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00:00:01
Do People Care Where They Come From?
6 Plays1 hour ago
🎧 Welcome to Thoughts For Rent — the podcast where real estate gets real (and local)!
Hosted by Jenni McKenna, a Las Vegas born and raised seasoned broker, and Owner of McKenna Property Management, this show is your inside look at what’s really happening in the Vegas property management and real estate world. With over 20 years of experience herself - Jenni brings not just knowledge, but heart to the conversation.
Whether we’re talking market trends, property tips, community happenings, or just the everyday quirks of Vegas living, this podcast is all about keeping you in the know.
💬 Real talk. Local stories. Professional insight – provided from a company who has their boots on the ground and hearts in the community.
In this episode, we’re covering if people still have a deep connection to their lineage and care about where they come from. Is genealogy a lost art form?
McKenna Property Management, proudly managing Las Vegas homes since 2005 (and loving every minute of it).
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Concept
00:00:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
top of the morning to you. oh no Welcome to Realtors Keeping It Real, Thoughts for Rent. And it's called that because Jennifer McKenna right here, my wife and the best real estate agent, the best darn realtor in Vegas, is the owner operator of McKenna Property Management. so that's why our podcast is called Thoughts for Rent because we rent out a lot of properties and we have a lot of thoughts. We have a lot of thoughts and we are realtors keeping it real. oh We're keeping it real. All right. The thing that I like to do on these podcasts is spring the topic on you. Don't give you a chance. I hate that by the way.
00:00:56
Irelynn Zurflueh
I hate that Max. I really do. I've asked him four or five times. What are we going to talk about on our podcast? He's like, Oh, you'll see. You'll see. does this shirt make me look fat? I'm wearing this shirt today. That kind of leads into our topic. Well, let me read it.
00:01:11
Irelynn Zurflueh
You don't scare me. I'm married to an Irish girl. That's you. That is me. And you don't scare me because nothing's scarier than a pissed off Irish woman. Let me tell you. hey I cannot deny that. I will not deny that. Kind of give it away a little bit. I know you like to have green thumb or green room or whatever. Evergreen.
St. Patrick's Day and Pandemic Impact
00:01:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
Evergreen. Will you please remember that? Evergreen episodes. Yes. However, it is March 13th today. Okay. Friday the 13th leading into St. Patrick's Day next Tuesday. we're definitely not doing an evergreen episode, are we? Well, although it's about st Patrick's Day, be doing lot
00:01:48
Irelynn Zurflueh
Partly. So that's green. If you don't wear green, you get pinched. Correct. If this were things, I'd pinch you cause you're not wearing green. I'm wearing green on Tuesday, I promise. But St. Patrick's Day is next week. And I love it. I'm not Irish, although I'm married to an Irish woman. But I love St. Patrick's Day because it's a day of celebration. It's a day where people kind of go a little nuts and open up and just kind of let go a little bit. And I love that. I think that's an important part of life. What do you think?
00:02:14
Irelynn Zurflueh
I love it too. And you know, the one thing I was thinking about is the fact that back in 2020, when COVID kind of shut down the world, not kind of did shut down the world. The thing that I remember most distinctly is the fact that everything shut down right before St. Paddy's day. And there was no St. Patrick's day celebration as a whole. Geez. 2020.
00:02:37
Irelynn Zurflueh
And that's the one holiday that I remember it completely affected. people, that's a big go out and and celebrate days. Well, it's ah it's a big group of party, meet up, do whatever you do for St. Patrick's Day. But it's kind of one of those, I mean, truthfully, it's like a made up holiday to just get a bunch of people together.
00:02:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, it kind of is. And it's not bad holiday to make up, but you do get together. You gather with friends. You you know drink your green beer. Chicago makes the rivers all green. You have parades. I mean, it's a fun holiday. And during 2020, it all was kiboshed.
