I have been trying to piece this thing together and I thought that it would be fun to share my findings, to shed light on the cultural heritage that has shaped me into the person I am today... because I'm seriously proud of these roots, man.
My grandma's side of the family tree is far the oldest, spanning several centuries and eventually ending in a dead-end. All I know is that the family used to live in either Sweden or Finland (before there was a Finland) and that they moved to Spain by the time the Swedish Empire began its collapse as a major European power. But the really interesting thing about it is that the "Scandinavian blonde" has been a permanent feature of that side of the family for generations and no amount of mixing blood with the Spanish population could ever take it out of the equation (heck, my brother still sports it and he was born in 1994). No details, pictures or documents from this period exist today, so it is hard to pin a village or even general area of origin... I get one for Spain, however: the city of Vigo, a place that was lived on until the outbreak of World War I. I don't know if the family moved because the conflict was looming in the horizon or simply because the New World was so tempting (as Spain itself wasn't doing that great to begin with when everyone else was slaughtering each other for not convincing enough reasons), all I know is that they came to the Argentinean neighborhood of La Boca (a popular immigrant area) in our around 1918. From there, they moved to their current whereabouts, the then largely rural Avellaneda.
But, as interesting as all of that was, my granddad's side of the family is what got me to do this.
As it was the case with my grandma's side of the family, I couldn't get an exact location for my granddad's ancestral home, but I did manage to find out that they lived in or around the Austro-Hungarian province of South Tyrol and that they moved out in 1919, right after that land was taken over by the Kingdom of Italy in the aftermath of World War I. They seemed to have really despised this and I was told that he once sported the biggest grin anyone on this side of the Atlantic had ever seen him pull when he learned that the area had been occupied by Austrian troops in World War 2.
What did my great-granddad do before leaving --seemingly-- in protest? I can't tell, but I can assure that he wasn't either royalty nor a high-ranking officer in the Royal and Imperial Austro-Hungarian Army. He was most likely a peasant or worked on one of the many workshops around the area... nothing that fancy, but definitely enough to bring bread to the table every day. Something of note is that the family wasn't pure Austrian and had effectively began to mix blood with the neighboring Italian population, which lead to my grandad receiving an Italian name (the last Old World, traditional name ever to be given in this family) because, at the time, there was a law in place in Argentina that prohibited certain names to be registered for newborns, so he couldn't sport the old Austrian one.
My great-granddad also moved to La Boca (told you it was popular) upon arriving in Buenos Aires and there's where he met my great-grandma, eventually moving with her to Avellaneda in our around 1928. He began working as a milkman in there, often getting up at dawn to pick up the bottles and taking them to the people in the area on his bike. I thought that that part was really interesting and I was told that he'd have loved to have a job like this one back in Austria, so I imagine that he had a much more annoying trade back there.
... And that's pretty much all I got! This work has just been started, but I'm already in love with it.
There are so many blanks to fill (like: did my great-granddad actually serve in World War I?), but that only makes it all the greater for me.
"Personal archaeology" is fun, man!
My grandma's side of the family tree is far the oldest, spanning several centuries and eventually ending in a dead-end. All I know is that the family used to live in either Sweden or Finland (before there was a Finland) and that they moved to Spain by the time the Swedish Empire began its collapse as a major European power. But the really interesting thing about it is that the "Scandinavian blonde" has been a permanent feature of that side of the family for generations and no amount of mixing blood with the Spanish population could ever take it out of the equation (heck, my brother still sports it and he was born in 1994). No details, pictures or documents from this period exist today, so it is hard to pin a village or even general area of origin... I get one for Spain, however: the city of Vigo, a place that was lived on until the outbreak of World War I. I don't know if the family moved because the conflict was looming in the horizon or simply because the New World was so tempting (as Spain itself wasn't doing that great to begin with when everyone else was slaughtering each other for not convincing enough reasons), all I know is that they came to the Argentinean neighborhood of La Boca (a popular immigrant area) in our around 1918. From there, they moved to their current whereabouts, the then largely rural Avellaneda.
But, as interesting as all of that was, my granddad's side of the family is what got me to do this.
As it was the case with my grandma's side of the family, I couldn't get an exact location for my granddad's ancestral home, but I did manage to find out that they lived in or around the Austro-Hungarian province of South Tyrol and that they moved out in 1919, right after that land was taken over by the Kingdom of Italy in the aftermath of World War I. They seemed to have really despised this and I was told that he once sported the biggest grin anyone on this side of the Atlantic had ever seen him pull when he learned that the area had been occupied by Austrian troops in World War 2.
What did my great-granddad do before leaving --seemingly-- in protest? I can't tell, but I can assure that he wasn't either royalty nor a high-ranking officer in the Royal and Imperial Austro-Hungarian Army. He was most likely a peasant or worked on one of the many workshops around the area... nothing that fancy, but definitely enough to bring bread to the table every day. Something of note is that the family wasn't pure Austrian and had effectively began to mix blood with the neighboring Italian population, which lead to my grandad receiving an Italian name (the last Old World, traditional name ever to be given in this family) because, at the time, there was a law in place in Argentina that prohibited certain names to be registered for newborns, so he couldn't sport the old Austrian one.
My great-granddad also moved to La Boca (told you it was popular) upon arriving in Buenos Aires and there's where he met my great-grandma, eventually moving with her to Avellaneda in our around 1928. He began working as a milkman in there, often getting up at dawn to pick up the bottles and taking them to the people in the area on his bike. I thought that that part was really interesting and I was told that he'd have loved to have a job like this one back in Austria, so I imagine that he had a much more annoying trade back there.
... And that's pretty much all I got! This work has just been started, but I'm already in love with it.
There are so many blanks to fill (like: did my great-granddad actually serve in World War I?), but that only makes it all the greater for me.
"Personal archaeology" is fun, man!
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). By the time he'd won his fourth World Championship, there were a lot of people putting him in the "Greatest of All Time" debate (alongside Senna, Schumacher and Fangio) - and while he was certainly a