I could be, but no. Half Irish, half Italian, half Mexican.
Living in this "melting pot" it can be hard at times to know much about our ancestry. Adoption can complicate matters even further.
For example, my mom was adopted and until she was 26 she didn't know the identity of her biological parents.Recently she found out even more about our lineage, particularly our country of origin, Bohemia.
In addition to myself, another Bohemian of prominence is John Huss, a pre-Reformer we spotlighted recently. Completing the trifecta would be a little Bohemian Rhapsody.
Bohemia is now (the western) part of the Czech Republic, formerly Czechoslovakia. Bohemia has Germany as its western border, Poland to the northeast, and Austria to the south.(G'Day, mate!)
My ancestry is of the Lucash family, which immigrated to the United States in 1854.
My great great great great grandparents were Johann Georg Lucash (b. 1753) & Anna Zottin (b. 1760), both from Prague, the capital of Bohemia.
My great great great grandparents were Joseph Ignatz Lucash (1793--1868) & Josepha Elizabeth "Lizzie" nee Kraus. Joseph Ignatz Lucash was 61 years old when his family left Prague for the United States, traveling by ship from Bremen, Germany, to New Orleans, after which they traveled up the Mississippi River to St. Louis.
My great great grandfather was Joseph B. Lucash, Sr. (August 2, 1852-December 3, 1926), who was born in Prague. My great great grandmother was Anastia "Anna" Vratney (April 6, 1863-March8, 1918), who was born in Austria.
Their daughter Laura Evelyn Lucash (11th of 14 kids) married Earl Edwin Keck (d. 1969), my great grandparents.
I had never met any of the above ancestors with the exception of Laura Evelyn Keck (nee Lucash), whom the family called Nana.
However, Joseph Ignatz & Lizzie Lucash and Joseph B. & Anastia are buried in Freeburg, Illinois, which I confirmed during a trip to St. Louis in October. I must say, it was good bull walking around a cemetery seeing monuments to my ancestors as there was a large population of Lucash family represented.
I found myself much more interested in my ancestry than I would have thought. I'd known the Germanic heritage from my father's side of the family and that may have fed my affection for the Fatherland the many times I've been there.
Now, however, I really would like to make a trek to Prague at some point and visit the land of my ancestors, physical and of the faith (i.e., Huss).
Do you know your origin and have you had an opportunity to visit?
(*Some of this information I obtained via a webpage run by my 93rd cousin (or thereabouts), highlighting the History of the Lucash Family. He was even kind enough to add our family; I'm listed at 1.5.11.1.1.1.)
posted by GUNNY @ 22:16
12 comments
12 Comments:
What are your required texts these days for your preaching classes?
(This probably isn't the place to post this question).
This might have been better after this post on Expository Preaching, but there's nothing wrong with sharing the love here.
;-)
Introduction to Expository Preaching:
*Begg, Alistair. Preaching for God's Glory
*Chapell, Bryan. Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon OR Robinson, Haddon W. Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages
*Kistler, Don, ed. Feed My Sheep: A Passionate Plea for Preaching
*Gibson, Scott M., ed. Preaching to a Shifting Culture OR Johnston, Graham. Preaching to a Postmodern World
Advanced Expository Preaching:
*Augustine. On Christian Teaching
*Carson, D. A. Exegetical Fallacies
*Fasol, Al. A Complete Guide to Sermon Delivery
*Kaiser, Walter C., Jr. Toward an Exegetical Theology: Biblical Exegesis for Preaching & Teaching
*Mathewson, Steven D. Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative
Some suggested titles:
*Greidanus, Sidney. Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method
*Kaiser, Walter C., Jr. Preaching and Teaching from the Old Testament
*Lloyd-Jones, Martyn. Preaching and Preachers
*Stott, John R. W. Between Two Worlds
My mother has done a great job of tracing our ancestors back a piece. She even found a fella who was quite a soldier in the Civil War, from whom we have his last will and testament--very interesting to see what folks back then left to their families, including slaves (ouch!).
Don't know if you thought about this, but as I was reading about my ancestors, it occurred to me that I not only did not know of them, but really had never cared to know.
