My relatives immigrated many generations ago, so I have no story (I don't know it). But whenever I think about immigration policy and problems (not what trump just did), I think about a lovely woman who worked as a caregiver for a couple of my elderly relatives. She was an immigrant from the Philippines, a citizen now, with a wonderful family. She was SO hardworking and willing to work long hours (she was VERY well paid, but no benefits) in order to make more $ to be able to send to her very, very poor relatives in her home country. She was trying to bring her elderly mother and some of her siblings here, but they had been on a list for something like 10 years, as apparently there is a quota. She was SO angry and upset by the people entering the country illegally and then getting amnesty or special rules to remain. She felt like she'd done everything by the book, legally, but it didn't benefit her; yet those breaking the laws got exactly what she wanted, but was being denied for her family members.

I could see her point. It's so complicated.

My fathers grandparents on both sides immigrated from Italy-my fathers father was the first born in the US. My mothers mothers parents immigrated from Germany-her fathers grandparents from Germany. My family has only been here since the turn of the 20th century.

Czech and German immigrants in my family, great grandparents who fled the usual poverty and war around the 1870s-80s. Very typical American story.

On my father's side, we had relatives here during the Revolutionary War. As Loyalists, they were granted land in Canada and emigrated. The family stayed there until my grandparents came to the States, met, married, and had children. I don't know what specifically brought them here or if my grandparents ever became citizens. We have a picture of my grandfather serving in the Canadian army in the British Expeditionary Forces, so he arrived here after WW1. The picture is so cool because his dress uniform was a kilt. He was in France in 1918-19.

My mother's people came from Ireland, much earlier than 1900's, since my great grandmother was born here, but IDK exactly when they arrived.

My paternal side came here from Scotland via Ireland prior to the Revolution and settled Chambersburg, PA. Benjamin Chambers is my great(something-grandfather. My maternal side came from Germany sometime in the early 1800s.

The Homecoming depicts town founder Benjamin Chambers
welcoming son James and grandson Benjamin home after the Revolutionary War. The
statue is in the center of the Founding Family Park.

My step-dad is from South Africa and he and his brother left there during Apartheid and were not allowed to return until Apartheid was abolished. Having lived under institutional racism the election of trump has upset him deeply. He became a US citizen in the early 1980s.

My step-brother was born in the UK. He became a citizen about 7 years ago. He and his American wife are currently living in German.

I don't know much about my DH side but his Great Grandmother was full-blooded Cherokee.

My mother came here from Canada as a child and my father came from Scotland as a young man. My husband came from Italy as a boy and they all accomplished the American dream.

Three out of four of my grandparents' families came here from Ireland to escape what was at least cultural genocide. My last name is anglicized from the Irish Gaelic. The generational spread is long in these Irish families, my grandfather was 78 when I was born. On the other side, my grandfather was born when his father was near 60. I know very little about most of these people, one, because of the age differences, two because it is one of those Irish families where the simplest question was answered cryptically "Why dwell in the past?". One grandmother's family came from France around the time of the revolution to escape religious persecution. It is possible I have some indigenous ancestry from this side of the family. That's the tradition, a DNA test would probably disprove it...

My SOs family mostly came here between 1640 and 1650 to escape religious persecution. Some of them figured significantly in the American Revolution.

Olychick, DH gets quite riled by similar stories. Besides people who enter illegally, he is appalled by people who entered legally but did not maintain their status. He was quite diligent about coordinating his visa and his life situation, and expects everyone else to do the same.

One of the restauranteers here posted on Facebook a picture of his grandfather who was a stowaway on a boat from Italy.

I have one great grandmother who came here from Germany and the others are at least a generation before that. I've looked at the genealogy but so far can't find the details. Two of DH's grandparent's immigrated from Norway. His great grandfather on the other side came from Scotland through Canada. Not sure about the great grandmother.

DH does have some childhood friends whose parents immigrated from Yugoslavia to avoid oppression after WWII I believe. They were sponsored by the Catholic church I think. They came with one child. The father got a local job and they had a few more children. He then died leaving the mom alone with five children including some small ones. She barely spoke English. Between herself, her older children, the community and the church they managed to continue. It wasn't easy and they weren't wealthy by material standards but they were wealthy in everything else that matters.

