Friday Five
Mar. 14th, 2025 08:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scripsiThese questions were written by ange420.
1. How far back can you trace your family tree?
Well, I’m Swedish, and ever since Sweden became a Protestant country in the early 16th century, records have been very good. So I can trace back to that time in all the branches of my family tree. But I have an aristocratic branch, and there I can trace it all the way back to Charlemange and beyond to the 7th century. (It’s not very unique to descend from Charlemange. About 25% of people with European descent do.)
2. What is the most interesting (or strange) thing you've heard about one of your relatives?
One of my ancestors was a POW in Russia after the Battle of Poltava in 1709. When he returned home, he painted two maps over Moscow and it’s surrounding, which I found online a couple of years ago.
3. How do you feel about legacy names like John Henry Smith IV or naming children after other relatives?
Legacy names aren’t a thing in Sweden, and to my eyes they feel a bit cumbersome and clunky. But I like naming after relatives. Probably because I am myself. My first name is the same as my paternal grandfather’s mother. And in my mother’s family the eldest daughter is given the same second name, and I’m the gift generation carrying that tradition. If I had had a daughter I would have continued that tradition, as it is now, my niece got that name.
4. Would you consider yourself and/or your family to be traditional?
Not really. A traditional family structure, for sure. My parents married young and are still married. I’m a cis het woman and married to a man, but I don’t think of myself as traditional beyond that.
5. What is one tradition you have passed on to your children and/or plan to pass on to them?
My sister and I always made gingerbread cookies with our mother before Christmas, and though my son is an adult now, he always comes around to do the same with me.
1. How far back can you trace your family tree?
Well, I’m Swedish, and ever since Sweden became a Protestant country in the early 16th century, records have been very good. So I can trace back to that time in all the branches of my family tree. But I have an aristocratic branch, and there I can trace it all the way back to Charlemange and beyond to the 7th century. (It’s not very unique to descend from Charlemange. About 25% of people with European descent do.)
2. What is the most interesting (or strange) thing you've heard about one of your relatives?
One of my ancestors was a POW in Russia after the Battle of Poltava in 1709. When he returned home, he painted two maps over Moscow and it’s surrounding, which I found online a couple of years ago.
3. How do you feel about legacy names like John Henry Smith IV or naming children after other relatives?
Legacy names aren’t a thing in Sweden, and to my eyes they feel a bit cumbersome and clunky. But I like naming after relatives. Probably because I am myself. My first name is the same as my paternal grandfather’s mother. And in my mother’s family the eldest daughter is given the same second name, and I’m the gift generation carrying that tradition. If I had had a daughter I would have continued that tradition, as it is now, my niece got that name.
4. Would you consider yourself and/or your family to be traditional?
Not really. A traditional family structure, for sure. My parents married young and are still married. I’m a cis het woman and married to a man, but I don’t think of myself as traditional beyond that.
5. What is one tradition you have passed on to your children and/or plan to pass on to them?
My sister and I always made gingerbread cookies with our mother before Christmas, and though my son is an adult now, he always comes around to do the same with me.
