Searching For Clues To My Family Origin With Ancestry.com

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I have often wondered exactly where my family originated. On my father’s side, one of my aunts paid a professional ancestry investigator to research the Stroud family back in the 1960’s or 7o’s. They were able to trace us back to my great great great grandfather, Yerby Stroud. He was born in 1761 in Belfast, Ireland. So, all those red beards and fair freckled skin comes from my Irish ancestors! Yerby was a hardy old guy, living to be 82 years old, but only had one child, a son. That son, though, populated the world with enough Stroud babies to carry on the name for hundreds of years: He and his two wives produced fifteen children! You can find your great greats on Ancestry.com. It’s a lot more fun way to research your family lineage.

The oldest ancestors that I knew in my lifetime were my grandfather and grandmother on my father’s side of the family, Herman and Blanch. they both lived a long time, too. Herman was 86 when he passed away, and Blanch was 89! Very impressive I would say.

While I was doing the research, looking for my kin, I decided to check out what my maiden name means. Here is what I found:

English (southern): habitational name from places in Gloucestershire and Middlesex, so named from Old English strod ‘marshy ground overgrown with brushwood’. Strood in Kent is named with the same word, and some examples of the surname are no doubt derived from this term in independent use

I think that tells me that before Yerby, the clan I call family started out somewhere in England. What do you think about that?

On my mother’s side of my family, we can only find as far back as my grandfather, William Brouch, who immigrated from Russia around 1914, He wound up in Pennsylvania after passing through Ellis Island, working for a family in Philadelphia. The young woman who became my grandmother, Mary was the governess for the same family. We “think” her last name was Havaschak, but can’t confirm that. If any of my cousins see this and have more information, please do let me know so I can set the record straight. Mary immigrated in 1914 as well, from Austria. I would love to find out more about this family line.

I wonder if we are related in some way to the ill fated Czar Nicolas? I ask, because when my daughter was in high school, her classmates found a photo of one of the Czar’s daughters, that looks so much like Becca that it is spooky!

You can get a free trial membership to Ancestry.com so you can find your own stories, see if you may be related to someone famous, or find out what your last name means. You never know what you might find!