Three Aettir / Three Soul Families

Aettir

I just had the coolest idea! I am going to take the three aettir of the futhark (the 3 rows or families of runes) and link them to my 3 primary ancestral ethnic families! Now, I am saying right from the get-go, this is my own personal gnosis. I make no claims that what I am going to do applies to everyone. This is my personal path, blazened toward the knowledge I am seeking within the depths of my own soul and kinfolk Folksoul.

The first aett (which I consider to be the eldest) I assign to my likely eldest European roots - my Slavic ethnicity.

The second aett goes to my ancestral family between my eldest and youngest European roots - my Germanic ethnicity.

The third aett goes to my youngest European roots - my Celtic ethnicity.

As I learn more, I will weave together my families by linking each rune also to one of my ethnic roots. I will evaluate each rune independent of the family aett it is in, thus weaving together the runes and my ethnic families. Who knows, maybe some runes will be wildcards from one of the smaller ethnicities found in my genetic ancestry. The future is open and I'm anxious to see what I will discover about myself and my tribes as I do this.

My Ethnic Families

Slavic Witch

I'm taking a new turn in my own soul crafting. New genetic Family Finder results from Family Tree DNA have come in for me (they update results when new techniques become available, see my previous post for the graph), showing my autosomal ancestral ethnicity to be at least 16% Central European - in places like Slovakia, Hungary and the steppes of Russia in other genetics results - and up to 21% adding in my Finnish Saami results (who closely share genetic roots with the Slavic peoples). While my ancestral ethnicity is predominantly Celtic-Germanic (31% and 35% respectively), both my ancestral genetic motherline (U5b1b1-T16192C!) and fatherline (I-M223) have deep Slavic roots, as do the Saami - making my Slavic ethnic ancestry to be at least 21%. 

The large majority of my ethnic ancestry I now know to be Germanic, Celtic and Slavic. Given this, I now am calling myself a Celtic-Germanic-Slavic heathen witch. I need to find out more about Slavic folkways, so the future holds a turn to discover the folkways of my Slavic ancestors . At this point, I know very little about Slavic paganism, but new offerings in my witchcraft shoppe for this tribe of my family are in the works. A pretty complex task, but I'm sure I'll be able to weave all of my ancestral streams together quite nicely in my own soul crafting practice. After all, it's who I am, and I think I am woven together very well.

Paternal Ancestral Ethnicities & Folk Soul Impulses

As some who read my Facebook may recall, I recently learned from my father that my paternal line hails from the Cumberland Gap in Appalachia, making it very likely that some of my paternal grandmothers were Appalachian root workers known as granny witches, and practitioners of ethnic Appalachian folk magic.

(In honor of my Appalachian roots, over time, I will be adding a focused line Appalachian folkish conjure formulas to my Etsy shoppe!)

The oral tradition of my paternal family - that as being primarily of English, Irish (Scots-Irish as well, given my confirmed autosomal genetic link to Scotland) and German descent, as well as having American roots in the Cumberland Gap deep in Appalachia, and into Appalachian Kentucky, as well as having some Native American American (Cherokee and Potowatomi) family members - fits exactly with the historical ethnic makeup reported by Kentucky Emigration and Immigration Department -
 

Pre-statehood settlers of Kentucky were mostly of English, German and Ulster Scots descent who migrated from the Atlantic seaboard states. Immigrants from North Carolina and southwestern Virginia came by way of the Cumberland Gap and over the Wilderness Road. Immigrants from Maryland and Pennsylvania came on flatboats and rafts down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh. Other early immigrants included small groups of French, Swiss, and Welsh. During the mid-19th century the Ohio River brought many German immigrants and settlers from New England and the Middle Atlantic states. Many Irish settled in Louisville during this time.

In 1790, historians estimate Kentucky's population was English (52%), Scots-Irish or Scots (25%), Irish (9%), Welsh, (7%), German (5%), French (2%), Dutch (1%), and Swedish (0.2%) in ethnicity.

1820 statistics vary slightly: English (57%), Scots-Irish or Scots (18%), Welsh (9%), Irish (8%), German (6%), French (2%), Dutch (1%), and Swedish (0.2%).

Native Americans were the indigenous population also living in the area with the immigrants, giving support to the oral family tradition of having some Native American family members. As a small child, I grew up around one aunt known to be a full blooded Cherokee. She was known by the name Palace. The clannish rural area I grew up in (often humorously called Taylorville - my birth surname is Taylor) was one in which many families in my father's extended family lived in homes and properties clustered together in proximal concentration. Even today, several families of the Taylor Clan still live here in proximally clustered homes. This clannish way of living, also fits well with ethnic Appalachian ways of living.

No one in my family has, in oral family tradition, ever been Catholic Christian - I was raised as a Protestant Christian (where Protestantism in my mind is the first major successful impulse of the Teutonic folksoul to return to its native Pagan roots, and to throw off the yoke of the non-native religiosity imposed on the people via the Romanization of Pagan Europe). The religious affiliation of Appalachia with folkish Protestantism also fits with the ethnic and religious history of Appalachia and the oral traditions coming from my paternal family.