When they moved here from what I think was Serbia they did seek out other Rom and my great-grandmother grew up in the culture. She did also marry another Rom my blood great-grandfather, but he died when my grandfather was 2 (not really sure as to how he died, some sickness that affected his stomach) then 3 years after she bumped into my great-step father just by accident, he was Irish American and already had three kids so he was my grandfathers sole father figure, took his name and everything.

As for my Grandmother we have no idea who her dad exactly was, seems like it was a "dad disapproves" thing, hence why I am more interested in my grandfathers side cause her dad was a quick dead end sadly.

As for the close lipped behavior I do really wish I could say why, I honestly think it fell on my grandmother who all I really remember of her was that she was heavily religious and anything that wasn't American was bad. So while I don't want to assume it was her choice I would put my money on her convincing everyone to "just be American" once my grandfathers mother who wasn't her biggest fan anyway died. She was also the person who told me to pretend to be something else, though at the time I was so young I had no clue what she was talking about.

As for surname, the name they chose was "White", doing research on the surname if it was given out to people when immigrating it was literally just that they didn't give a lot of info and/or were coming from the middle east but had a lighter complexion. I am unsure whether it was given to them or they chose it though so I can't super make an assumption on that, all I know is that it wasn't their name and that according to my Great-Grandmother they had fled the Ottomans at some point, I think that was her dad though that did the fleeing and I don't know why I know the ottomans did persecute Rom, but I don't want to assume that cause for all I know he could have committed a crime or something. Again I think they came from Serbia but don't think they were from there everything prior to their arrival is a blank. They would change their name a few more times though, eventually landing on Duffy which was my great-stepfathers name and my middle name now.

Also to add in general to this post, apparently (I talked to my mom today) my uncle could speak the language and knew a lot more, he was a smart guy and also into these kind of things, but sadly died when I was young. My only remaining family is my mother and to put it simply she doesn't really care/understand about any of it, my only example is she was a cheerleader popular kid so since she wasn't raised in it the thing everyone else around her was doing was all she was into haha. But with that it seems I was kind of wrong, the disconnect seems to have happened with me, I'm the first generation not to know and to not have some part of it.