If you are several generations removed from immigrant ancestors, you may find yourself longing — as I did — for some lingering evidence of a heritage connection within your own family.
My advice is to pay careful attention, because — as I discovered with my maternal German ancestors — the evidence you seek might be found in the most unlikely place.
My German heritage comes from my maternal grandmother Elizabeth Christina Stoutner — who eloped with Anthony [Di Lorenzo] Laurence, the Italian-American boy next door in Gloversville, Fulton County, N.Y.
My mom — their oldest daughter — grew up near both my grandparents’ families, with many reminders of her ethnic roots.
Where were my ethnic clues?
But off my mom went to college. Then there was a career move, marriage to my dad, children and more moves — so by the time I was growing up in the suburbs of Binghamton, Broome County, N.Y., we were an assimilated, Baby Boom family living several hours’ drive from our nearest relatives.
I envied my friends who had closer ties to their immigrant heritage — as I enjoyed perogies and kolachkis with my Eastern European friend up the block or watched a school friend’s Italian grandmother lay handmade pasta to dry over the backs of her kitchen chairs.
Alas, there were few ethnic clues in the basic meat-and-potatoes dinner my family sat down to most evenings. But then someone would sneeze, and we would all say, “Gesundheit!” — and presto, there was my first heritage hint.
A healthful heritage hint
Gesundheit means “health” in German, but I never gave this much thought as a child. It was just something our family said. Not until at school, when I heard others say “bless you,” did I realize that not everyone said gesundheit.
Many years passed before I delved into why — and many more years still until I seriously researched my German heritage and made the connection to this salutation.
It turns out the word gesundheit arrived here with early German immigrants — like my ancestors, who came to these shores in the mid 1800s — then proliferated through the general population as German immigration picked up.
“Used to wish good health to a person who has just sneezed,” according to thefreedictionary.com, the word’s frequency of use over the decades is depicted by an online n-gram graph.
Who would have imagined that as my German-American ancestors sneezed down through the generations, they would pass along the hearty response “Gesundheit!” as a little linguistic legacy from one generation to the next?
Or that their healthful German salutation would be passed from my immigrant Mimm, Stoutner, Albeitz and Edel great-great grandparents to their children, then to my maternal grandmother, my mom and me?
Such a small ancestral bequest — but one I am reminded of whenever I hear someone sneeze!
© 2016 Molly Charboneau. All rights reserved.
Grew up saying that too. And no German in my adoptive family. Also, I connected w/ some relatives and found out some more family info, which was nice. One cousin is a font of info, but she doesn’t have it all accessible for anyone else. I suggested that she start blogging about it! Courtney – Maui Jungalow
That’s interesting! And one reason I posted the n-gram showing the proliferation of geshundheit over time. Glad to hear you’ve connected with family and are getting more info on your heritage. I hope your cousin does start blogging. She would be a most welcome addition to the geneabloggers’ community.