear on pitch-laden wood than the other guy. So don't be knockin Hornblower there, froggy. He whupped your arsy more than once. My arse? Dude , my ancestors were Canadians on his side by that time! Oh, I see. Daddy was a redcoat then, eh? Is that any better? Nope. Daddy was USAF (almost as bad). But the ancestor you speak of, call him grandad to the 9th power, lost his country. Then had a whole bunch of his relatives and friends hung for treason. That's what the new owners called it when some of the tennants objected to the real estate transaction. You basically had two choices , join the British forces.or hide in the woods. My ancestors , who had been mostly French soldiers , took up a new career path, that is "hiding in the woods". So for many generation my ancestors practiced this craft, knowing that to come out would mean that the British landlords would greet them give them a shilling and a new suit of red clothing , then ship them off somewhere where they would never be seen again. One of my ancestors in the mid 1860's decided to beat this game. He would go south , and become an American. As he crossed the border , the officials were delighted to see him! They gave him a warm welcome, some money and a new suit of Blue clothing. When He asked if they were sending him oversea's to fight a nasty war, they said, "oh no, you'll stay right in the USA!" He said that doesn't sound too bad. "But your sending me to fight a nasty war?". "Oh no, we wouldn't do that to you! No we are sending you to fight a very pleasant war. It's even called a civil war. Very polite you see". My ancestor thought , if it's civil , that means polite in English , so how bad can it be? And they even said he could go somewhere warm for the winter. Some place warm called "Virginia". Maybe even "Georgia". Well , if they are named after girls , they must be nice places, right? So that's how my ancestors came to the USA. FEDERAL express! Interesting personal provenance, Steve. I too descend from Quebecois bloodlines (50%) on my mother's side. Technically, I'm the product of a first generation immigrant mother. Before that, GGGPs emigrated from Sweden (GGM), Germany (GGF) and France (GGGPs mom's side). There's some rogue Irish blood in there somewhere too (isn't there always?). My familial involvement in warfare is much more modern, I'm afraid. Nothing as interesting as knowing your roots back to where we North Americans were fulfilling our manifest destiny and picking off redcoats for a living. Well, I'm 25% Scottish, 25% Welsh, 25% English and 25% Cornish (apparently that doesn't count as English). Like so many of the Threadsters I've got some Irish blood in there, waaaaay back in Ye Olde Tymes part of the Scottish side lived in Ireland. Now Cornish is an interesting background! I had a classmate at King Alf's (now Winchester University) who actually could speak some Cornish , passed down from his family. The head of linguistics had a field day with him!
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