I think there is a lot of truth to the drive and motivation of many immigrants and it is what the good old American work ethic was built upon. I feel like we have lost some of that. In some cases that I observe it is recent immigrants who are willing to do any work that needs to be done. Some others are not and state there are no jobs when in fact businesses are hiring on practically every corner where I live. With the early America/recent immigrant work ethic from what I can tell there seemed to be a willingness to work hard doing whatever kind of job you could get with the belief that if you did you could make a better life for yourself.

The other thing that's changed with modern day vs. historical immigrants is that in the past many worked hard to assimilate and become as "American" as possible, as quickly as possible. For example people changed their names to make them more easily understood in their new country. DH's grandparents tried to learn English as quickly as possible and were self conscious about their accents. It seems quite different now - not sure if it's better or worse as a result.

My paternal Great, Great Grandparents left County Sligo, Ireland due to 'An Gorta Mor' - Irish for the Great Famine (or as Pal puts it - cultural genocide) with their 5 sons. They settled in northeast PA and worked in the coal mines. In the 1900 census my Great Grandfather was a miner and 4 of his 6 sons worked in the mines as well. The 17 year old was a mule driver, the 14, 11 and 9 year old boys were slate pickers. It was heartbreaking to read that these were children - their job was to sit 2 or 3 abreast on a bench over the conveyor belt taking coal to the crusher. They would sort through the coal with their feet and pick out the pieces that had slate in them. They worked a full shift 6 days a week. And if by chance one slipped off the bench onto the belt - then he too ended in the crusher.

My mother's side is the total opposite and her ancestry has been traced back to 1520 and my 12th Great Grandfather in England. One ancestor was a painter in the Court of Elizabeth I. The family arrived in the 1600's and my 3rd Great Grandfather enlisted in the 6th Virginia Battalion at age 20 and fought at the Battle of the Brandywine and spent the winter with George Washington at Valley Forge.

Maire

This is an an interesting question. I really do not know the stories of why my family moved to the US, just that it was very early in American history 17th and 18th century for the family members that we have researched. We have dates and such but I would really love to know the stories behind their journeys here. Since most arrived so long ago I do not know if I will ever find any details. They came from Scotland, England, Wales and Germany. They lived in the East and South. I know much more about the relatively recent "immigration" to California stories. My Grandma's family came to California before it was a state, my great-great grandma was born here. Most of the other grandparents came during the 1920's.

Here are the ones that I know off the top of my head. DH's father's family were the original American immigrants and came over on the Mayflower. One of my grandmothers and DH's grandmother came over from Canada in the early 1900s. My other grandmother came over from England in the early 1900s as well.

Maire, my grandfather too was a slate picker on top of Lattimer mine, at age 12. He finished high school at 30, college at 32, and married at 39.

Robo, I want my country to be Canada when it grows up.

My maternal great+ grandfather was a MacGregor in Scotland when King JamesVI was persecuting our clan. They became the "Children of the Mist", and that grandfather eventually fled to Ireland where he met and became great friends with William Penn. He converted to Quaker, and went on with Penn to colonize/found Pennsylvania. That was in the late-1680s, I believe. My family on that side were Quakers/ Quaker ministers until my great-grandfather ran away at around 15 years old, joined a traveling side show as a pugilist, and eventually ended up in Detroit. [Edited to add that he met and married the love of his life there, my great-grandmother, Laura Bella, who quickly straightened him back out. He settled down, got a got a good job in Detroit's auto industry, and (mostly) quit boxing.]

DH's family is more colorful (LOL). His great+ grandfather was a younger son of an Englishman. With no lands to inherit (older brother got that) , he came to the U.S. with dreams of becoming a cowboy. He made it to Oklahoma Territory, became a cowboy, fell in love and married the daughter of a Chickasaw leader, and their son is/was my wonderful father-in-law. He passed a few years after DH and I were married, but gosh, I adored him. What a great man he was!

Father's side is easy: Polish Ashkenazi in Prague when the Germans and Russians simultaneously invaded Poland. He fled to London, then N.Y.C. where he finished his medical residency. He was the sole survivor of a large family and never ever spoke of that destroyed world to us kids.

