immigration: what generation american are you?

[W2R]

How about adoption to mess things up?

I mentioned earlier in this thread that my father's family came over in a tiny boat from Scotland in the early 1700's, but my maternal grandmother was adopted. She had magnificent thick, shiny, straight red hair down to her knees, and was of Dutch extraction. I have no idea how anyone knew that! But somehow that was known with certainty. Her adoptive parents were also Dutch and I have no idea how long their family had been in America before she was born. She got a college degree in the classics over a hundred years ago, rather unusual for a woman at that time in history, and married an Irish chemistry professor who became my maternal grandfather.

Her red hair shows through in red/gold highlights in my daughter's beautiful brunette hair. She was one of the most intelligent and literate women I have ever known, though her hair had turned snowy white and was cut by the time I came along. I have photos of her with long hair as a young woman.

So, like many Americans I too am a "mutt". My heritage on my father's side is Scottish with a little English, but on my mother's side Irish and Dutch. My maiden name was very Scottish, though, and I perceive myself as being an American of mostly Scottish ancestry.

Lazy, nice photos!

 

[toofrugalformycat]

Thanks for the photos, and the reminder that even after this crash, my life is infinitely easier (and my net worth higher) than some of my ancestors who arrived in the U.S. with nothing. My grandmother died young, and apparently didn't have a moment's rest in her life. So any self-pity that might ever show up, goodbye forever.

 

[ziggy29]

Thanks for the photos, and the reminder that even after this crash, my life is infinitely easier (and my net worth higher) than some of my ancestors who arrived in the U.S. with nothing.

In doing genealogical research as a hobby, my wife and I discovered we're 12th cousins -- both descended from the same Mayflower family.

I'm more of a mutt than she is -- she has more German and English heritages in her background, where as I have those roots and some Scotch and American Indian (my mom's mom was full blood). And as far as the non-native part of my tree goes, the migrations came as long ago as 1620 and as recently as 1863, with most already in what would become the United States by 1700.

The 1863 emigration to the U.S. was a young Prussian man who arrived in Hoboken as a stowaway on a ship at about age 17 (my great great grandfather). This family spoke German at first, then spoke a mixture of German and English, and mostly stopped speaking German in regular discourse when WW1 broke out.

 

[Walt34]

DW has been doing off/on genealogy research on her family tree for about the past three years, she goes back to almost Mayflower on both sides, English and Scottish. My paternal Irish and German great-great-grandparents came over during the potato famine and my mother's side goes back to England but I don't know when, I think four or five generations ago.

I also get sunburned sitting in the shade. Gimme that SPF 45!

 

[Urchina]

On mother's side I'm descended from one of seven German brothers, all of whom came to the New World prior to the Revolutionary War (and all of whom fought for the colonies in the war). There's some Irish/Dutch/English mixed in there, too, but the German line runs deep, even though it's the Irish we celebrate as a family.

On my Dad's side, we've got Native American roots and some Irish, too. I'm 1/4 Native American (Plains Indians, Crow and Lakota Sioux).

So I'm about 1/4 Irish immigrant (fairly recent -- 1870's and 1920's), 1/2 German (pre-Revolutionary War) and 1/4 Native American (Immigrated during the Bering Land Bridge wave of New World immigration).

Dang, my people have been here a long time!

 

[Texarkandy]

Stripes (1981) - Memorable quotes

John Winger: We're all very different people. We're not Watusi, we're not Spartans, we're Americans. With a capital "A", huh? And you know what that means? Do you? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. We're mutts.

I saw the movie & see the humor, but factually I disagree -

In my view, most of us Americans pretty much got here by being smart & bold enough to flee a bunch of really sucky countries in Europe, Asia, & elsewhere.

(With the exception, of course, of most of our African-American fellow citizens - who probably also would have been quick to voluntarily jump on the ships to flee their sucky countries, if not for the slavery thing when they got here)

Acutally, it's the Aussies who were the rejects so I've heard

 

[Leonidas]

I started doing genealogy at my uncle's request. He died shortly before I retired and I have made a lot of progress since then, if in fits and bits here and there, mostly to complete his work in his honor.

Five generations - one of the 10th great grandfathers actually made it here before the Mayflower (1618). But he was just part of a Dutch East India Company trading group and he didn't stay on that occasion. He did make it back around 1624 and ran a company farm for the company for a few years before he went back and got his family. Good thing for him - while he was gone his farming partner and son were killed in an Indian raid. He eventually was one of the "Twelve Men", one of our earlier forms of self-government. In this case, on what to do about Indians who were warring against the settlers/invaders. All of the rest showed up here, mostly from Ireland (Scots-Irish) within the next few decades.

With the exception of the Dutch, all of my ancestors came here to escape a sucky situation in the old world. Scots escaping continual war and political/religious oppression in Northern Ireland, Germans and Swiss escaping political/religious oppression in the Palatinate, etc.

 

[Zoocat]

Apparently I have ancestors on my maternal side who actually did arrive here on the Mayflower. They settled in Massachusetts. On my paternal side, my ancestors came from Ireland during the potato famine. They ended up settling in Ohio and were clerks, teachers, and trolley car drivers. I have lots of pictures, names, and information from the paternal side but not much except names from my maternal side.

 

[OldGuy]

Johannes der Alte (1663-1715) on the paternal side is as far back as we can go, in Dierdorf, Westerwald, Germany. His son Johannes Wilhelmus (1694-1760?) emigrated to NJ ~1700, so that makes me the 8th generation in the New World. Have discovered the usual sea captains, local judges, Revolutionary War privates, Dairymen's League carpenters and dairy farmers (NE Pennsylvania), one distiller-turned-teetotaler () and the like, but no cattle thieves or seditionists, in succeeding generations. Solid German ancestry; stuck in PA until my generation, when everyone left. Much less luck tracking down the maternal side of the family...