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someone on another site asked about

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URL: http://www.enfield-rifles.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14434
Printed Date: March 26 2026 at 8:18pm
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Topic: someone on another site asked about
Posted By: A square 10
Subject: someone on another site asked about
Date Posted: February 16 2026 at 8:27pm
what people call the grand parents and great grandparents in mixed families , i had not thought a lot of it - i just went with my wifes sides common nomenclature ....even tho it would not have been accepted in my family , ive found it endearing when the little ones call me gramps ...........my family would have considered that rude and disrespectful , i think that stems from our southern roots , my grandparents were very formal in those respects , my parents let us call them mom and dad instead of father and mother , more lax at home but did not let us disrespect the elders ,  

my wifes family did things differently , im also married to a woman that had kids , for all practical purposes i was there when they were very young so ive adopted without the paperwork , both my son and my daughter are mine as much as they are their biodad and he doesnt argue that , we respect each other for always having the kids best interest in mind , having said that there are multiple families involved , 

 

my wifes family always used granny and gramps so thats what we are known as when you get to the "great" state is GG as the women outlive the men at that point ....if i live to that point i guess ill find out but none of the men in either of our families have made that landmark , in my family i referred to mine [after he was gone] as great grandfather [last name] i was told by grandfather [last name] that we do that out of respect , both would cringe at my grandkids calling me gramps , i know he would think that i was not getting the respect i deserved  , he was a bit touchy on respect - my parents were mother and father , but my grandmother [last name] let us call the mom and dad , my kids respect me and have told me of the appreciation for how they grew up , they always got that from me and i always got that from them , been two of the very best things that ever happened to me in this life , 

 

however since the kids were part of the family before i was i respect their custom in spite of how i was raised and i think i could explain to my elders if they were available ....my kids did call my father "grandfather" because that was how they were introduced - there were no greats left alive at that point on my side , 

 

there was only one great left in my lifetime and i was way too young to remember what we were told to call her when she passed i was 4 my brother was 2 , 

 

this is an interesting topic as i dont know what all my kids call their grands on the other side but ive overheard pa pa , grand pa pa etc a few tomes out of the grand kids , 

its been further complicated by my sons remarriage as we added two more grand kids , i have no idea what they use , but this has been a step forward in our lives as those two grandkids are fantastic kids , ive been very blessed in this part of life 


Replies:
Posted By: britrifles
Date Posted: February 17 2026 at 4:48am
I wished I had gotten more information from my grandparents on my father’s side.  We called them Nana and Papa.  My Dad’s father was born in England in 1905 and moved to Canada with his mother and father around 1920.  Papa was too young to serve in WWI but he had an older brother who did.  His parents died before I was born, and his mother moved back to England in the mid 1930’s after her husband died, she never got used to the long cold winters in Ontario.  

My mother’s parents were addressed as Grandma and Grandpa, but pronounced as “gramma and grampa”. 

I knew my great grandparents on my mother’s side, my great grandfather’s family had been in south-east Ontario since the mid 1820’s.  When I was a young boy, they were both still living on the farm that the family acquired a few years after they immigrated to Canada from Northern Ireland in 1824.  The story passed down from my great grandfather what that his great grandfather was murdered in Northern Ireland and his great grandmother took her young children and sailed to Canada. Her infant daughter died on the voyage.  

I find as I get older, I get more curious about my ancestors, what kind of life they had.  


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