Do any Americans have boring origin stories? I doubt it.
I was just watching “Everything is Illuminated”. Which I loved and has a particular resonance for me. And which I might start a thread in CS about.
But got me thinking. What did it take to get you here? My great grand father’s family was Pennsyvania Dutch - German - and been here seen the 1600. That all I know. My great grandmother came here from Yorkshire (when they were the Littlefields) by way of Liverpool (when they became the Reeds) in 1894 in flight against certain charges against a certain uncle.
My grandfather was Ukrainian (see above) and like the father in the movie got the hell out of there when he saw what was about to happen (1937). His brother, like the grandfather in the movie, collaborated. My Nazi great uncle.
My family fainted when grandma went off with an immigrant right off the boat (even if he was a lawyer in “the old country”). They were a hot couple in their time.
Then my mother got knocked up by some Irishman. I think.
My maternal great great great grandparents left Ireland during or right after the potato famine, arriving in Baltimore, Maryland around 1850. My paternal great great grandparents left Alsace and landed in Richmond, Virginia in 1864. They moved to Baltimore in 1867. My paternal grandmother was born in Poland and moved to Baltimore with her parents in 1910.
On my dad’s side, my grandmother was adopted, though she hooked up with her birth father later in life. I have no family history on my grandfather’s side. My dad said he never met any of his dad’s relatives. Rumor has it we’re Swedes, though my grandparents and all their children look Mediterranean to me. Not a blonde in the bunch. Tons of blondes amongst all the cousins, though.
On my mom’s side, the family was originally from Germany and Norway. I believe they were all born in the U.S.
My parents were Pennsylvania German too, but I don’t know much about our ancestry. I think at least some folks came over in the 1800s since one ancestor was in the Civil War.
I was born in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam. My dad was American and my mom is Vietnamese. I was only in Vietnam for a few months – came here on the 747 around Christmas 1973.
My family’s story in this country past my great-great grandparents was slavery. The details of how they arrived on American soil are most likely lost to history.
On my father’s mother’s side … they walked. It was a bit of a hike through the melting glaciers … .
In the 18th and 19th Centuries there was a lot of intermarrying between the Cherokee and Scottish immigrants. My grandmother was only 1/32 Cherokee but still identified strongly with the tribe. She was a Ross, which still meant a great deal in Oklahoma during her life.
My father’s father came from English stock.
My mother’s people are a bit more recent arrivals. My grandmother was ethnically German but was born in Hungary and left with her family when she was a child. She and her sister got stuck in quarantine at Ellis Island for a few weeks. My mother’s father was second generation Irish.
My father’s ancestors were all European Jews from Poland, Russia, and Lithuania. They left Europe for economic reasons and joined the Jewish community in New York City in the late 19th and early 20th century. On that side, I am a direct descendant of many notable people, at least according to family legend:
The world’s first bestselling female mystery novelist
America’s first female diplomat, who was also director of the New York Jewish Women’s Organization
A great mathematician who was invited to work on the Manhattan Project, but turned it down. He later wrote many successful books in philosophy, history, theology, psychology, …
On my mother’s side, my maternal grandfather was a German peasant who got drafted and sent to the Eastern Front in 1942. He later deserted and returned home on foot, risking death if he got caught. He was, I’m told, one of only a very small number of men in his army division who returned home alive. Afterwards the married my maternal grandmother, who was distantly related to the monarchy of a small German state (thus the blood of kings flows through my veins). Opa (German for Grandpa) became mayor of a small town in East Germany, but was soon forced to flee after he spoke out against the Soviet government. My mother was seven years old when they reached West Germany. My grandfather became a steelworker, but he was extremely bitter about the whole experience and the family started to fall apart. My mother left for New York in 1967.
My parents were both born and raised in Australia. They emigrated to Canada just after they were married, then came to the US a few years later. My sisters were born Canadian and I am the only US-born member of the family.
My indigenous ancestors lived in what are now the states New York and Ohio. (About 5% of my ethnicity.)
I have a Dutch ancestor who farmed in Haarlem on Manhattan before the nasty English took over. And English ancestors who moved in thereafter. (About 20%.)
Many German ancestors who moved to Pennsylvania in the late 1600s. A Frenchman got mixed in there somehow too. (About 65%.)
Some Irish ancestors came over during the famine years. (About 10%.)
To mix things up, I’m married to a Korean. Got to keep the gene pool diverse.
My most famous ancestor is John Pell who invented the division sign “÷”. His son (also my ancestor) is the Pell of Pelham in New York.
My great great grandmother on my mother’s side was a Ukranian Jew who ‘walked’ (as the story goes, I’m not so sure she didn’t take a wagon at some point) to a port in Italy and immigrated to the states and ended up in the south (Mississippi I believe) married a Southern Baptist and that was the end of her Jewishness.
My dad’s side is impossible to trace as our last name was an alias the grandfather took upon arriving in the Dakotas.
My ancestors on my mom’s side are all Norskies from da old country of fjords and lutefisk. They were from the North (around Trondheim) not nancypants Southerners from Oslo, and they came to the Dakotas shortly after the American Civil War when the herring failed and the Swedish/Norwegian economy tanked. They were not farmers, as many were, nor wealthy bankers or lawyers, but somewhere in between – shopkeepers, drovers, beerwagon drivers.
