I've been digging into my family tree (new fav hobby lol) and just found out that the Estriga surname from my paternal grandmother and my maternal great-grandmother (they were first cousins) traces back to the same medieval ancestor, Pêro Estriga. He was a landowner in northern Portugal in 1258 and was connected to the Chacim family, one of the most powerful noble families of the time. The head of the family was King Dinis I’s tutor and right-hand man. Pretty wild to realize that a surname that keeps popping up throughout my family tree goes back over 750 years. An aunt once told me we had "blue blood" through the Estriga name and I laughed. Turns out she was right lol.
It's also funny because it might explain why I'm so pale compared to most Portuguese people and why both sides of that family are full of pale, tall, light-eyed people. Those Trás-os-Montes roots are definitely showing. What's even crazier is that one of my ex-boyfriends came from a family that was entirely from Trás-os-Montes too, including all four grandparents. When we met we were instantly drawn to each other and had insane chemistry from the start. Maybe that's completely unrelated, but after everything I've been uncovering in my family tree, it does make me wonder. Pretty wild.