Mother's side to the two generations we know of were Austrian. My maternal great-grandparents were born in the 1840s. That great-grandfather immigrated to Hawaii before the US seized it from the native monarchy. His wife had been born in the US, the child of central European immigrants who had travelled from Mississippi to the West Coast via wagon train. Maternal great-grandfather was friends with members of the Royal family and documents of that relationship have been bought and sold recently by collectors.

(Last year, my sister and I severed our last connection to Hawaii, selling land under a Honolulu shopping centre originally acquired in the 1880s.)

At the turn of the 20th C., they left for San Francisco, then NYC.

My mother's paternal ancestors, also from central Europe, ended up storeowners in Charleston, W.V. and in the dental gold business.

*****

Am I the only one with photos?

DFIL was a WWII POW in a German camp. Escaped--twice!--and eventually joined the forces in England and participated in the Normandy invasion and the liberation of Northern Europe. After the war, he couldn't now go back to his home country, and was given British citizenship. Ultmately he met my DMIL, jobs were scarce post-war so they emigrated to Canada. He wrote his memoir and it is quite compelling.

When my great-grandmother brought their 5 children over to join my great-grandfather in 1913, one of the little boys was playing where he wasn't supposed to, fell, and broke his wrist. When they got to Ellis Island, the family was processed through except for the one who was injured. (That was not uncommon, it was an effort to admit only whole and healthy immigrants.) He was detained at Ellis Island for a few weeks while he healed, then he was put on a train with a tag on his coat and an apple in his hand and sent west to join his family. He was 6 years old.

Very fascinating stories!!

So many amazing stories! Keep them coming..

My Grandfather on my Mothers side actually came to the US illegally to check it out. He stowed away on a boat, wandered around NYC for a few weeks then stowed away again on a boat back to Italy. He brought his family back legally about a year later!

Jeeze, my life is so boring. Thank goodness!

Truly amazing stories and such varied histories .

Pal - My Dad's family settled in Sugar Notch which is only about 30 miles north of the Lattimore Mines. What an accomplishment for your grandfather! My grandfather never left the mines and died of black lung at age 50.

My great grandparents in front of their 'company' home. They had 8 sons, 2 died in infancy.

Only my grandfather's youngest brother never spent time in the mines. He was a young boy, about 6, at the time of the Lattimer Mines strike in 1897 and saw striking miners shot and killed and said he would never work in the mines. I think eventually all the men in my grandfather's generation were able to get out of the mines. Very few photos of anyone exist in my family's past.

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that atrocity.

My parents came to this country after WWII. They were both born in Poland. My dad was in the Polish army and was captured and was sent to a POW camp. My mom was taken from Poland to Germany for forced labor. My dad, like worthy's relative, never spoke of what he went through. They came to this country, with my two sisters who were born in Germany. They never spoke English and never became citizens, but we were brought up with such a love of this country. They were so grateful to be able to come here and start a new life. One of the many tragedies of war is that families are broken apart. I never knew my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents. We were the only ones in this country.

I did a research paper in university on the rise of unions in the Quebec mining industry. The conditions in which the miners worked were horrific.

Both my maternal great-grandparents and grandmother came to the U.S. to escape Nazi Germany in 1938 and settled in Brooklyn NY. My great grandfather, who owned a successful business in Germany but was unable to take money out of Germany, became the superintendent of a building in NY. My great grandmother, who had never worked, cleaned houses. My grandmother was unable to finish high school & worked as a governess. After long hours of work each day, they all took English lessons. As was mentioned previously, they were so proud to be Americans that they assimilated as quickly as possible. My grandmother, who lived to be 92, never became any less self conscious of her accent.

My maternal grandfather was sent by his parents to the U.S., also to escape the Nazis. He was 19 years old & never saw his family again. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1941 and fought in WWII against the Germans, helping to liberate a concentration camp during his tour. After the war, he and my grandmother moved to Southern NJ. They worked extremely hard to make a modest living, yet sent both of their daughters to college. They rarely spoke of life pre-America. They loved this country and with all they lived through considered themselves lucky. I hope my grandparents understood how proud of them we were. We are all educated and live comfortably - I know that this is because of the sacrifices that they were willing to make. I never take it for granted.

