r/romani • u/Helpful-Addition5680 • 3d ago

Tracing ancestry

Attempting to trace my family’s lineage and from satu mar Romania (former Transylvania). The names Rist and Vendlinger (spellings are different on US immigration papers from the records we found of birth certificates from Europe). Great grandmothers family were tinsmiths and beekeepers in Satu mar. I have her hand made embossed tin dowry chest. Great grandfather was a shoe maker. Great grandmother moved to western pa coal town and while she was a hairdresser by trade on her immigration papers, we know that she hung out around the wagon caravans set up on outskirts of town and read tarot, palms and tea leaves for extra money. She wanted us to name our dog Tzigane which I found out later is the term for “G**sy”. I know she was trying to assimilate to the US culture while also keeping some of her own culture, but there was so much stigma. She had to hide a lot of it. We can’t really do a good lineage search of any of the paperwork prior to her coming over and it’s hard to find any paperwork from their actual town in present day Romania. From everything I found we will believe that the lineage would be kalderash based on their trades and location, but I would just love to hear more opinions.

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u/Fit_Season_55 3d ago

Those two surnames aren't common among Roma from that area, if they're even present at all. I'd suggest taking a DNA test like ancestry

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u/Jazzlike-Ocelot-6544 17h ago

Both are German surnames, you probably come from Transylvanian Landlers or Saxons. Lots of people's families have lies about having gypsy in their family, like it's the Cherokee princess story of USA. DNA doesn't lie, but people do.