My dad’s people mostly came from the British Isles. His Danish great grandmother came through Ellis Island to work as a chambermaid in a Minneapolis hotel; his great grandfather (on another branch) was a tailor from Devonshire. One of Dad’s great grandfathers fought for the Union (in an upstate New York regiment), another fought for the Confederacy (in a Missouri regiment).
I think the most recent of my immigrant ancestors arrived about 1905. The earliest arrived probably 1830. No Daughters of the American Revolution in my lineage; just a lot of hardworking people trying for a better life.
I don’t know much about my fathers side of the family, just that they left Baden Baden, Germany sometime between WWI and WWII, not long after WWI if I recall right. They then joined the large german population of New York City and have all since grown old and emigrated to the Great State of Florida ™.
My mothers side was a little better known. My great-great grandmother came over right before WWII from Minsk, Belarus. Other than her and her aunt, everyone else was killed in concentration camps. During the beginning of WWII, she still sent letters to her family, until they told her to stop because it was becoming too dangerous. She never heard from them again. My grandmother is trying to find out if any relatives survived, but as with many jews with strange last names, my great-great-grandmothers last was changed to Levine on Ellis Island, and no one knows what it originally was.
I also know that some of the family came from a little jewish ghetto on the outskirts of Kiev. Ukraine, and that they kept their original last name, although I don’t remember what it was. They were on a ship that ended up in Galveston, TX.
On my mother’s side, my great great grandfather Phelan and his brother sailed to Canada from Ireland on a boat they built themselves (so it’s said) and founded a small town by building a mill, around which the town was built. His son later moved down to Michigan. My many-times great grandfather Wilson was a well-known meat packer who (possibly) was the original “Uncle Sam”. Whether this is true or not, it’s been part of the family lore for at least 70 years. On my father’s side, they also came down to Michigan through Canada, my grandmother being first generation American, her family havng been French, and my grandfather being 2nd generation American, his family having immigrated from Poland.
Wow, I read the thread title and meant like, how did I, personally, get here, and I was like “Well, when my mom and dad met at a Motley Crue concert in 1983…”
But obviously, I was wrong.
Let’s see. I don’t know a lot about the family history because it’s so boiled-down at this point. My dad’s real father didn’t sign his birth certificate, his stepfather did (big scandal of some sort), and his real father is dead now, so all I know is that my actual paternal grandfather was half Cherokee Indian and half German (if you look at me you can really, really see the German), and my paternal grandmother is also half Cherokee, which makes me…a quarter? I think. Yeah, my math sucks.
My mom was a bastard, who only knew her dad was part Irish. On her mom’s side, Italian, Polish, and Welsh, I think.
As to when they all came here, my great-grandparents immigrated here in the early part of the century and my great-grandfather served in World War I. Supposedly there’s some sort of mob connection on that side of the family but as I don’t talk to them I don’t know. My dad’s family had immigrated here back before the Civil War and they were all Oakies who moved to California during the Dust Bowl.
Now, as for my dad’s stepfather, he’s related to Spanish royalty of some sort, so by name and official record, I’m something like 189th in line for something in Spain. I do get some weird looks because of all of this - I have a very Hispanic last name and I’m white white white WHITE. I’m the whitest chick on the planet. I don’t even tan. Everyone just assumes I married a Mexican with a taste for large butts.
In '71, my aunt emigrated as a nurse. She went back in '75 and married my father.
I was born in November of '75. My parents were not married - my father was married elsewhere - and I spent four years generally being shunted around from family to family (endearing myself to everyone, though!) In the late '70’s my aunt and uncle decided the stigma of being illigitamate was not a price I should have to pay* and began talking about adopting me. In '79, they brought me over from India, and I was adopted and naturalized at the same time, in the early '80’s.
*And a heavy price it is. Often no one will marry you, boys think you’re automatically easy and you’re easily subject to rape and molestation. And when/if you complain, they say “Well, her mother was loose, so she’s probably loose, too, so I’m sure she was asking for it.”
Of the four grandparents, using only the biggest stories (I haven’t fully learned all of them):
My paternal grandfather’s family came to the United States around 1907 or so from rural Switzerland when the patriarch of the family converted to Mormonism.
My paternal grandmother’s family came over during the 17th and 18th century, and include a large number of fairly elite people, including some of the founders of Newark.
My maternal grandfather’s family arrived in the mid-19th century from Alsace-Lorraine, and became laborers in Rochester.
My maternal grandmother’s family is unknown, as, to our surprise when we discovered it a few years ago, she was adopted, and there are no clear records as to where she had come from.
My father’s side of the family are of German heritage, and my grandmother told the story that our ancestors were kicked out of Germany because they were caught poaching on the king’s property. If I could travel back in time, I’d love to go back there and see that all play out.
Well. My ancestors were living in Puerto Rico when Columbus showed up.
Then they mixed it up with some slaves & some Spaniards.
Then all Puertoricans were given American citizenship when it bacame a territory.
My grandfathers moved to the states & brought their families (my parents) after serving in WWII.
