I shook my family tree and out fell emmigrants of Czech, Croatia, Austia/Germany, England, Ireland, and Scotland. I was fortunate enough as a child to have heard my great-grandfather's stories about leaving Yugoslavia by himself at the age of 15 and sailing to California in about 1880 to make a life for himself in San Francisco.

My German/Irish aunt was ostracized by her family because she ran away from Kansas to become an opera singer in Philadelphia (when they had an opera company). My Czech dad plays trumpet in a swing band here in California.

We siblings are trying to round out the gene pool by marrying people of varying heritages: Turkish, Cherokee, French, Ukranian, Chinese, Norwegian; we do not yet have delegates from all continents, but we have many offspring here in the diverse San Francisco area, so there is potential.