RE: The Road to Steem Fest | The Thai Life and what to expect
Different Spellings:
I've heard there are different spellings to my grandpa's surname, Rasp. Another spelling might be Raspe. Family Search is a good website. Thanks. I've been there. Also, Wiki Tree.
Adoption
My mom talked to my dad's real mom. So, I was told that my dad's parents were getting and feeling old. So, my dad's dad died when my dad was like three. So, his mom felt like she couldn't take care of him. So, she gave him up. But then she ended up remarrying and having another son. So, my dad's dad may have had heart disease or something as he died at around the age of 47, assuming he lived from 1906-1953.
Litography
I've read on I think Ancestry that my grandpa was in the occupation of lithography. So, perhaps, that was a family business that they were doing in the Netherlands and then in California as well. Ironically, I like to write. So, in some ways, I might be like my grandpa even as I've never met him. By the way, I stay away from beer.
Titanic
I need to look more into it. I guess they didn't have to, like you said. Maybe they just really desired to be on the Titanic. It might have been the cool thing to do.
Well, either way, it sounds like your family history is quite interesting. I love going through info in history. I've been trying to find out more about my ancestors. It's harder now because both of my parents and any uncles and aunts have since passed away. I still have some cousings though who are much older and grew up with my mother, they would possibly be able to tell me more about her side of the family. I know that both my mother and father had some French in their ancestry. My grandmother's maiden name is French, and my father used to go to a French school in Amsterdam, which was only allowed at the time if you had some French heritage.
His French was fluent! I'd love to find out more about that school too! His French family would have come from the Normans, so in a way, we're also Viking :) I can hardly find anything about my mothers' side of the family. My father's side goes back to 17-something but funny enough, no info about the French part of their family. So I may have to dig a bit deeper.
However, his cousin (from his mother's side) was quite famous and notorious in all of the Netherlands around WWII and beyond, and we have a famous painter on my grandmother's side as well. All in all this makes for quite some interesting material.
My high school mascot was the Vikings. You know, it can be tough to get information out of people. So, the trick is in finding ways to get them to see the value in what they know. So, there are people, like you said, that can help you with your family tree. Vietnamese people would tell me that they don't know much about their family history, their ancestors, in many cases. They can tell me general stories about their country which is good in the sense of being united around Vietnamese heritage.
According to my mom, she has said that her side of the family can be traced to the kings of Troy and possibly back to Noah and Adam according to some websites and genealogies she ran across. So, we are not directly connected to the kings of Troy. It is more like a mother's mother's mother's mother's, etc, kind of thing, or I'm not totally sure yet because I have not looked at it yet. Most of my ancestors were Europeans. Maybe all of them were. Some of them may have been Normans.