Genealogy

I have always been interested in genealogy.  Maybe it's the only child in me, wanting to know my family.  However, I have really done nothing about it over the years.  I know who my grandparents are, great-grandparents, but it stops there.  I really need to talk to my parents a bit more as well.

Watching the NBC show, "Who Do You Think You Are" has gotten me on the kick again.  Wish I could have all the experts helping me.  But I have another reason for wanting to find out.  Hemophilia is an inherited condition, coming down the maternal line.  I want to find out how many others have it in my family.

Finding out Crosby had hemophilia was the shock of all shockers.  We did not know we had this.  He got it from me, a carrier, who got it from my mom, a carrier, who got it from hers, etc.  It could have been a spontaneous mutant gene as well.  But as we eventually learned, my mother's cousin's son has hemophilia, (my mother's mother's sister's, daughter's son, whew!) so it does come down my maternal line.  Or perhaps a hemophiliac male passed it to his daughter would would automatically be a carrier and it went down the line that way.  It's just amazing that none of my mother's brothers were hemophiliac nor her sisters carriers as well.  Luck of the gene pool.

So by doing some web searching, I have traced up my maternal side back to my great great great great great grandparents Andreas and Barbara Wielebski. (Which is also spelled, Wylepski, Wielepski, Wielebska...go figure).  They were married in 1779 in Pawlowo, Poland. That's right, I have Polish blood in me.  Good thing I live in a village called Pulaski!!  Well, truthfully, somone else did the research and I found their postings online.  I'm hoping to get a hold of them to "compare notes." 

I have so much more I want to find out...I want to learn about the Belgian and German in me as well.  I am, however, pretty sure that I am not related to Queen Victoria, who was born with a mutated hemophilia gene and passed the condition on through many royal families in Europe...current British royalty were excluded from inheriting that gene...thus I was not invited to the Royal Wedding... ;)

If anyone has any genealogy trick of trade in doing research...I'd love to hear them.