Forum: Author Hangout

Yes, I know the difference.

It's just that my native language doesn't bother to make that distinction explicit. There's words for step-father and step-mother (patēvs, pamāte) but not for stepdad and stepmom, at that level of familiarity it's always simply mom / dad without being qualified. As I said, using that template "pamāsa" and "pabrālis" could be technically available but aren't in actual use, similarly stepchild "pabērns" is used almost exclusively in figurative poetic sense as in "likteņa pabērns" => "stepchild of fate" => a person suffering unfair fate repeatedly. That said the prefix pa- doesn't really mean anything on its own, added to nouns it most usually point to space under the thing (as in pasaule => "all there is under the Sun" => the world).

Or...

Annie said, "Veronica is my niece and also my half-sister."

If she actually meant stepsister, that might be possible without incest with is otherwise implied.

(Annie's dad fathered a child with her sister, vs Veronica's father married Annie's mother after having a child with her sister)

Annie said, "Veronica is my niece and also my half-sister."

Without incest, I can see that line to be true if:

1) Annie's sister-in-law had a daughter with Annie's father.

2) Annie's brother-in-law had a daughter with Annie's mother.

Without incest, I can see that line to be true if:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYlJH81dSiw
I'm My Own Grandpa- Ray Stevens ( with family tree diagram)

No time travel, no incest.

"second cousin twice removed"

That is easy. "Second cousin" is the child of a parent's cousin, and "twice removed" is the grandchild of the second cousin.

Growing up I was introduced to second, third and fourth cousins and some that were third and fourth removed. That was the way it was in Virginia. Especially when it was a family that kept family trees covering about 1500 years.

and would need to do research to delve further back (most people know their grandparents, but not necesarrily their great grandparents)

I'm aware that it's somewhat unusual, but I knew at least three of my four great grandmothers.

In fact, I was in college* when my father's paternal grandmother died. She was born in the 1890s and died in the 1990s at the age of 107. Off the top of my head, I think 1891-1998, but I'm not certain of the years.

I missed being able to say that I knew someone who lived in three centuries by only a few years.

* Correction: If I have the years right, that would be a year after I graduated for my Bachelor's degree.

My direct lineage on father's line cannot be traced past my great grandfather who... possibly had to go into hiding after the failed national uprising of 1905.

He was eventually executed on the roadside by cossack expedition in 1914, for reasons unknown to his five sons of with my grandfather was the youngest and still a baby. His mother succumbed to ill health a few years later, leaving the five orphan boys to rent a farm on their own.

Nevertheless all got education. Oldest become an electrician and thus avoided conscription during WW2 as an "indispensable" civil specialist. Others weren't so lucky, one brother was a tank commander in the Red Army, another joined Waffen SS Legion voluntary -- both died in Courland Pocket in the final weeks before hostilities ended, possibly but unlikely in the very same battle facing each other unknowingly. Meanwhile my grandfather deserted from both Soviet and German armies in turn. In the meantime my father was born during German occupation, but grandfather was mobilized again, "evacuated" to Germany and received advanced anti-tank infantry training in Czechoslovakia, deserted somewhere in Poland, was arrested in Lithuania and went trough POV filtration camp in far east near Komsomolsk-on-Amur.

Third surviving brother surfaced ten years after a broken man and never shared his wartime story. Had he been with Forest Brothers or NKVD or both, we don't know, but nobody doubted he had seen a tad bit too much.

But it was then the brothers went into a conflict between themselves over their mother's first name. It wasn't until early twenty first century when a church record of their parents marriage was unearthed and both sides were vindicated -- my great grandmother had indeed had a double first name, believed to be very unusual for Latvian peasantry at the time. Unfortunately and indeed unusual too, said record didn't provide clarity about her maiden surname recording none, but it confirmed they had married only after arrival in the area in 1906, somewhat supporting the "rebel in hiding" theory about my great grandfather, now seemingly having a noble girlfriend with him. It is even speculated his own surname might be assumed one. While it's rare it was popular in the area at the time, but we have found no proven connection to the few other families wearing it.

Grandfather married a rich farm girl at sixteen, she was a witch and her grandfather had bought their farmstead out of the mansion in 1888, but while I believe it is one of the truly ancient homesteads possibly inhabited continously for a millennia, we know little about the family beyond that purchase.

My mom's side however, one of her great grandfather's had been a pastor, and that's as far we have looked.

My direct lineage on father's line cannot be traced past my great grandfather

Actually, it can.

Take a DNA test. If your father is still alive, get him to take it as it makes things easier (if not, and your mother is, get her to take a DNA test, and you take one as well. Then simply remove all her matches from your DNA list to leave behind your paternal line.)

When the results come back, sort out your matches into 'maternal' and 'paternal'. Once done, ignore all the maternal's. Look at your new list, and repeat the process, removing all 'maternal' matches of the new list. This now leaves you with all your paternal grandparents matches.

Since you know your maternal grandmother, look for all the DNA matches with her, mark them, and those left are the descendants of your paternal grandfather. Now all you have to do, is collate all the trees of those DNA matches that have trees to build up your great-grandfather's line. If your great-great-grandfather had brothers, you might not be able to discern which of the brothers is your direct relation, though you might be able to work it out depending on present-day DNA matches of those brothers.

Regardless, it will tell you your great-great-great paternal grandparents.

I suggest using Ancestry for the DNA test as it has the largest database and it also has the ability to give DNA matches a coloured dot. This ability is important in distinguishing parental lines (ie give maternal lines blue dots, red for paternal, green for paternal maternal, purple for paternal paternal etc etc).

You can work it out within an hour or two. I know this, as it's how I solved an almost one hundred year family mystery as to who my (maternal) grandfather's father was.

That reminds me of a line in Todd_d172's https://storiesonline.net/s/21080/tequila-shuffle

I was beginning to suspect Miguel's family tree looked like a sea urchin.

During my late childhood and tweens I was good friends with a girl two years junior who was my double cousin twice removed. My father's father's older brother was her great-great-grandfather and my mother's cousin was her grandmother.

Her great-great-grandmother, my grandfather brother's wife was still alive and it was a household of five living generations inhabiting an ancient farmstead (although their main living house was newbuild in 1970s).

In addition, one of said grandfather's brother's sons had married my mother's mother's sister in emigration (due to WW2, but they met in Canada in eighties), but that third link had no bearing on the girl.

Still, due to all those links I considered the girl "too close" of a relative to later pursue romantically.

That's a typo... should be 1970. The white silicate bricks weren't available in 1070.

However, the homestead itself could be that, or even couple centuries older. It is believed Baltic tribes moved into the area in several waves between 7th and 9th centuries AD, partially displacing and assimilating earlier finno-ugric peoples. Allegedly free peasants arrived first and then the more warlike, hill forts building elites following. When Germanic crusaders arrived in 1201 there were possibly well over 200 of those within modern borders of Latvia, divided in micro kingdoms of one to three hill forts each, with only a couple larger alliances. Each fed by loosely associated peasants scattered in the area and getting rich by taxing well maintained and protected roads, but there were few if any true towns.