00:03:10
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah, was a bummer. I think probably some of the younger sets still got together. Ooh. they're fun. I don't think so. Oh, I think they may have. But what that brought to mind for me was talk about where we came from.
Ancestry and Personal Heritage
00:03:24
Irelynn Zurflueh
Okay. You know, where we came from. And obviously I wore my Irish girl shirt, you're Irish, St. Patrick's day is coming up. So I think we would start with you. But the the bigger question is, do people care where they can't come came from anymore? I think they do. I think ancestry.com really like that brought a lot of people into what is my ancestry? Where You know, what great-great-great-grandparents were they? Were they part of the Civil War? Were they part of World War I, World War II? And now with technology and all that data that's coming in, you can really go back.
00:04:02
Irelynn Zurflueh
hundreds of years to find out and what your family is. came from Yeah, that's true. But before that though, people were still into family trees and finding out their lineage. I mean, my father, may he rest in peace, he had a huge family tree that he kept track of way back into his grandparents and their grandparents. And it was pretty cool. And then of course, like you said, Ancestry.com came along and before he passed away, that kind of was coming on. So he was he was pretty interested in Yeah, I think that's unusual.
00:04:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
Honestly, my grandma did. My grandma was too. So maybe I might be out of speak out speaking out of turn. But the thing is, is I don't know a lot of people other than your dad and my grandma that took the time because it's all handwritten, took the time to do their ancestry. I think a lot of people did. That's good. That's a really cool thing to have. So yeah I had a big poster of all of our.
00:04:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
our family and and all that stuff and all of our heritage. But we're, so we're, I guess in ah in advance of us talking about this, I wonder if the way the world has become globalized, you know, I can talk to somebody in, in Taiwan on my phone. I don't, it's just so easy to communicate and connect with other countries, other nations. Yeah. ah Other family members. Does it matter as much, I guess. Oh no, it matters more. think people still care much? Oh no, it matters more. Well, that's what we're asking here. Yeah. Why matter more?
00:05:26
Irelynn Zurflueh
I think it matters more because the connection that you can have through modern technology creates a stronger relationship than what you were just looking at on paper. So you see a name on paper, or you see a name that, you know, is a cousin, a second cousin of yours or whatever. Now you can connect with them on a Facebook or Instagram or reach out to them on a DM. And now you can create a relationship wherever they are, which is connected by blood.
00:05:58
Irelynn Zurflueh
Which is great. And blood is thicker than water. Which is great. Oh, geez. That's my older brother saying. Brother Jeff, I know. His quote. Tribute to Brother Jeff. What I'm asking is.
00:06:10
Irelynn Zurflueh
you know Yes, you can connect with somebody that's halfway across the world in your bloodline and you can talk to them and you can do all that stuff. But is it so unique anymore? The world's so easy to travel and view and see and we see everything on the internet. and Is it so unique? like Let's say before the internet came around and you wanted to go you wanted to know about Ireland because you're from Ireland. You're near the country. That's your heritage. You'd have to fly there. You'd have to go experience it.
00:06:38
Irelynn Zurflueh
You'd have to go look up the villages where your people lived and where they came from. Now you just Google it, YouTube it, chat GPT it, and you're looking at it computer But that's not the same thing. I know it's not the same thing. I mean, that's... It's available. Let's just say this. available. Max, you can go to Disneyland and experience it, or you can look at it on Google and experience it. Which one are you really going to do?
00:07:06
Irelynn Zurflueh
feel like maybe you raised your voice a little bit. I'm an Irish one. going go do it. What I'm saying is not everybody, you can see a videos of it. You can go, oh, let's see what County Cork is like. And you go do a video and then you see And you're like, okay, i don't have to go there. I just saw it on video. you know what it does? It just enhances you to want to go experience it. It gives you more information. it gives you more of the drive. to to plan that vacation so that you can really experience what you saw on the video in real life. Where are you from in Ireland?
