Sofus' ego-trip-information-about-himself Page

Hi. My name is Sofus Attila Macskassy, and kudos to you if you know how to pronounce my last name! :) As my first name might have pointed out, I'm from Denmark, and as my last name might have pointed out, I'm half Hungarian. I've been in the States since 1986, and boy did those years go by fast!

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NOTE: Many thanks to Jonas, my younger brother, for helping me to scan in the pictures of me and my family crest.

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I'm originally from Denmark. Yes, I speak Danish. Yes, I understand (somewhat) Norwegian and Swedish. Having been here since 1986, I must admit I feel somewhat cut off from my roots.

I do try to keep up with news from there, but still. It helps that my family is here, of course, but I know that my Danish is deterioating from lack of use. Actually, all my family except my younger brother have now moved back, so I speak Danish even less now. I don't really have anything profound to say here, but if you have any questions, feel free to mail me :)

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Links to and about Scandinavia

I have compiled a few links for you, but if you know of any other sites, feel free to mail me at: sofmac@gmail.com.

• Ingeniøren: an online (in Danish and English) magazine about engineering/jobs/etc.
• A Gopher-server for Danish News in Danish.
• Links to Scandinavia contains a bunch of Scnadinavian-related links.
• http://www.halcyon.com/danskoss/oss.html
• http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/analysts/rusa/danskoss/oss.html
• http://www.cs.odu.edu/~chrisr/danskoss/oss.html

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I'm half hungarian. My father fled hungary in 1956 and ended up in Denmark, and a few years later he met my mother. The above picture is an old family crest from my family. I don't really know much about Hungary, but I know a little. Hey, I even know a few words! I've been trying to learn, but it's hard. I do know Danish, though, having grown up in Denmark, so I guess that's something.

I am somewhat interested in my family history on my father's side. My last name, Macskassy, stems from the root macska, which means cat in Hungarian. The last ssy means that it's noble (vs. a plain si or ssi). As it turns out, my family used to be noble way back when. I can trace my family back many hundred years. Back then we had the name Tinkovai, which is one of the noble names you can look up in a Hungarian book of nobles (I forget the exact one, but our family name was mentioned in one of them). Actually, we bought our nobility, but we were noble. Then, my great-grandfather (or was it great-great-grandfather? I forget... my uncles know) played it all away. Castle as well as lands. He was somewhat of a gambler.

Where did the name Macskassy then come from? As far as I understand, we had a lot of cats in our castle, which is how that name came to be. Also, there are currently only 3 true heirs to the Macskassy, namely me and my two brothers (I being in the middle). We have two cousins who are also directly in the line, though through their mother (who is a real Macskassy). We have also found a branch not long ago of Macskassi's, who are descended from a younger brother a long time ago. (And hey! In Transylvania, we actually have a Church named after us! One of my great-aunts built it).

I find all of these extremely interesting (I guess, because I'm so close to it). But history in all is very interesting. I guess this page is more about me and my family than Hungary as such, but my family was part of Hungarian history, so I guess that's ok.