Show your roots.

This area of Michigan has a large contingent of families of German decent. For instance, I am 37.5% German. My grandparents who were the first born here in America were not introduced very much to their own culture. My great-grandparents came over on the ships and their language and many of their customs died with them. World War II certainly didn’t help things. However, some families around here have held on to their past and some are still able to speak German. I can see a little bit of the German side in my dad and Grandma. Both can speak a few words and phrases. Dad will occasionally cook up German cuisine. Saurkraut? Practically a family dish.

I haven’t been to a family reunion in over seven years despite the fact that our family reunions take place every year and are always within the county. (The B__s* don’t travel far from home.) The last one I’ve attended was the Heritz family reunion. The experience was a little odd for me since I don’t consider myself part of that family. Then there was the Krieger family who I didn’t even know existed until I went. Now we’ve been invited to the Grant family reunion. Who are these people? I have trouble keeping track of my first cousins!

According to family legend, we have royal ties to Scandinavia. At first, I heard that this was through Great-grandpa B. Now, I’m told that it was actually through Great-grandma Grant whose family fled to the UK when the royal court was overthrown. I’d be interested in seeing some proof.

On my mother’s side, I may not be completely Malay. According to my Aunt Lolita, our family may be mestizo. That is, I descend from a Spanish colonizer. During the occupation, the Spanish forced locals to adopt Spanish surnames. (From a Madrid directory if I remember correctly.) So the Guerrero name could have come from that. However, my Grandma Guerrero’s family used to be large land holdings that were confiscated by the Japanese. Her family, aside from herself and her sister were killed.

*I’m trying to avoid coming up on Google searches.