Geneology & Ancestry

Knowing your ancestry is like having a map of your past. It's a journey of self-discovery, connecting you to the people and places that shaped who you are today.

Most of us don’t have too many details about our ancestors. Most families generally lose memories of anything past two or three generations. Learning who your distant relatives were is a fascinating part of self-knowledge.

COVID provided a gift of time, so I started researching my genealogy and ancestry. I took two DNA tests, traced family trees, perused online church records of births, marriages, and deaths, and compared notes with various cousins I met along the way. One of these cousins provided abundant information.

When I started my search, two myths were quickly dispelled. First, most of us assume that if our father is German and our mother is Irish, then we’d be half German and half Irish. It doesn’t work that way.

A second clarification had to do with siblings. I assumed I’d have the same ethnic DNA as my brother and sister. Again, no, it doesn’t work that way.

Here’s another example. My surname is Gronbacher, which is of Germanic origin. I learned much about the Gronbachers over the past few years. But I only carry 5% of those genes.

DNA is a bit of a crap shoot. Genes mix and match every time they're transmitted. While there are certainly family genetic similarities and patterns, each person is uniquely their own mix.

One last insight I gained from this activity: Even if you do only thirty minutes of genealogy research, you quickly realize that we’re all related and that we are one big human family. Some of our connections are more immediate than others, but in reality, we’re all cousins.

Below is a snapshot, an overview, of my ancestry and lineage as I can best compile it. Keep in mind that tracing genetic markers isn’t an exact science, so the numbers below could vary somewhat. I’ve organized things by the primary family names and general regions and added a few references to individuals when that information was available.

Roche Family - Cork, Ireland

I’m related to the Roche family through my paternal grandmother’s father, Valentine Roche.

I can trace my connections as far back as Adam Roche, who left Wales and arrived in Bannow Bay, Wexford, in 1169, along with the Norman Invasion.

His grandson, David Roche, settled in the northern part of County Cork around 1214. He and some of his sons married into the Fitzhugh family. The family lived near Bridgetown Priory. Several members of the Roche family settled nearby in Fermoy.

This part of the Roche family's lineage is next noted with the discovery of Leo Roche, living in Clonakilty, Cork. The records indicate he was a solicitor with a small office in 1777.

My branch of the Roche family appears to have arrived in Brooklyn, NY, around the early-1870s from Clonakilty, Cork.

Pender Family - St. Ives, Cornwall (England)

I am related to the Pender family through my paternal grandfather’s mother, Miriam Pender.

My branch of the Pender family tree starts in St. Ives, Cornwall, Southwestern England.

Benjamin I. Pender was an innkeeper in St. Ives around 1679. He had seven children, some of which moved to Falmouth. His grandson, Benjamin J. Pender (1716-1769), was a lawyer and tax collector in St. Ives.

From what I can tell, I am related to the Pender family, who are currently in St. Ives. These Penders own several trawlers and come from a long line of fishermen.

Brady & Fitzpatrick Families - County Leitrim, Ireland

According to my DNA test, the area where I have the most lineage is County Leitrim, Ireland, and the bordering counties.

The families in this area I’m descended from include Brady, Fitzpatrick, Flynn, Reynolds, and Donohue.

I’m connected to these clusters of families through my maternal grandmother’s grandmother, Anna Brady. My paternal grandmother's mother also appears to have connections to Leitrim and West Louth (family name Donohue).

The earliest direct family member I can find is Liam Brady, who, in 1723, was a farmer near Kinlough, County Leitrim, Ireland. He had several children. Later Brady descendants include Colin Brady, a baker near Ballinamore, Leitrim, in the early 1820s.

Another Brady ancestor, Eoghan Fitzpatrick (1827), was a farmer near Bundoran, Co. Donegal. I could also locate a Rose Mary Brady near Arvagh, Co. Navan.

This group of relatives seems to have mostly been farmers and small shopkeepers.

Gibby Family - Inverness, Scotland

My mother’s father was a Gibby. I’m uncertain when these Gibbys arrived in the US, but they began to appear in Texas, Oklahoma, and Southern Illinois in the 1830s.

It seems that my branch of the Gibby line starts in Inverness Shire, Northern Scotland, with Iain Gibby, who was a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church (the Anglican Church in Scotland) in the town of Inverness in the 1810s.

Many of the Gibby ancestors were scattered throughout Scotland and northern England. Another connection was William Gibby, who was a member of Parliament for Suffolk from 1854 to 1856.

Gronbacher Family - Baden-Bavaria Regions, Germany

The people who provided my surname (Gronbacher) came to the US in the 1860s. They settled primarily in Brooklyn, although a few moved to upstate New York within a generation or two.

The US patriarch was Louis Gronbacher (my great-great-grandfather), who was born in Neuhausen, Germany (1850) and moved to the US as a young man. He married Rose Linder and raised seven children in the Howard Beach, Queens, area where I grew up.

They are buried together in a small cemetery near where I grew up. However, I was unaware of this or the cemetery's presence. As a teenager, I would have walked within yards of their graves dozens and dozens of times, totally unaware that they were buried nearby.

Gronbacher is a rare name in the US, and all American Gronbachers are from the same family cluster. However, the surname is fairly common in Southern Germany.