Your personal ancestral immigration story

A majority of Americans of German descent can trace their lineage back to the Palatinate. It's a fertile region in more ways than one.

My dad’s maternal line came here from Sweden in the 1800s; his paternal line was mostly English, and they arrived in New England in the late 1600s.

My mom’s side is much more recent—her mother was born in present-day Ukraine on the Black Sea. My great-grandmother was a Black Sea German who was born/raises in Odessa. My great-grandfather was from the same region and was of part-Jewish descent. He was murdered by the German-led occupation in the Odessa oblast. My great-grandmother, who was not Jewish, fled with the children (one of them my grandmother) through Poland and made it to Germany by the time the war had ended. They ended up being sponsored by another family of German immigrants in North Dakota, and came over through Ellis Island after the war. My grandmother (and great-grandmother), needless to say, had difficult lives.

9th great grandfather landed in New France in 1647; my grandfather’s family emigrated to New England in 1894.

My mother’s great grandfather left Faial, Azores on a whaling ship at age thirteen, and landed at New Bedford in 1834.

I always knew I was mostly Irish but I was stunned when I did a DNA test and came out 100% British and Irish. A friend joked I was aggressively Caucasian. My dads side has been in Canada more than 100 years and my moms side has been hear since the 30s and still there’s been no mixing with people from other European countries even. I thought there’d be something else there even if it was five or 10%. My ancestors apparently came from all over Ireland and lancashire

My paternal grandfather immigrated from Prussia in1912. At that time Poland did not exist as a country. His future wife came from Austria-Hungary and was sent back home from Ellis Island because she was ill. She made it here just in time to die from the Spanish Flu when my father was an infant. My maternal lineage is French Canadian.

My maternal grandfather's ancestors came to Virginia from England as indentured servants in the 17th century. My maternal grandmother's ancestors came to Philadelphia from Germany as Protestants in Catholic Bavaria, also in the 17th century.

Don't know much about my paternal side's arrival in the New World, but they also seem to have been here since the 16th or 17th century.

Thanks for starting this thread, OP. I love reading your story and the others!

On my Dad's side it was Irish and Danish immigrants coming in during the 1860s, as well as some Mayflower and later ships of ancestors coming in during the 1600s.

On my Mom's side it was pretty much all English, one of which was in the Jamestown Settlement in 1607.

I also did have one Prussian sailor ancestor who changed his name. My favorite ancestor was a sea captain from Hamburg who came to the US in 1828. He changed his German name Wilhelm to William (not uncommon), but he changed his last name (Temm) to Brown, a version of his wife's last name (Browning). I have no idea why such a change - was he in trouble? I will never know. But I have records of him staying at a brothel for a while, where it turns out he met his wife (whose brother owned the brothel).

I find this stuff really interesting, I know most do not.

I find it all interesting, too, R7. William Browns story is fascinating. Let's hope his wife had some job in the brothel other than serving the customers. And you have a Mayflower ancestor! There are some really interesting posts here. Early arrivals, colonists, a 13 yr old girl on a whaling ship, Jamestown, and indentures servants. Makes me want to relearn our history.

My favorite ancestor, of the ones I've known, is my grandmother. She was full of stories, style, and advice. Liked her cocktails and had a happy, tinkling laugh. She was lively and spirited and told us this story. Her father was a known womanizer in their small city in Ohio (circa 1917). One night on the way home from a tryst the angry husband shot him. It was a flesh wound and later that night she and her mother dressed the wound. Deeply ashamed, my teenaged grandma vowed she'd leave Ohio and never look back. When she met grandpa while he was visiting family after WWI, she took the opportunity to leave town and go with him to his adopted home in San Francisco where they married. She once told me in a letter, "Follow your dreams, nothing ventured, nothing gained."

My ancestors on one side left England (East Anglia) for New York in the 1660s, subsequent generations moving west bit by bit as the frontier expanded. My ancestors on the other side were farmers who left Småland, Sweden, in the 1860s, settling in Nebraska.

[quote] Småland

Makes sense. Once they were no longer children I’m sure IKEA no longer wanted them hanging out in Småland.

