ancestry/general questions
hello!! i want to begin by saying sorry in advance for my dumb american self, and thank you so very much for any information and time you're willing to give me 🥹 i recently finally took the deep dive into tracking my ancestry, and to my complete shock, my closest non-US ancestor (by a LOT) is belgian (we were always told we're super irish - i have yet to find an irish ancestor 🤣.) this is so exciting to learn, and i'm really looking forward to connecting with them more and visiting their graves. my great great great grandfather emigrated in 1847 from luxembourg, belgium with his parents (born in the late 1790s) and siblings when he was two. i just have a couple clarifications and questions, but i'm super open to any other stories, fun facts, advice, etc. anyone has!
so from my understanding, him and his family would've been speaking french? is it likely they also still spoke walloon? and they're still walloons technically, despite wallonia and belgium itself not being formally established until 1830? i would also love to hear others theories on why they chose to emigrate. finally, i'm also curious about any recipes from this region that realistically they would've been eating, as i'm really looking to connect to them as much as i can. i know it was an incredibly tumultuous time with the napoleonic wars, so that last part might be a stretch. regardless of all this, i can say for sure i will be connecting with them tomorrow when i watch belgium absolutely demolish usa 🤣🤣🇧🇪 i'm not sure what happened in me but i have some really deep-seated sense of national pride stirring with my discovery, especially for someone who cares very little about sports here in the US!
anyways, thanks so much for reading this far; i'm really honoured and appreciative!!