Welcome to Eastern Europe! Pictured is the town of Ostrava in the current-day Czech Republic.
I should explain. England, Ireland, and Germany make up the largest portions of my ethnicity estimates, and the other regions that showed up were European Jewish (6%), Baltic (2%), Sweden (2%) , and Greece & the Balkans (1%). I did not have enough ancestry from either place to narrow it down to a more specific region, and when you put these regions on a map, they make up pretty much all of Eastern Europe. I have not found any ancestors from Sweden or Greece (although I would love to be spontaneously singing ABBA songs on a remote Greek island in overalls, so maybe that's evidence of that ancestry). I do know of a couple ancestors, both of whom happen to be my maternal and paternal namesakes, from the broader region of Eastern Europe which is where I believe I got this hodge podge of DNA.
Antonin Hajovsky and Johanna Stavinoha were my great-great-grandparents on Hank Hajovsky's side. They were first cousins that were born in Ostrava in the Moravia region of the current-day Czech Republic. Johanna immigrated to the U.S. first with her parents and siblings, and Antonin came later and lived with their family in the Schulenberg area in Central Texas. They married in 1882 and had twelve kids.
Jacob A. Koch and Sara "Charlotte" Pohl were my third-great-grandparents on Jack Koch's side. They were both born in Hungary, and Jacob fought in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. It was one of several revolutions that occurred that year in search of liberalism and democracy instead of autocracy. The revolution was unsuccessful which likely made Jacob and his wife Charlotte decide to come to the U.S. They immigrated in 1854 and had eight kids together. Ironically, after (potentially) leaving Hungary in search of a better life, Jacob became somewhat of a swindler, moving around every few years and cheating his clients and bosses.
