As the famous British rock band, "The Who",  once said -

"Who are you?"

 

Good question!

 

Here is a smattering of my genealogy.

 

I was born and raised in Sudbury - Northern Ontario, Canada.

I grew up in a small mining community, Coniston, that had a very ethnically diverse population. My Scotts Irish father was raised on a farm, and fought with the Canadian Army in WWII (See the Jimmy Logan tribute page) and my mother's parents originally came from Eastern Europe (Galicia - now part of the Ukraine). 

 

I have researched my genealogy back many generations, and have discovered several interesting family lines. Significant lines include Logan, Howell, McDonald, Bolton, Rose, Putnam, Livermore, and Plantagenet. I even discovered that one of my 27th Great Grandfathers, Raynaud de Chatillon, was the famous smug and pompous Knights Templar that was personally beheaded by Saladin in 1187 when he captured Jerusalem from the crusaders. Maybe he got what he desierved - but Ouch!

 

Although I was born in Canada, I discovered many ancestors from early colonial America - Salem Massachusetts in particular.

My Putnam ancestors were close relatives of THE Putnams that started all that Salem Witchcraft Trial nonsense. Not exactly a proud moment in my family history.

 

 

 

 

 

Some of my Dutch ancestors were busy colonizing "New Amsterdam" AKA New York, in the 1630s. Incidentally, the Dutch were in New York six years before the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock. 

 

 

 

During the American Colonial days, many of my ancestors had close ties to family in England, and supported America staying with Britain. Some of these so called "United Empire Loyalists" enlisted and fought with the British Army to help put down the "insurrection". They lost their land and property and fled for their lives escaping to Canada towards the end of the American Revolution. The American Patriots branded them as criminals and traitors, but Britain considered them to be heros. They were given large tracts of undeveloped land in Canada, and constituted the majority of Canada's pioneer population. One of my Great Great Great Grandfathers, William Biggs from South Carolina, was evacuated on the HMS Clinton - the last English ship to leave New York City before George Washington and the American Patriots marched in to claim final victory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have mapped my father's line back over 40 generations - to Dark Ages, Viking, Frankish and even late Roman times. I have discovered many ancestors who were European royalty and nobles.

 

If you follow the History Channel's popular "Vikings" series, I am actually Ragnar Lodbrok Sigurdsson's 37th grandson!

A legendary Viking hero - but a bit too bloodthirsty wasn't he?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On my mother's side, the lines are far less clear and I have only managed to trace my ancestry back a few generations to Galicia - Eastern Europe of the early 1800s. My DNA testing shows interesting Asian regional markers which have not yet been documented by my research. This family line is proving to be much more difficlult  to trace, because of the shifting national boundaries (Austria/Hungary, Poland, Germany, Russia, Ukraine), loss of official birth/marriage/death records through multiple world wars and local conflicts, various language changes, and multiple religion changes. (Jewish, Eastern Orthadox Catholic, Greek Orthadox Catholic, Roman Catholic).

 

I am very active on Ancestry.com as "doug13421".