00:07:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
Oh, I do not know. I don't know that. You're this conversation. You
Exploring Irish Roots and Family Stories
00:07:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
know where you're from in Ireland? No, I just know that I'm from. Where the McKennas are from? Right. So I'm second- There's probably McKennas all over the place. We did. We looked in the phone book. Up in there. Yeah.
00:07:52
Irelynn Zurflueh
When we landed in Ireland, we went to a phone book and there was like, I don't know, four or five full on pages of just McKenna. It was crazy. So, no, I don't know exactly what part of Ireland I'm from, but I do know that I'm just second generation. So my great grandpa was directly from Ireland and came over and stopped at Ellis Island. Your grandfather was born in America?
00:08:16
Irelynn Zurflueh
My grandfather was, yes. Your father? Yes. Your third generation. Okay. Sorry. Third. Please. Okay. Please. Yes. what Good thing I've got this one to keep me in line.
00:08:26
Irelynn Zurflueh
What about on your mom's side? She's she's got royalty on her side. What country is there? Do we know country there? England. english She has a ah bit of royalty that came. on my mom's side on the English.
00:08:40
Irelynn Zurflueh
Did you know this? I mean, is it? Yeah, she showed it to me. Just saying that because it's no, no, no. Well, I do love it. I do love my Bridgerton, but no, that was the fun part about, uh, when she went into all of her ancestry, she has long, long, long time ago, somebody in her family that married into royalty. And then once you're married in royalty, you become Oh, well, that's very cool. Very cool. So you have English and you have Irish. And on my mom's side, Dutch.
00:09:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
Really? Max likes that because his favorite F1 race car driver is... Max Verstappen. Who is... Dutch and Belgian. Well, he's Dutch. No, no, i absolutely. yeah The orange, love him.
00:09:27
Irelynn Zurflueh
So, but you you have you gone far back and looked at ancestors much or not necessarily? The truth is is, I find it interesting for a small second. Like I look at it and I'm like, well, you guys that a squirrel well yeah. So I'll look at it and I'll go, wow, wow, wow. And then mom will tell me some stories and dad will tell me some stories. And I find those to be really interesting as long as they know the details of the stories. But the minute you go so far back that you're just looking at a name,
00:09:57
Irelynn Zurflueh
oh That's kind of, I'm like, yeah, okay. Are you just looking at a name or do they have a story that if you delve little deeper? I feel like maybe your brother, Jeff, might be into finding more. Oh yeah. Yeah. um Now I had a great thought and it has flown away from my brain. just I'm sorry. Well, what is what is your background?
00:10:18
Irelynn Zurflueh
Since your dad did do all of that. I found my thought. Okay, what is it? There's like a test you can do or something where it takes your blood and then... No, no, it's a swabbing of your mouth. A swabbing of your mouth? Uh-huh.
00:10:31
Irelynn Zurflueh
You just swab... What's it called? It's a test. It's like a... Anyway, so you swab your mouth. Yeah, it's your DNA test. And it tells you where you're from It breaks down what you have in your body. You believe that? They know that from a swab your mouth? Well. What some guys in the back say, let's make this person come So Chelsea, who is my sister, doctorate in microbiology, she says it's not accurate.
00:10:56
Irelynn Zurflueh
oh Yeah. She says it can't be accurate. So ah she's got a lot of understanding of it. And so I'm thinking it's a fun thing. it's A lot of people do it. I know. And it's fun and it's exciting. And, you know, you can figure out what you're all made of, what you know what your highest percentage is would be Swiss or Dutch or Irish or whatever. would you do it?