It's a humbling realization to discover that as significant as we think we are, or want to be, chances are we'll be forgotten within a couple of generations.
Humbling stuff.
So we are from Prague and Germany, eh? I did not know all of this. Is Prague a German speaking country? Didn't a majority of the Holocaust take place in Prague with the Germans invading? I think that's what I remember from Schindler's list. Great movie that was.
JesusGirl,
The land was once the "Kingdom of Bohemia" back in the days of the Roman Empire, but then was later part of the Habsburg Austrian Empire.
After the murder of Huss (1415), there was a great uprising in the land and what has been called "the Hussite Wars."
After World War I it was part of Czechoslovakia, but has been approximately 50% of the Czech Republic since 1993 (together with Moravia & Silesia).
German has been one of the two official languages, along with Czech, but the Germans were not so welcome post-World War II. There are parts of Bohemia that have "changed hands" with the Germans a few times and are heavily populated by Germans.
By Holocaust & Schindler's List I imagine your thinking of the concentration (and death) camps, but there wasn't one in Prague, to the best of my knowledge.
As I understand it, after the Germans invaded in 1939, most of the Jewish population was moved out to concentration camps, many to Poland to the north.
After the war, many of the remaining Jews departed for Israel, which had become a state of its own in 1948.
I'm by no means an expert on the history here, but I'm pretty confident the above.
Lance,
I feel you. Really, prior to walking around and actually seeing the remains of my ancestors I wasn't all that interested.
My mom was pretty stoked, but I wasn't all that jazzed prior to the cemetery trip.
While there, however, I got to thinking.
I wondered if 3 generations later anyone would remember me and I figured, probably not so much.
What's worse is to think that the labor Christians put forth in their churches will be forgot within 20 years.
As a church-planter there is some excitement in knowing that decades later there will be a church that I helped create and nourish. But I wonder how long it will be before those of us who labor in the early (and lean)years will forget all about us.
We easily forget our Christian forefathers (and foresisters).
I was convicted recently when one of our pastoral interns was doing announcements and explained the heroic story behind the Lottie Moon of the "Lottie Moon Christmas Offering" we're taking for international missions.
In my best Johnny Carson, I said to myself, "I did not know that. That is just wild. That, that is wild, wacky stuff."
Our lives are but vapors, but our significance is in Christ and in that which is done which will be of eternal consequence.
Just as it would be cool to meet my descendants centuries later, it will be even more cool to meet in the Kingdom those whose spiritual development I influenced indirectly generations prior.
I think my lineage goes back to some guy named Adam . . . that’s about all I know . . .
I'm curious about my ancestry but have been too lazy to research it in any depth. Somehow I feel that if I commission Gunny to do it, for a small fee, he would do a better job than I would do, and it would come out more interesting. My life would then make a lot more sense to me, and in a much deeper way, I would find out who I really am.
NCGuy,
You might also confidently assert that your line goes back to Noah. We seldom stop to think that we are all descended from Noah as surely as Adam. The line of every single person you read about in Genesis prior to Noah (other than those from whom he descended) was extinguished.
Humbling thought.
Matt
and a SOBERING thought ...
Noah's descendants ... immeasurable.
Everyone else in Noah's neighborhood ... done.
Anger Management
I was going to go with the Adam and Noah comments, but was beaten to it.
I remember at one point trying to determine from the OT genealogies if Adam died in the flood, ie as a non-believer, but I think I found he did expire before the Flood. I think that at least one or two of the other boys in the genealogy, however, did indeed die in the Flood.
Methuselah lived 969 years and died the same year as the flood.
He was Noah's granddaddy and the oldest recorded life span.
It seems to me that either (1) he died in the flood or (2) God waited until he already died to have the flood start.
I also have Bohemian ancestry - my great-great grandpa being a Koura and I am a Kaura (you know how changes happen).
I found a Lisec and Tramba in my family history (actually my sister did all the geneology but she won't share it with the rest of the family so I found something she wrote on a web site-hince the information I have-hehe!). But I cannot find anything on Lisec or Tramba even if I google it. Oh well.
I love your site! God bless!
Fellow Bohunk
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