Finding Your Roots

In the archives of Washington State, where her grandmother passed away in 1991, we began to trace Ruth's roots, for real.

"Name: Ruth Helen Hornbaker Father's Name: Richard Schafer Mother's Name: Minnie Heller" This is your grandmother Ruth's death certificate.

Have you ever seen that before?

No.

Well, this document is important because it gives us the names of Ruth's parents.

This is how we piece together family trees.

They were Richard Schafer and Wilhelmina Heller.

Wilhelmina went by the nickname- Wilhelmina?

Wilhelmina.

And Wilhelmina's nickname was Minnie.

And Richard and Wilhelmina are your paternal great-grandparents.

Have you ever heard those names before?

No.

Could you please turn the page?

Chrissy, on the right is a list of passengers who arrived in the Port of New York from Bremen, Germany.

You ready for this?

June 1st, 1885.

Wow.

That's the passenger list.

Would you please read who was on that ship?

Wow.

Johann Heller, age 34.

Occupation, workman.

Rosalia, age 32, baby, his wife.

Hermann?

Hermann.

Age six, child.

Wilhelmina, age three, child.

The country which they are citizens, Germany.

Number of pieces of luggage, four.

That's the moment they stepped foot on the United States soil.

Wow.

June 1st, 1885.

Wow.

And she arrived with her parents- And then I was 100 years later!

Yeah.

Wow!

Your great-great grandparents were Johann and Rosalia Heller.

Oh, that's incredible.

Johann and Rosalia were both born in towns that were then part of the German state of Prussia and are now in Poland.

As we combed through the records that they left behind, we noticed something unusual.

Rosalia had a brother named Traugott Franz, who's listed as being an oboist, and it seems that this was a family business.

Indeed, documents indicate that at least three generations of Chrissy's ancestors were musicians.

Wow.

How do you think this history gets lost?

How do you think people forget what their ancestors- I would've definitely thought like, I do feel like our family has a musical connection with vocals.

I always felt like our family always been in choirs and things, but would've never guessed instruments, especially with how terrible I am at instruments.

But yeah, I don't know how it would get lost, but I also don't know how you would find it, because it's been so gone forever.

As it turns out, there was a great deal more to learn about the Franz family.

Not only were they musicians, they also appear to have lived nomadic lives, traveling in mostly rural areas.

And it seems that several of them were illiterate, which was surprising, because Prussia had compulsory education laws at the time.

At first, we didn't know what to make of all this, but then we realized that Chrissy's ancestors belonged to an ancient European community called the Sinti, and thus were part of a very specific minority group known as the Romani, or Roma people, a group once denigrated as gypsies.

They're traditionally itinerant people who lived all over Europe for centuries and you are part Roma.

Wow, that's so cool!

What's it like to see that?

I love it.

These are your people.

That's why they were moving around so much.

Wow!

That's why they were illiterate.

Wow.