We tested her son ( my uncle) several years ago, but had no way of making sense of the results, so the results just sat for a while. Then I attended a genealogy seminar that focused on this very thing and was able to triangulate until I located a possible mother. It turns out this woman's grandfather was a Czech who immigrated in the 1850s (He called himself Austrian on some census records and Hungarian on others...because at the time of his emigration, the area was part of the Hapsburg Empire). He had fought for the Empire in Italy in the 1840s, then after immigration he fought for the Union in the Civil War. The things that man must have seen.
Here's the weird part...I located his hometown, which is just outside of Brno in modern Czech Republic. I was in Brno in the 1990s...while I was in college, an opportunity to live in Prague sort of fell in my lap and while there I traveled around Bohemia for a bit. I fell in love with the country even though I had had no interest in it previously. I almost fell out of my chair when I found out where he was from.
I do think our ancestors guide us sometimes.
Same here. Some say "memories" in our DNA. Would not surprise me.
I wrote a book sitting on a stool in a Dunkin Donuts. I later learned that when I turned and looked out the glass windows, I was looking at the graveyard of my ancestors in MA, where I never knew I had any ancestors. Born in NY and raised in IL.