Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Just How Irish Am I Anyway? ~ A Little More "Jeannie-ology" Updated

Seein' as how it's St. Patrick's Day and all, and I know that I do have a little green blood flowing through my veins, I thought that I would try to figure out just exactly how much.


According to my mother's autobiography, "The First 75 Years ~ Le Nore Ann Lansing Felix" my great-great grandfather, Barney Gilbride met and married my great-great grandmother, Bridget Bondie on a ship coming to the US from Ireland during the potato famine. So I'm pretty sure we can safely assume they were 100% Irish. Also, according to her book, they were the first settlers West of the Des Moines River. They had a daughter named Sarah Gilbride on January 30th 1872. That would make Sarah also 100% Irish, right?

She married Ezra Lansing on January 4, 1899. I believe this is a wedding picture of my great-grandparents:

Ezra was the son of John Oscar Lansing. He was born in Storey County, IA on October 25, 1876, but I don't see anything about what country the Lansings came from, so I'm going to say that my Grandpa Donald Lansing was half Irish. Update: My mother sent me an email saying that my Grandpa was not half Irish, she said he was about 90% Irish.

Grandpa Donald married my grandmother, Hazel Carew in May of 1928. Her father's name was Bill Carew, and he was 100% Irish. (I wondered about this one when I originally wrote this, becaus he had bright red hair. Her mother, my great-grandma Ann Foehrenbacher was all German, so Grandma was HALF Irish and half German.


Grandpa and Grandma visited Ireland back in the late sixties I believe. I remember them telling us that they kissed the Blarney stone...which is supposed to give you the "gift of gab". We're pretty sure though, that Grandpa Donald ALWAYS had the gift of gab...and Grandma Hazel always said he was "full of Blarney". They sent each one of us grandkids a postcard from Ireland. Here's mine:
Interestingly enough, of their 35 grandchildren, their oldest...my sister, Peggy and their youngest...my cousin Laura, were BOTH born on St. Patrick's Day!

Happy Birthday, Peggy and Laura!

So, if Grandpa was 90% Irish, that would make my mother, LeNore (Lansing) Felix 3/4 Irish. She married my dad, Myron Felix, who as far as I know is half German and half Welsh...making me .375 Irish + .375 German + .25 Welsh. I think.

3 comments:

Qtpies7 said...

I don't even know how much Irish I am. My mom is zero, I think, and my dad was at least 1/2 Norwegian, so he couldn't even be 1/2 Irish because I think there were other things in there. But my grandma was very Irish, her last name was Casper, which I think might have been Irish decent.
I don't care all that much, lol.

Anonymous said...

Jean, I really thought Grandma Lansing was part Irish...hmmm. Because I thought we had it figured we were like a quarter Irish (or a WEE bit more)

Sassyfrazz said...

Happy St. Patty's Day (belated). Fun to read the history...and even if you aren't that Irish, you still have the gift of gab. :) I am not Irish, but I have kids who have Irish...name like Harvey is a positive Irish.

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