00:11:18
Irelynn Zurflueh
I like just saying I'm Irish. So you would not be interested in doing it? No, not really. What about you? no not really. Okay. Okay. Maybe it's for the younger generations. First of all, I guess now you come to the point where, let's say you i say I find out I have somebody from Brazil in my DNA. Okay. or Brazilian. Or least some guy in a lab. Said it. Yes. well What would I do that information but I don't know. feel like, because it's all about going back to your roots. Yes. You hear this a lot, right? Like people come here from Mexico or from different countries and the parents, they want to make sure that they still have, they're grounded in their roots. Like like you like to be grounded in your Irish roots. Absolutely. It's the only way I can justify my temper. If you did that test and it found out there was a little bit of Portuguese, would you like,
00:12:09
Irelynn Zurflueh
Oh, got to go find out more about Portugal now. No. That's probably just like you, though. That's me. You and me. Yeah. I do think that it can be quite interesting. If you want to take that as a hobby, this could be a great hobby for people because you can go and get so many great stories. I mean, just think about it. What if my ancestor fought in World War I and was like a general or something? And the stories that you get. You might have had some Wouldn't that be cool, though, to know some of that stuff? Yeah, I think so. So when it comes into history, so I would like it if I can take the name that is related to me, add it to history, and then have a couple stories with it. Now you've got my attention. But no, swabbing, finding out my percentage, calling me Irish, Portuguese, whatever, that doesn't interest me. When you do Ancestry.com and you do some of that...
00:13:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
some of that research, you can find marriage certificates, draft papers, so you can get a sense of, yeah have you done much time on answers? No, I did add a couple stories of things that I remember from my aunt, my, added the yeah, you could go uncle, my, my uncle Earl and my aunt Gwen, I added a few things that I grew up in, and then that way, generations from now, they'll have stories that I remember of them. But I was going to say, you will get, you'll get facts of marriage certificates when you go back and you do the ancestry and you'll get surprised sometimes.
00:13:44
Irelynn Zurflueh
There's surprises. Somebody might say they were married in such and such a year, but you can actually go back and confirm it and maybe they're not actually accurate on that year. I guess so. When it comes to more marriages, maybe even divorces, they might say, I divorced in this year and then technically they didn't divorce for five more years later. so Probably now also with the chat GTP and GTP, GPT and Google. ChatGPT. You can find out stuff about people without even going on Ancestry.com. Like i was thinking about a friend. I wonder if you can do that. I'm right in the middle a sentence. you Sorry, i don't think yeah I don't know if ChatGPT could actually do Ancestry work.
00:14:22
Irelynn Zurflueh
And I wanted to know, like where maybe I could find an address for him. Okay. And with the name and the area, the only thing that popped up was his divorce was divorce papers from when he got divorced. Because that's an official document that chat GPT could pull up. Yeah. I just wonder if chat GPT can pull up documents from ancestry. but Whatever.
00:14:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. I don't know. I don't know that, but it is funny because if you start digging, you might get some surprises. Do you want to dig? I wonder if some of my, my family came to America on a ship. My grandfather, I mean, two. Oh, wow.
00:14:53
Irelynn Zurflueh
This is what I've been told from numerous, so even that could be wrong because the stories hear could be passed on. But my grandpa John came over on a ship from Europe and landed in the East Coast.
00:15:06
Irelynn Zurflueh
And then they traversed America and wound up in a little place called Tillamook, Oregon. And the funny story about that is we must care enough about our ancestry because we visited Tillamook, Oregon.
00:15:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
Because we wanted to see what it looked like because we knew that's where your family was been to Tillamook a number of times. My father was born in Tillamook. So Tillamook's always been a big part of the Zerfu family. But you wanted to share that with you with me and our kids. Oregon Coast. Tillamook Cheese Factory. yeah do it I mean, so we're saying, oh, we're not so into it. we're not And look what we did. We traversed to Tillamook. That's a couple of states away. I mean, actually, Nevada borders Oregon. and not Why did we go to Ireland with our kids?
00:15:50
Irelynn Zurflueh
It was one of our first, it was probably one of our first over the ocean it was travel It was the first. So we must, in it must be embedded somehow where that's where our family was from or started. Let's get to Ireland and check it out. That had something to do with that i had been to Ireland before and done certain things and we wanted to repeat that. So that played into it too. But definitely for you, like, yeah, I'll go to Ireland. little Heck yeah.
