None of this is too important, but if I find any Irish ancestry by next St. Patrick's Day, I promise to put on a silly leprechaun hat and celebrate to make up for previous days gone unobserved.
Well as I sit here a year later sans leprechaun hat, what have I learned?
First, we have my great6-grandfather, Martin DeLong. (For any relatives reading this, it's my Grandpa Cairns' ancestor.) Based on his mother, Anna Wiltsie, and his paternal grandparents, Jan De Lange and Martjie Van Schaick, I'm going to count him as Dutch. That bumps me up to about 2.7% known Dutch ancestry.
Next, we have my great4-grandmother, Martha Salley (again, Grandpa Cairns' ancestor, but this time on his mother's side). I had previously only known that she had gotten married in 1819 in Kentucky. In the past year, however, I discovered that she came from a family of Huguenots who settled in Virginia. So, yep, that gives me around 1.6% known French ancestry. (So, you see, my use of the word sans was foreshadowing...)
So I'm still not celebrating St. Patrick's Day (though I probably won't wear an orange t-shirt this year). I would start celebrating Bastille Day, but I'm pretty sure the Salles, Perraults, Givaudans and the rest of my Huguenot ancestors left France about 100 years before the Bastille was stormed. Hmm, wonder if there are any good Dutch holidays... Guess that orange t-shirt will come in handy after all...
