*watching @TheGreatHulu for a second time*

Voltaire: "You are German anyway."
Catherine: "I am Russian in my heart."
My brain: "Wait a sec ..."

Suddenly, I recalled a years-old conversation with my grandmother on my dad's side. Growing up, all I'd heard about that side of the family is that they're German.

Imagine my surprise when I signed up for @Ancestry and discovered her grandparents moved to America from Russia.

"Grandma," I told her, "We're Russian, not German."

She insisted I had it all wrong.

"A German princess or something married someone important in Russia and our family followed her," she explained.

That comment came roaring back in to my head watching this scene. Could my ancestors have followed Catherine the Great?

My 14yo and I got to digging. Sure enough, there was a generation that moved to Russia from Germany during Catherine's reign.

We found out they were some of the first to settle what is now Norka along the Volga River. My great (times a lot) grandfather Johann Grün was the towns' master tailor.
https://www.norkarussia.info/8203johann-caspar-and-gertrude-elisabeth-gruen.html

To say they "followed" Catherine isn't entirely accurate. After she overthrew her husband, she invited her countrymen to settle a region that Russia struggled to control. She offered 30 years of no taxes, free land and travel expenses.
https://www.norkarussia.info/catherines-manifesto-1763.html

His grandson would eventually immigrate to America in 1900, coming through Galveston. He and his family settled in Nebraska before moving to Oregon later in his life.

Kind of a weird way to spend the day, but if offered up some education on an otherwise lazy Sunday!