Heritage-Jessi Young

My heritage is predominantly Spanish. My mother is 100% Spanish, as all of my great-grandparents on her side were born in spain. Her mother (my grandmother) was born in Galicia, the most northern Spanish province, in 1935, and moved to Pawling, NY with her parents and older brother in 1941. Galicia has strong Portuguese ties, with Irish infusions as there are large settlements of both in the province. My grandfather’s parents hail from Barcelona, Spain far before it was the 2nd largest city in Spain. They immigrated to upstate New York in 1933 just months before my grandfather was born. My mother’s maiden name is Daniels, the Americanized version of the family name Danihel from the Latin bible that my great-grandfather legally changed upon entrance to the US in 1933.

My father, is 50% Spanish and 50% German. On this side of the family, my grandmother’s family hails from the Bay of Cadiz, in Spain. Her parents came to the US in 1930, where they found their way to Tennessee and in 1933 my grandmother was born. In 1935, my grandmother and her younger sister and older brother moved back to Spain, residing in Madrid, where she grew up for most of her childhood, only returning to the United States in 1950 where she met my grandfather before moving to Germany after my father was born. My grandfather, was born in 1933 in Dresden, Germany, but his parents sent him and his younger sisters to America in 1939 at the onset of World War II. They cam to live with extended family in Kentucky and then Tennessee. Sometime either before or during their voyage to America, the German family name was changed to Young, the name the family holds today. My grandparents returned to Germany living and raising their children from 1958-1969.