# Your most recent immigrant ancestor
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [November 2, 2006, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837 "2006-11-02T11:18:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/1 "2006-11-02T11:18:09Z")
Another one for the genealogists. Who is your most recent known immigrant ancestor? Mine was an Irishman named James Kelly who arrived in New Orleans in 1800.
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### Author:  [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/2 "2006-11-02T11:20:33Z")
Very recent. Mother, arrived in NZ 1958.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/3 "2006-11-02T11:28:56Z")
If it’s got to be across country borders, I imagine my italian ancestors (grandma’s great-grandparents). Although they were coming over from the parts of Italy that had been Crown of Aragon and they settled into a town that was also Crown of Aragon, so you may not want to count them 😉
Previously, a French soldier who was wounded and left behind during the Napoleonic wars.
If crossing country borders isn’t a requirement, Mom lived in Navarra from 1956-62, then went back to Barcelona, Dad went there after her, they got married in Barcelona in 64 and came back on 65. Back then the trip could take over 24 hours.
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### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/4 "2006-11-02T11:35:58Z")
Issoui Ishakis, from Thessaloniki, Greece. I believe he came over in 1920 or so.
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### Author:  [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/5 "2006-11-02T12:05:42Z")
My mum came over to Britain in the 70s.
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### Author:  [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/6 "2006-11-02T12:07:39Z")
I know my dad’s parents came here from Poland (separately - they met and married in Baltimore) in the early 19-teens I believe. Mom’s grandparents, also from Poland, arrived shortly before, but still in the 1900s.
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### Author:  [@Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alive_At_Both_Ends)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/7 "2006-11-02T12:34:47Z")
I don’t have any. I’ve gone back at least four generations along every line of descent, six or seven along some, and have yet to find an ancestor not born in Southern England.
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### Author:  [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/8 "2006-11-02T12:42:57Z")
[QUOTE=Ice Wolf]
Very recent. Mother, arrived in NZ 1958.
[/QUOTE]
Where did she come from? Did a lot of people emigrate to NZ in the late 50s?
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### Author:  [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/9 "2006-11-02T12:52:43Z")
My maternal grandmother was born on the boat crossing the Atlantic from Sweden.
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### Author:  [@Marienee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marienee)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/10 "2006-11-02T13:15:48Z")
Since I am not my own ancestor, my most recent immigant direct ancestors were my maternal grandparents who immigrated (not together) to the US from the Azores in the wave (well, relatively speaking) of immigration from 1910 - 1920. My grandfather was a very young child; my grandmother was older, maybe early teens I think. But he was substantially younger than she was so they probably came to the US at about the same time.
I immigrated to the Netherlands two years ago, thus going from Old Country to Old Country in two generations.
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### Author:  [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/11 "2006-11-02T13:26:40Z")
My paternal great-grandmother was pregnant with one great-aunt, and had the other in tow, when she emigrated from Lithuania to the US in the late 19th century. My great-grandfather had traveled ahead of her to prepare for his family’s arrival. I don’t have an exact date handy. My grandmother was conceived and born in the US after my great-grandmother and great-grandfather were reunited.
The “legendary” aspect of the story is that she evaded the Soviet occupation by hiring a guide and traveling through the Black Forest, but the guide abandoned them somewhere in the middle. Alone, pregnant and dragging along a small child, she managed to reach the port city where my great-grandfather had booked them passage on a ship to the US.
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### Author:  [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/12 "2006-11-02T13:34:30Z")
My parents moved to the US in 1981. Then again, they’ve moved back to Korea since then, so I dunno if they count.
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### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/13 "2006-11-02T13:42:50Z")
My maternal grandparents, who both came from Lithuania (albeit separately, and my grandfather by way of England, where he picked up a tea-drinking habit, or so I’m told) right after the turn of the last century.
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### Author:  [@meow\_meow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/meow_meow)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/14 "2006-11-02T13:44:08Z")
Grandfather, Thomas Collins, from County Cork Ireland, 1926. He was 21 when he came here via Ellis Island.
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### Author:  [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/15 "2006-11-02T14:12:42Z")
My great grandparents on my mother’s side I think are the most recent. Stanislav (sp?) and Angel Olshefski, from Warsaw, Poland.
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### Author:  [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/16 "2006-11-02T14:14:00Z")
I should probably have put the date, huh? I’m not sure of the exact date, but it was about 1915.
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### Author:  [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/17 "2006-11-02T14:30:50Z")
Me, moved to Japan from America in 1995.
Before that, my father moved to America from France in 1965.
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### Author:  [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/18 "2006-11-02T14:33:01Z")
Well, technically me, as I was born in India and came over when I was four. But really my parents. My mother came over in the early 70’s, my dad in '75 after the [arranged] wedding. I was adopted, long story.
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### Author:  [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/19 "2006-11-02T14:38:08Z")
My grandfather’s parents, so my great-grandparents, came from the Piedmont region of northern Italy, but they were of French descent and spoke French. The arrived in the late 1800s. My great-grandfather, Emil Plano, and his two brothers, Alex and Bert, married three Grasso sisters (Anna was my great-grandmother), also from Piedmont. And they lived all in a row on the same street in either Faulkner or Jamestown, NY, I forget which. (It’s all in the book, at home!)
On the other hand, the first one of my husband’s family came from France to Louisiana in 1720. Many others arrived via Acadia, and were expelled and went to Louisiana to become Cajuns. It’s a fascinating family history, one that he’s been busily researching for the last several months.
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### Author:  [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2006, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-most-recent-immigrant-ancestor/378837/20 "2006-11-02T14:38:23Z")
All of my grandparents were the first in my family to be born in the US. On my dad’s side, my great grandparents fled Russia and Poland at the turn of the century. On my mom’s side, I have Italian and Danish heritage who also came to the States at that same time.
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