Zach Freed

            My family has a very interesting background.  My mother’s side comes from mainly eastern European countries, plus Russia and someone down the line was from Ireland.  My father’s side is a little trickier.  There is no one alive to really ask, so I go by what I know from memory because my mom doesn’t really remember.  All I really know is that there is some central American background and there is also some German background.

            If I remember this correctly my great great grandfather on my father’s side was from germany.  My original last name was Freud.  I don’t know his name, I do know it started with M but I don’t really know much else about him.  Although I do know he was a kind of scientist.  He came over to North America at some point in the mid 1800’s when he was teenager and they adapted his last name to Freed when he went through immigration.  The most solid fact I do know is that he then moved to Panama, not sure how he got there or why, in the end of the 19^th century.  I believe he died before 1920, and my grandfather on that side still lived in Panama.  When he got married to my grandmother it was the late 1930’s.  My dad was born July 9, 1945 in Panama.  Soon after, my grandfather left them and they moved into the states.  It started in Florida, then up to New York.  My grandmother went back to Florida after he graduated college at CW Post.  My uncle and his family still live in Panama, and he served with my dad in the Panamanian Army.  My father met my mother in New York in 1977, married in 1980, and actually went back down to Panama doing legal work for the JAGs office in 1990 when I was born.  After about a year with me, I was brought back to the states with my family.  My sisters were already in New York.

            My mother’s side is very weird.  I know as far back as my great great great grandfather.  My grandma doesn’t know anything of her heritage and I couldn’t find any records.  My great great great grandfather was from Ireland.  I know this because my great grandfather and I both have some form of red hair.  Mine is present in my facial hair; not really sure why.  So he was from Ireland, served in the military.  His wife was from Poland.  I don’t know their original last name, but I do know that when they moved to Poland in the early 1800s their name had changed to Keil, or Kiel (pronounced k-eye-ell).  My great great grandfather was born in Poland, met his wife there, and moved to Germany.  My great grandfather was born in the 1870’s, I couldn’t get an exact date or a name.  He served in the German army, became a mid-ranking officer.  He actually defected to the United States in the beginning of the 20^th century, I think in 1909.  I know he was here about 10 years, give or take a few, before my grandfather was born in 1918, in Brooklyn.  When he came over his name was changed to Kiell (pronounced k-ee-l) which is my mother’s maiden name.  There is a journal my grandfather has from his father.  It is written in Russian and German.  He learned Russian while in the army and some of his family members lived there.  The journal doesn’t move from a shelf in their house.  It is almost completely destroyed, but it chronicles many of the journeys and has all of his immigration papers and passports for him and his brother.  His brother, I guess my great uncle, died shortly after coming to New York.  My mother’s parents still live, but are in their early 90’s and late 80’s and have some memory issues.  Still walking around though.

My family history is kind of lost.  The only reason my father knew as much as he did was because he was able to use some legal tools to find his brothers in the late 80s and learn a lot from them.  He died in 2000.  My mother doesn’t have resources like that and her side of the family really doesn’t remember or know anything.  We also don’t know how to read Russian or german and he also had very hard to read handwriting. 

So that’s basically it for me.  I pinned a few countries, I know there are a few others earlier in the bloodline, at least on my mother’s side, but I don’t really know any info that far back.  I’m just going by what I remember them telling me, because now they wouldn’t be able to tell me much at all.