Oh my Geneology...so CONFUSING! I'll bet my history is one of the strangest on GC!
My mother was born in the Azores (Portugal) and though my father was born in America, his grandparents are French Canadian.
It's hard to trace my mom's family back because on her island, last names didn't really mean anything. You see, before my Grandfather was married his last name was Pacheco, and before my Grandmother got married her last name was Dutra. When they got married they became Mr. & Mrs. Amaral (just becase my Grandfather decided he liked that name...) But then they had 5 kids--all of which have all three last names (ex. My mom was Maria Gorete Dutra Pacheco Amaral even though her parents's last name was only Amaral.)
I've wanted to trace back farther, but the whole last name deal makes it difficult. I'm convinced there's Aryan blood in me somewhere because my mom and grandmother and all of them on that side are so fair-skinned and light-eyed. Traditionally, Portuguese people are more olive skinned and darker haired/eyed.
My father's family has been traced all the way back to France before they went to Canada. We have the family coat of arms and everything. And, we actually discovered a pretty neat story about the unconventional spelling of our last name:
There were 2 brothers, one was mean and one was nice. The mean one killed someone important in the town, and the ruler of the town (a baron or something) put an "X" at the end of his last name so that all in the future would know that he had done something wrong.
(Yay for the random "X"!)