Friday, June 22, 2012

Old World origins


One of the things I really love to do is find ways to visualize data.  I do this for mundane things in my everyday life, and this compulsion has carried over to my work in genealogy.  Recently I decided to make a table of my ancestral origins.  This is the result:

Country Region City Surname(s) Immigrant(s) Date %
Italy Calabria Gioiosa Ionica Loccisano, Sfara Vincent Loccisano 1939 25.0%
Italy Calabria Cardinale De Fazio, Rotiroti Elizabeth De Fazio 1926 25.0%
Germany Hesse Angersbach Miller/Möller, Eifert Conrad Miller & Maria Eifert 1882-1887 12.5%
Germany Prussia, Posen Pogorzela Pritz, Zuelke Louis Pritz 1892 12.5%
United States NJ/PA Phillipsburg/ Easton Sauder, Barnett 5.5%
United States PA North Whitehall Mertz, Boyer, Klotz 4.7%
United States PA Lynn Schmidt, unk. 3.5%
Germany Württemberg Gerard Catherine Gerard 1816 3.1%
Germany Palatinate Dielkirchen Benner, Stoller Valentine Benner 1856 3.1%
Germany Württemberg Stehley/Stähle Jacob Stehley 1814 1.6%
Germany Moyer/Meyer Wilhelm Meyer 1740-1760 1.2%
Germany Trittenbach/ Drittenbach Johann Michael Drittenbach 1749 0.8%
United States PA Heidelberg Delong 0.8%
Germany Alsace Oberbetchdorf Kressley/ Grässel Jacob Grässel 1754 0.4%
Germany Palatinate Neff Anna Neff 1730-1760 0.4%

My goal here was to account for every immigration event in my family tree, and to determine the percentage of my ancestry tied to each event.  Of course I couldn't pin down every immigrant, so I simply listed the U.S. region of the relevant family branch.

So I am 50% Italian.  I've traced about 35% of my ancestors to Germany, or at least to areas that were culturally German, via nine separate immigration events, which I think is amazing.  The remaining 15% of my heritage is unaccounted for, but based on last names and locations in eastern Pa., I suspect it is mostly German as well.

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