Family

[beth2]

Hi, Braided - How much of your family is in Australia? How far do you guys live from DH's family?

How about the rest of you? Do you live pretty close to family or are you spread out? As I've written in some of the other areas, I live in New Zealand now, and my family is in America, so yeah, we're pretty spread out!

Didn't know exactly where to post this, so I just put it here - hope that's okay! The thread started in "Welcome Mat" but may have, er, worn out its welcome there. ;-) (Actually, it just grew and grew into something else, but I couldn't resist the pun.)

[braided-rug]

Well all of them. My Grandma came here from Scotland as a baby and one of dh's family came in 1900, the rest came in 1850s and settled our state. We both have pioneer family who settled the Western District. One branch of my family there actually went to NZ then.

Dh's family live two hours from our old home and we now live another two hours plus further on. I love alpine gardening so it suits us in that respect to live here.

Some of my family have travelled. DH's sister lived in England for about a year. Mostly we haven't gone far I think.

[violet]

We are everywhere. Dh's family came from England in the 1850's I think, they have all stayed around Victoria, Australia, although my sil lives in Queensland, a northern state. My sister and I were born in California, my mother in Queensland where her remaining relatives live, her parents were Australian, my father was born in Tel Aviv in what was then Palestine, his parents were born in Poland but I think they lived in France during WWII. His relatives are in California and Europe. My Aunt tells me that she and my mother have a Chinese ancestor from about 1800, so that covers most of the world!

[beth2]

Ah! I knew there was an American in Aussie - I just had the wrong Aussie! BR - Alister's family moved here from northern Ireland, near the Northern Ireland border ;-) in the late 1800s. He's traced a lot of his family, which went to Ireland from England IIRC. I think the other side of his family came from England.

My family...no idea. Maternal grandmother's name is French, but she left her home in eastern Tennessee as a young woman (late teens) and never went back, so we don't have any contact at all with most of the family, and she can't really remember much more than that an ancestor came from France. Paternal side of the family doesn't know much about the history of the family, either. Grandparents all died relatively young (except maternal gm) and all the stories hadn't been passed down yet.

Violet, you are indeed international! When I lived in northern Florida it was rare to meet anyone from outside the US, and non-locals were only passing through on their way to somewhere else. Before I came to NZ, I'd 'met' some foreign tourists but that's about it. Here in NZ, you can be in a room of 10 people and if three are from the same place it's a bit unusual! So, in small-town Florida, you might "marry out" of the area but it was still probably going to be someone who'd moved from within a couple hundred miles; here, you're as likely to meet someone from around the world as not.

[braided-rug]

My DH has Irish ancestor, just his Grandpa's father's family, and they say they are from Northern Ireland too.

I think that in America people aren't encouraged to come and live permanently, I may be wrong. My DH went to America and back again a few weeks later, one of the trips was to Canada, and he was interviewed alot because he came twice.

I think alot of new people come to Australia all the time and we would be surprised just how many I think. I didn't know NZ had alot of foreign people in it.

DH knows alot of people who have lived in America for a short period like a year or more.

[frugalmel]

I am a mutt. lol My mother's side has some Irish in it (Irish American) and my father's side may be Scottish, but there's some debate on that. Mostly I am just American. Meaning that whatever country my ancestors came from has been watered down until there's nothing left of it.

My dh on the other hand is interesting. His dad is like me, some German, some of this some of that, etc. His mom is 1/2 Vietnamese and 1/2 French. She was a "war baby". She then met and married dh's dad when the US was involved in Vietnam in the late 60's early 70's. They married and came to the states (back to his home town).

We are military so we move alot. Currently we are the closest we have ever been to family since we got married. Drive 3hrs to IL and you have dh's dad and step-mom. 2 more hrs and my step mom and 2 remaining aunts. then there are dh's brothers in Texas and Florida. My 1/2 brothers and sisters live from Kansas west into Arizona and California. A couple used to live in Illinois, but I lost track of them. (I am the youngest)

To me, I think that the US has a way of not only absorbing people into the "melting pot" so to speak, but it can smother people's heritage as well. It seems like the longer famiies are here, the less they have of their origins until they are just all lost. (stories, languages, etc)

[violet]

I'm inclined to agree with you fruaglmel. When we first arrived in Australia in the early 1970's we were treated as freaks until they realised we weren't so different.
There is certainly a great deal of diversity here. Some suburbs are predominantly one nationality, and the local shops reflect that, such as an inner city suburb called Richmond where there's a huge strip of Asian shops. I believe that being exposed to that diversity of nationality creates a more accepting society. In the inner suburbs people are exposed to Chinese, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Italian, Greek etc. culture through food - there are so many great restaurants closer to the city center and people do eat out a lot here. Further out in the suburbs there seems to be less tolerance, and those of non-Anglo hertiage tend to live in clusters within suburbs. These are generalisations, mind you, and I regularly see mixed race couples now so it's becoming less of an issue. As the world becomes increasingly globalised, and inter-racial marriages become more common, I'd like to think that although there's a loss of cultural heritage, there's also less reason for war. Sorry to rave on so long!

[beth2]

Melody, at first when I read that you have lost contact with some half-brothers and sisters I thought, "How?" but almost as soon as I thought that, I realized that I have, too.

Y'see, I was raised by a man I thought was my dad for the first 13yrs and then discovered that he had married my mom after his brother (my bio dad) deserted her when he learned she was pregnant. I had grown up thinking he was my uncle, and that his kids were my cousins.

He has a son just a bit younger than me, and had deserted him to foster homes for several years before taking him in when the boy was 12 or 13 or so maybe a bit younger. He also has a daughter and two sons from his long-time wife, as well as raising her oldest daughter.

After I learned that he was my 'real' dad, I fantasized about an ideal reunion but that just was never to be. He continued to treat me as just another niece and we've never discussed the fact that he is my bio dad. I suppose if I am ever going to, I should sooner rather than later as they tend to die fairly young in his family!

But, anyway, I wasn't close to the half-bros and half-sis even when I was in the US and even when I thought they were cousins. We almost always lived several states apart so altho' we were pals when we saw each other that was about it. I have no idea where they are now, or how many kids they have, or what their stories have been the last several years.