My husband's grandparents came to this country in 1900 and 1915 from Poland, His grandfather on his father's side opened a store, his mother's grandparents both worked in the mills in New Bedford. My father's side of the family came from England in 1636 and we know every detail of the lineage. My mother's family, also from England, is less easy to track down, but I am working on it. One of our daughter's is living/working in Krakow now and when we go to visit, we will do some research. DH's father had done some in the past, but is now deceased. It is so important to document what you find so you can pass it down to future generations.

My parents would be 95 this year if they were alive but they were born here in the U.S. They were children during the Depression. My grandparents came from Poland around the turn of the century and married here. Mom's side was closer to Hungary but my father's side closer to Russia. I really don't know the whole story of why or how they came through Ellis Island. Both grandparents owned mom and pop grocery stores, which my mother did not believe my father when she met him. They met and married after WWII. There was a big push for assimilation, and we did not speak Polish at home. To this day I know very little Polish. I have several HS friends whose parents fled the Nazis, and they mostly spoke Polish at home. We all are/were Catholic vs. Jewish. Two of my HS friends' mothers are still alive. One is independent and one in assisted living.

I wish I knew it. I know I have ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War. I know one branch of my family tree cane from Wales to work in the coal mines of Pennsylvania, I know they came from places called Sirhowy and Dukestown, Wales. My grandfather had been a Breaker Boy as a child, picking impurities from the coal at the colliery. My father's side of the family was German and Polish but I never heard how or when they came here. No one ever came through Ellis Island, we were here before there was such a place. You are making me want to know more.

I'm German and came to the US in January of 1988. My husband and I met when he was stationed in Germany. I'm still a German citizen and our son has dual citizenship.

My grandmothers family on my mother's side has polish roots, my grandfather's family were Volga Russian.

My grandmother's family on my father's side came from Hungary.

DH's great grandparents on his father's side immigrated from Germany. On his mother's side they are Irish.

My mother's side came from Ireland during the potato famine. They settled first in Middletown, NY and ended up in Philly where my mom was born. I don't know much about this side.

My father's side came from Hungary but after WWI the borders changed and their town is now part of Romania. My grandfather(I never knew him) did not like the new Romanian government and came to the US ahead of my grandmother to find work and get settled. He was a wrought iron worker/artist and in Hungary/Romania worked for a company that built the royal carriages, owned by my great grandfather....he married the boss's daughter. He found work in Philly and his company's work can be seen all over Philly....the chandeliers in the chapel at Valley Forge, Catholic Church altars, etc..he did a lot of artistic pieces on his own and I have a few.....candlesticks, a lamp, sculptures. Their house was filled with his iron artwork.

He married my grandmother when she was 16 and she was 19 when she left Romania in 1922 with a 1 and two year old in tow traveling by boat to Ellis Island. I can't even imagine. Within two years she had taken English classes, gone to beauty school and opened up a beauty shop in her home....oh and had another baby....my dad. She ran a beauty shop out of her home for years. Later on, she ran a babysitting business out of her home. On top of all that she was a beautiful seamstress. She made beautiful Halloween costumes for all her grandchildren and winter coats and leggings and dresses for me....until we moved to California. She was also a wonderful cook and a fabulous baker......streudel, eclairs , cookies.......we'd anxiously await boxes of goodies she'd send us a few times a year. I didn't realize or think about how incredible she was.....doing all she did at such a young age....until I was older and she was gone.

Someone did the genealogy on my mother's side of the family. My maternal grandmother's family has been traced to Andrew Warner, who emigrated from Lancaster England to Massachusetts in 1630. My great grandfather Norton Jerome Warner was a cousin to Jenny Jerome, Winston Churchill's American mother. I have some sterling silverware, Bavarian china, and a big honkin' diamond ring that belonged to my great grandmother, so I think that family had some money. But then my grandmother married a Dutchman who came from a long line of oystermen from Long Island and NJ. That line traces back to the original Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam, when the first Van Pelt sailed to New Amsterdam in 1663. Apparently they founded New Utrecht, which is part of Brooklyn today. My grandmother and grandfather moved from NJ to Beacon NY, where he was a captain on the ferry boat that crossed the Hudson. My grandmother worked in a hat factory, trimming hats. Beacon was one of the biggest hat producers in the early 20th century. I always notice the hats in period movies where they're trimmed with feathers and all sorts of things. Everyone wore a hat then.

