Fw: May Day greetings with a royal twist (from Jyri)

"Sometimes history seems to be one big genetic experiment." (Jyri)

Now that's very nicely put indeed.  I've always remembered the great quote in Edmund Wilson's fine work, Apologies to the Iroquois, where an old Mohawk comments on his Native and Euro ancestry: "Sift my blood and God know what you'll find."  In his message, Jyri notes that a connection of his to "royal ancestry", from back in the 1600s, has emerged.  

May Day in Idaho has brought snow, chilly winds, and, for a little while, very clear and bright blue skies -- now again clouding over.  Must be an omen of some kind.  (H)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Jyri 
To: Hunter Gray 
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2013 9:58 AM
Subject: May Day greetings with a royal twist


Hunter,
Although I’ve just discovered that the new King Willem Alexander of the Netherlands and I share a Swedish ancestor from the 1600s, my thoughts and sympathies on May Day are still with a slightly different camp.
It was really quite ironic. There was something about the coronation ceremony on the television news  and I started ranting about historical anachronisms and  royalty as waste of space and waste of the tax-payers’ money when my father phoned and mentioned that he’d come across some news item of the Dutch king’s ancestors among Swedish nobility with a connection to an ancestor of my great-grandmother on my mother’s side. Of course it sounds grand, but there must be thousands, if not tens of thousands, people like me with the same or similar connection in Finland and Scandinavia. The people in question became so to speak déclassé losing their former status by merging with burghers and clergymen, not to mention the Finnish farmers and Baltic serfs that came along later.  Sometimes history seems to be one big genetic experiment.
Best wishes,
Jyri

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org  (social justice)

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