Vacation: Part 15 - The Ircink Family Tree.

While we were fishing (and having a few), my Uncle Fran was relating family stories - things that happened before I was born or when I was too young to remember, people I haven't seen in ages, etcetera.

First, let me catch you up on the Ircink family tree.

"Ircink" is Czech, or Bohemian. We're also German. A few years ago we found out (long story) that the Ircink's (may have been "Ircingova") fled France during the French Revolution and settled in Buchov and Stankov, Czechoslovakia. Apparently, we were known through the land (France) as great hunters and fisherman (which we still are). Great - now we're French, too. Anyway, the Ircink's left Czechoslovakia around 1834 and settled in Wisconsin and became brewmeisters (Stankov was known as a brewmeister city).

The Datka's - my Mother's side - are Polish and German, and I found out through a relative who did some digging that we're also Scottish, French Canadian, Swiss and Swedish.

So Uncle Fran is telling me about the Canning brothers, who were first cousins to my Grandpa Ircink. I looked up "Canning" on the internet and every reference I could find was Irish. Oddly, one of the Canning brothers was a cop and one was a gangster who was gunned down in a hallway in Chicago.

My Grandma Ircink's (nee Prosser) cousin Dick Pagan was actually from Italian descent. "Pagan" was shortened from "Paganini" (something like that).

So now I'm Irish and Italian. I KNEW I had Irish in me. I was thrilled to find out about the itty-bitty Scottish link on my mother's side - but the Irish??? Slan!