I know nothing about my paternal grandmother. My father was the last of seven boys, born when his parents were in their 40s, and 18 years after their last son. He was not a welcomed child and has some sad stories from his childhood. His parents died in their 60s in the 1940s, so my siblings and I never met them. My sister traced my grandmother back to Hugo Freer, one of the French Huguenots who settled New Paltz, NY in the early 18th century. Several of the stone houses remain, including the Freer house, and it's a national landmark.

That brings me to the most recent immigrant, which is my Irish great grandfather, who settled in Beacon around 1860. It's the typical Irish immigrant story as far as I know. Poor laborers. My grandfather drove one of the first fire trucks. We know that because there's a photo in a book about Beacon that shows the fire truck crashed and it identifies my grandfather as the driver! From what I've heard, he was a drinker.

This thread just cost me$99. I joined Ancestry. My paternal grandmother had a sister named Lulu. Love it.

One branch of my family came over on the Mayflower (our daughter is named after her). Another branch left France and went to Canada; ultimately (early 18th century) they settled in Detroit where they were important merchants and "civil servants." It's all been downhill since then.

Did you ever do the DNA ancestry thing? Is it as much hocus pocus as they say? I did 23andme mostly because I have adopted relatives out in the world (shot in the dark -- they haven't signed up for the service).

I was a little surprised because my sister and I are taken for Eastern European origin quite a bit and that's not really part of the heritage they showed in the DNA test. I apparently do have more neanderthal DNA than 99% of humans, and mostly British and Irish which is no surprise.

One side were German Jewish immigrants to the US in the late 1800s. The other side were Anglos in New England, much earlier immigrants. Myself, sort of an immigrant to another country, though maybe not permanently.

Scary days, these!

Dedtired - uh oh - you've done it now. Be prepared to spend endless hours on Ancestry tracking down distant relatives or trying to decipher the handwriting on old church records.

I only hope your family is more patient than mine when I start to tell them of some wildly interesting family fact that I have just uncovered.

Happy Hunting, Maire

Did you ever do the DNA ancestry thing? Is it as much hocus pocus as they say?

I believe so, but that's just what I think based on what I hear people tell me about their results. I would point out that it is also totally unsecure--you're providing your own DNA to who knows who for who knows what, in exchange for what often seems to be pure flummery.

But then I'm even agnostic about the regular genealogy stuff on the web, ever since a cousin managed to trace our family back to the Mayflower II. My question is, "in that case, at what point did we become Irish Catholics?" Because I'm pretty darned sure that if a Catholic Irishman did somehow manage to stow away on the Mayflower I or II he would have been invited to go for a walk in mid-ocean when discovered. :)

ETA Just to be clear, I do not suspect anyone here of not having the background they say. It's a whole 'nother thing when you have a strong family tradition about these things, but this was big news to all of our family, and quite goes against all our family traditions about where we came from. Heck, my mom's old New England family was horrified at her marrying someone with such a lack of background as my dad, and you'll never make me believe that in past generations where these things mattered that folks would have forgotten a detail like being a Mayflower family.

Robo - It is just a guesstimate.

I like the Legal Genealogist's blog for a great explanation of ethnicity estimates from DNA tests.

My 2 brothers and I had ours done and I was a little surprised at the differences - my younger brother and I were very similar, but my older brother had several unique ethnic origins. But it does make sense then you remember that each parent contributes 50% of our genetic makeup and just as we inherit different genes for eye or hair color or blood type from our parents so to do we inherit different ethnic DNA.

https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2016/08/14/those-percentages-if-you-must/#comment-70440

writersblock, I believe the Pilgrims/Separatists were less than half of the Mayflower's 102 passengers. So it is possible (although I don't know) that there were Irish deckhands, servants, or even regular passengers. I know that William Bradford's famed diary, kept on board, despises most of the "strangers" the Puritans had to endure on crossing. One young man drowned and Bradford duly records that it was God's vengeance on him.

