Inspired by misc. other threads. Feel free to tell your ancestor’s story. Poll to follow.
My first “american” ancestor arrived 1630. My wife’s earliest appears to have come across the bridge from Asia back in the distant past.
On a nice ship called the Mayflower 
To the United States in the 19th century. (Which is how I voted.)
To North America in the the 17th century.
My earliest ancestor who I know was born in the US was born in 1832. I don’t know when his parents arrived (or for that matter, if they were born here themselves). He was of German ancestry and born in New York City. My first name has been passed on from him.
The rest arrived between the 1840s and the 1870s, from Ireland, Germany, and Switzerland.
I said before 1492 because I share ancestry with everybody on Earth, and he or she was the first person to come to the US.
But that doesn’t mean one of your ancestors was necessarily here in what’s now the US before 1492.
Earliest non European ancestor would be maybe 20,000 years ago but I’m not sure.
European ancestors: somewhere between 1610 and 1619, followed by a bunch who left a couple decades later because their side lost the 30 Years War.
I picked before 1492, but will freely admit here on the internet that my reputed Native American ancestor is the much maligned female Cherokee Chief type, just far enough back to be hard to check up on.
We’re not actually sure. My paternal grandfather was sent to the US sometime around 1900. We’ve never been able to verify the exact date; according to family legend his father arranged for his passage to keep him from marrying one of the local girls because she was “beneath his station”. Whether the young lady in question was pregnant at the time is also a matter of speculation. It wasn’t something he spoke about, and since he died in his 70s in 1953 we’ll never know for sure.
The rest of my family came over later, but I can’t recall the details.
Before 1492, but that’s a tiny fraction of my heritage. The earliest non-American Indian heritage I have dates at least to the American Revolution-- we’ve got pay receipts from the Continental Army!
1531 somewhere my grandmother’s family line is on a list of “Founding Families” for her home state. My dad’s side came across 300 years later.
I’m 1/32 Susquehannock, so I voted “Before 1492”.
European-side, I had at least one ancestor on my mom’s side come over on the Mayflower, and another (a Norvell) on my dad’s side, who may have been here as early as 1617.
I answered before 1492 for the family claim of Cherokee (yeah, I know, but there is documentation). The earliest European ancestors were here shortly before the Revolution.
The first ancestor bearing my surname arrived from England sometime in the mid-1700’s; I’d have to dig through a bunch of family history files to find the exact date. There is some evidence that he made the trip at the order of whomever was king at the time…and that his destination was the penal colony in South Carolina :rolleyes:
There’s also a bit of Cherokee in my genetic makeup, so I suppose those ancestors were here a bit earlier…
SS
John H. travelled over on the Mayflower, toppled off (drunk as a lord) just before landing at Plymouth, and was hauled back up on board. Former presidents Bush are also descendants.
I just figured the odds were good enough. And it also supported the way I voted in the poll.
Both sides of my family came over from Ireland in the early 1900s. In 2004, my mother’s side of the family had a huge party weekend to celebrate 100 years in this country. My great aunt Betty rented an inn in Rockport, MA, and we all got gussied up in period dress. There was a huge table full of photos of the family dating back to the turn of the century, and we ate lots of turn-of-the-century type food and got properly sloshed.
I chose 1800-1900, since the oldest that I can track came to the US from Germany in the late 1860s. Most of the rest of my relatives, however, didn’t come over until after the turn of the century, and my mom and her family came down from Canada in 1960. That being said, on my mom’s side, there is likely some First Nations, though it’s undocumented and very likely an out-of-wedlock thing. That being said, you know, this’d be up in Canada, so it still doesn’t count as American :).
Most of my mom’s ancestors came to Canada from France in the early 1600s. Except for one guy who came over from Scotland in about 1860.
I have a Cherokee ancestor, so I have no idea when my first real ancestor arrived, but my first European ancestor was Melchior Breneman, who landed in Pennsylvania sometime between 1709 and 1713.
Around 1630. Then a few years later they got into practicing witchcraft and were kicked out of the New Haven colony and had to resettle in Westchester.
I think the most recent of my ancestors to arrive in the US was in the mid 19th century, although my one grandmother was adopted, so I can’t trace that line back.