My Nana, her husband, my mother and uncle were brought here from Germany after wwII although my Nana's husband was Ukrainian. My father was adopted so, not a ton known.

I ascend from an African Queen and a Hottentot.

There should be some standard labeling for present day Americans based on when their earliest line in America arrived. People whose ancestors arrived in the 1600s should be Original Americans (after the Indians) and people whose ancestors arrived after the Revolution should be the Latecomers. The 1700s before the Revolution could be just Early Americans.

What if your ancestry is split though like R2? Would the lineage of the earliest arrivers take precedence? It seems like a logistical nightmare.

Paternal lineage started in the US around 1630, that family lived in New England until about 1850 and moved to the Midwest.

My maternal grandfather's line also descended from an indentured servant from England in the 18th century . My paternal grandfathers line were from Germany in the early 1800s . My maternal grandmothers mother descended from a noble line from Spain who lost everything in the Spanish American war. Their plantation was burned to the ground and land seized .My great grandmother and her nanny fled on a fishing boat steered by my great grandfather,who was 16 . She was 14 . They married a year later . Then had 22 kids,17 who lived to adult hood. So when I say Im related to half of Miami,believe it !

I have a definite 18th century ancestor who appears in all genealogy trees as the great-grandson of Samuel Fuller, who crossed on the Mayflower when he was 12. However, the General Society of Mayflower Descendants won’t accept that my ancestor is his father’s son, along with all the other children from the father’s second marriage. The Mayflowerdna.org site acknowledges that there is evidence of the second marriage, including DNA evidence, but they want more. I’m screwed out of joining the society.

R13 No, there shouldn't.

R13 I’m more of an Original American than most republicans. My family came here knowing English.

R13 Let's just say we're all Americans.

Like a lot of people I have ancestors who lived in New Amsterdam. One was 2years old when the English took control. His mother was born in New Amsterdam in 1640 and his father was born in the old country. These ancestors I find interesting because they witnessed the changeover.

I can attest that not all descendants of the original Dutch settlers became like the fictional elite van Rhijn family.

R13 is J.D. Vance, who believes that some Americans are more American than others.

[quote] Let's just say we're all Americans.

R20, are you one of the Latecomers?

R23 Haha. Yeah, "Latecomers" i love that. Holy Jesus.

It is interesting in flyoverstan you have so many patriotic people who have only been here several generations but people out east who have been rooter here way longer and don’t care as much.

Rooted* not rooter. Once he’s gone, can we PLEASE get an edit function?

What about the people whose ancestors came through Ellis Island in the late 19th, early 20th century? (like mine) Oh, yeah -- the Undesirables.

My earliest ancestors immigrated in the late 19th century and the last one came over in 1920. I'm a blue-eyed white guy with an easily pronounceable name. I am also predominantly Irish. I'm honestly glad to be descended from later arrivals and not some nasty colonizers or people-owners. I'm always grossed out when people proudly proclaim their family's long association with this country. I'm always like "you're proud of that? Huh." but I keep that to myself. Nowadays I barely even want to think of myself as American with the way this shit hole country is going, and I definitely don't think it's brag-worthy.

R27 I find it interesting my mom was adopted but the father who adopted her was from a Jewish family that came through Ellis island but ended up in Chicago.

[quote] I'm a blue-eyed white guy

I think it’s wild that it is said that all blue-eyed people (as am I) have a common ancestor. We’re all carrying his gene.

One of my grandfathers, from Italy, came through Ellis Island, wound up in Quebec and Vermont (stone quarries, his sister worked in one as a timekeeper), married a woman who was native and French Canadian, got divorced, and then came to Boston, was partners in a construction business, lost it during the depression, continued to work as a stonemason, hired two of my uncles, whose mom was a widow (German ancestry, from NYC), who asked him home to dinner, and my grandparents met. Got married, she had more kids (one was my mom).

Another interesting thing about genealogy is seeing the cause of death on the death certificates. I’ve seen people killed in terrible accidents (one somehow involving a clothes iron) or who committed suicide (one purposely laying down on a railroad track).

His brother moved to Chicago and some of his grandchildren and great grandchildren restore houses in Lake Forest and Oak Park, Ill.

My story