I think a lot of Americans also lump the Puritans, who came in successive waves after the Pilgrims, with the Mayflower Pilgrims. Like the Pilgrims they were a diverse group on board ship.

Hi, Emory. Yes, they were diverse, but mostly only in Protestantism. Remember that to the Separtists/Puritans plain old C of E were "strangers". So yeah, Scotch Irish deckhands, for sure. Southern Catholic Irish, not so much. A lot of the diversity was folks like Thomas Morton and his Merrymount crowd.

Besides, this one was supposed to be one of the elect on Bradford's list.

The one useful thing it's done for me so far - I looked for genetic risk for Celiac and I had none (grandma got diagnosed at age 94 and we have similar ailments like anemia so I was just curious).

My mom's mothers's side is Chippewa with a possible Englishmen thrown in. Mom's father came from Canada from (?) his last name is of German origin. They spoke English, French and (?). My fathers side came from Germany in 1832 and bought 700 acres along Delaware river in NY but boundaries are now in NJ. A rouge branch migrated to MI. In route there was a marriage to an American Indian of unknown tribe. Little is know except she took off and left husband with a few children. The MI branch of which I come were small business owners and land owners originally. In later years drink got the best of many. My dad is now married to a full blooded Chippewa woman. He lives in the upper peninsula. There is not much prejudice of Indians in that area compared to lots of prejudice in Canada where racism against Indians is near a national crisis .

writers, yeah if he was supposed to be an "elect" or "saint" on Bradford's list I agree that it is a myth! I've actually heard a lot of people state that their ancestors "came over on the Mayflower" -- but it is said in a way that doesn't inspire confidence that they've actually investigated the matter. . .

I've done quite a bit of genealogy, hoping to uncover the interesting tale. Sadly, I just come from a long line of peasants, most who could not even afford a grave marker. It is so frustrating to find the cemetery--in the Czech republic, parts of Germany, the U.S.--and no marker.

I'm not sure it's hocus pocus, though it may not be "exact science."

Mine came up pretty much what I thought it would....Ireland and Eastern Europe. I did Family Tree DNA. Both sides of my family are Catholic, but people always thought my father was Jewish. It proved what we (my siblings) had suspected for awhile.......23% Ashkenazi Jew(Eastern Europe)......no surprise. What was surprising was that it came up 6% Middle Eastern, specifically Turkey.

VERY interesting to read everyone's stories! All I know is I'm a descendant of Winston Churchill. DH has been wanting to research his family. Maybe we'll do mine as well.

Wouldn't it be funny if we're related, Monica?

Robo, I had my DNA done by Ancestry last year and it blew my mind. I'll do my immigrant story separate from this. I had mistakenly assumed that DNA ancestry showed up in somewhat the same proportions as family tradition purported it to be. Apparently that's not the case. On my paternal grandfather's side, the family can be traced back to English from the Norman Conquest. In my final DNA accounting, British amounted to 2%, the same as North African, Iberian Peninsula and Greek. Whaaaaa?!!! My mother's family was Jewish, so I was expecting up to 50% there (but figured some Gentile must have slipped in there over the years). I got 57% Jewish. Hahaha. Someone over in the WASP section crossed over I guess.

My paternal grandfathers family traces back to the late 1600s. I gather they were quite a prominent family in Maine.

I'm not as sure about the other branches of the family. A great-aunt on my mother's side seemed to revel in her Swedish heritage, and I think her parents (my great-great-grandparents) may have been born in Sweden. I think a great-grandfather (my father's mother's father) was born in the Netherlands. Certainly his given name was Dutch and not one I've heard elsewhere. He was active with the Holland Land Company that did a lot of land reclamation in the Sacramento River Delta.

My ex-husband is Chinese-American, and branches of his family have been in the US for 5 generations. His grandmother, however, was born in China after her father traveled back to China from the US to find a wife. Thanks to the Chinese Exclusion Act, he was unable to return to the US immediately, and my ex's grandmother was not able to come to the US until she was 12 years old.