00:16:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
But ah you asked where the Zerflus are from. Yeah. And that's a little place. called Switzerland. we and Wait, you're telling them you're disclosing? Wait, now it's... Okay, everything we've been talking about is all false because we obviously care about our ancestry because we've been to Switzerland a number of times and it's one of our favorite places to Our statement wasn't that we didn't care.
00:16:35
Irelynn Zurflueh
Do people care? Do people want to go and find out about it? I think I... we've had We've been pretty lucky to be able to travel a lot, and we've been able to go to some places, including Switzerland, where I'm from. I also have a lot of German in my family. I also have a lot of British in my family. My grandma, my paternal grandma's last name was Pearson. She was English.
00:16:57
Irelynn Zurflueh
You know what was fun is when we went over into Switzerland, um I could see your family, because I know a lot of your family, your relatives, I could see how they look so similar to... an acted, probably. Yeah, and acted similar to the residents of Switzerland. It was kind of... yeah That was really cool. When I went to Ireland, I could see how...
00:17:18
Irelynn Zurflueh
Your family acted a bunch of crazy, run around crazy people. there There's a picture of our little boy standing next to a true adult, a man adult. How old do you think he was? Probably 60 years old? Probably 60, yeah, 65. And they were the same exact size. What? And Kai was only how old? He eight.
00:17:37
Irelynn Zurflueh
Eight. Six, seven. It's one of my absolute favorite photos. are you talking of about? You poor guy. talking about how he's short? What the We're talking about how Irish people traditionally are on the shorter shorter side.
00:17:48
Irelynn Zurflueh
And I'm five two And a lot of my brothers on the Irish side, Yeah. Yeah. mean, we have a... Thank goodness their kids are sprouting up, but they're a little... Well, thank goodness we got a little Swiss German on my side, so our kids are...
00:18:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
Normal size. Oh, my gosh. Anyways, the whole point of that was we got to see a lot of what my dad's side of the family, how they look, how they act. It was very similar to the people in Ireland. It was very fun to watch. Yes. I agree.
Traveling to Ancestral Homelands
00:18:19
Irelynn Zurflueh
I enjoyed going to Ireland with you and being able to say, yeah, my name is McKenna. Same difference when we landed in Switzerland. We went up and said, let me check out the Xurflux. I know. Because in Las Vegas, there's two out of three million people. Yes. And we pulled up and there's a bunch of Xurflux. which was crazy to me because
00:18:36
Irelynn Zurflueh
Zurflu was a really bizarre name when I met you. It's not bizarre anymore. People do not even know. It's a very scary way to spell it. It's Z-U-R-F-L-U-E-H. And when it's spelled out, you're like, oh my gosh, I can't even try That's scary. Well, the people at restaurants, they have absolutely no idea what to do. I've been called so many things. Zurflu, Durflush. Yeah. So I have a way of making it to where they giggle. Somebody will giggle about it and remember it forever. want to fun of name? That a little bit you go like this zur and then flew like the cough and then you never forget it zur flu it's a way to remember your last name cute i like it but the zirflus are from interkirchen my zirflus so in switzerland there's a place called interlaken which is kind of think that's pretty famous bigger city yeah and then you go to a smaller little place called interkirchen and that's where the zirflus originated and you and i went to switzerland yep and we both love it by the way Oh, I'll go back any day you want to take me, Max. Tell me to pack and tomorrow I will go.
00:19:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
I'd like to hear what your feelings were when you landed in Ireland and spent some time there. But when I'm in Switzerland, I feel pretty good. I feel pretty comfortable. I'm from Oregon originally. When I'm in Oregon, I feel pretty good. Yeah. so I wonder if going back to where you're from,
00:19:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
really does create that sort of connection and makes you feel really good. I think it does. I think it really does. I mean, i I, have no data to back that up. I only have absolute proof with you and me, but I agree with you a hundred percent. That's good enough data. That works. Does that work? That works for me.
