Question about Ashkenazi Ancestry

[robrecht]

Yes. In the Bible, Ashkenaz (אַשְׁכֲּנַ֥ז) was the great-grandson of Noah. In the Talmud and other rabbinic literature, Gomer, the father of Ashkenaz, is sometimes rendered as Germania. Over time, Jews who settled around what is now Germany and spoke Yiddish, which is a Jewish low Germanic dialect, became known as Ashkenazi. Yiddish-speaking Jews moved into many Eastern European countries and elsewhere. Sounds like your great, great, great, great grandmother or grandfather was Jewish, perhaps no longer a practicing Jew after she or he intermarried. Here's a Wikipedia article on the Ashkenazi for more background.