00:20:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
Now one more question. Take me to Switzerland. Oh, sorry. but exactly they are We better go soon. Um, You got all these Olympics. Yes. World baseball challenges happening now. Yes. You know, these people, these players, they kind of pick the team they want to go to kind of based on their where they're what their heritage is.
00:20:35
Irelynn Zurflueh
Like Italy has a team right now. Right. and he wouldn't And they're really good, by the way. You wouldn't think Italy would be a very good baseball team. But a lot of these guys that are major leaguers with last names that are Italian, they they've joined the Italian team.
00:20:47
Irelynn Zurflueh
because they can because their their heritage is from there. I think it's the same thing like we talked about with the Olympics. If you have some roots in that country, you want to represent that country. It doesn't mean that you're ostracizing yourself from the USA. I mean, they play in the major leagues. They probably live here. There's there.
00:21:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, I think that it's a kind of a cool thing when you do the Olympics, when you do the World USA or World Baseball is what it's
Heritage in Sports and Podcast Wrap-up
00:21:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
called, right? World Baseball Challenge. World Baseball Challenge. I think that's kind of fun. That's where you go. And if if I wanted to have my roots be Irish and I wanted to represent Ireland, I think I should be able to have that opportunity to do it.
00:21:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
I'm fine with it. There's also in the Olympics, the Chinese snowboarder. I know. i forgot her name. And people are all up in arms because she's skating under the Chinese. Not skating. Snowboarding. snowboarding under the Chinese. Yeah. yeah Well, then there's skating too. We've talked about that. Yeah. I mean, the truth of the matter is, is most of the training happens in the United States at a high level. So you really, if you want to be at that Olympic level, you're probably going to be training in the United States anyways.
00:21:49
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, my final thought on what country you perform under, skate under, snowboard under, play baseball under is it's up to you. you know it's ah This is a wide, wide world of sports. You ever hear of that show? Yeah. and And agony of defeat with its the the skier went tumbling down the mountain. I'll never forget that. crashes into the wall. It's snow jumper and he falls over some hut and just totally crashes. Oh yeah. but I remember that. the point is let them, let them go and find their heritage and perform and represent that country and don't give them a bunch of crap about it. oh you should be representing America.
00:22:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
don't think that's right. I think some people just like to hear themselves talk. Whoa. And so, even though they may not really feel like it matters that a person that plays in the major league baseball here in in the U S has an Italian last name with heritage in Italy, let them go play for Italy and have a great time. We are in agreeance. And then come right back. And if somebody wants to just hear themselves talk, sometimes they will make an argument just so that they can have an argument.
00:22:52
Irelynn Zurflueh
I've noticed in this recording that I'm back here. And you're right up on that thing. I am. i wonder if I'm going to be louder than you. check that out. Yeah. Heritage, where you come from? Where did you come from? Where did you go? Remember that song? I do. i think it's I think it's important. I think it's fun.
00:23:11
Irelynn Zurflueh
I think I am excited to know more about Switzerland and to spend more time there. Let's go. so I'll pack my bags tomorrow. let's Let's encourage you guys to check out your heritage and and you know be a part of it and subscribe to our podcast and give us some feedback and tell us what you think. and If you see an episode you like, share it with others or just to send us an email or a text or a phone call and say, hey, I saw your podcast and it was really fun. We liked it. so Or maybe we encourage somebody to go and
00:23:48
Irelynn Zurflueh
Travel to wherever their roots are, and they might have an amazing time, and that would be fun to experience. would be All right, well I think we're done. You want to take us out? Take us out where?
00:23:59
Irelynn Zurflueh
The ballgame? Take us out, not to the ballgame. Realtors keeping it real. right Those are our thoughts for rent here in Henderson, Nevada. The McKenna team at Keller Williams and McKenna Property Management. Jenny's leaning forward to push the button. Have a great day. We'll see you next time.