Mother’s side came to the Americas from Spain in the 1580s. Not sure when Dad’s side came over from Spain, but it obvious they did.
My maternal grandmother was older than my maternal grandfather too, by only 5 months, but when my grandmother died, my grandfather made her a year younger on her tombstone. I don’t know if it was to hide that she was older than him, of if he just forgot that she wasn’t born the same year as him.
Paternal side-Jamestown 1617. I often wonder how badly things in England were going for that guy if he wanted to come here that early on.
My direct ancestor immigrated to New York from (Ireland) in 1747. After distinguished service in the French and Indian Wars, he was awarded land, married a Dutch princess by the name of Van Kleeck and settled down in Poughkeepsie. Unfortunately, there was a political disagreement and in 1783, the family had to move to Canada for a short while.
In 1899, after 116 years, his Great-Great-Great Grandson (my Grandfather) returned and received citizenship through service in the Spanish-American War.
On my mother’s side, her ancestors immigrated from Schleswig-Holstein to the great American mid-west in 1850.
This is one of the most enjoyable threads in a long time. I am so interested in everyone’s story.
Has anyone done the 23andme genetic ancestry testing? My husband and I did it recently, and he has gotten back into genealogy as a result. As expected, my ancestors are pretty much all from Britain and Northern Europe. I’m 3.1 percent Neanderthal, which they say is 95th percentile.
I agree! It was said before a few pages back, but what a wonderful heritage our ancestors have given our country!
@Ynotgo : I haven’t, but I’ve been toying with the idea. Genetic genealogy has been something I’ve found interesting for awhile-- since someone recommended Brian Sykes’s books, actually. The first one was The Seven Daughters of Eve, an I recommend starting with that one, but Blood of the Isles is a definite "yes: for anyone whose heritage is largely Anglo-Celtic, as ours is.
I did it last year and found what I already knew: 99% Southern European, primarily Balkan (80%) and 1% Italian and the rest European. My son-in-law did the testing and discovered that he was Sami (Finno-Urgic people inhabiting the Arctic Circle, i.e., Lapland)–makes sense because he and his parents are from St. Petersburg.
To add to the interesting people on this CC thread; my parents were both immigrants from Switzerland who met in Swiss area in WI - mother came at 19 to be with her dad who started a business (she was raised by paternal grandparents). Father came at 20/21 and had also spent time in CA with his younger brother (who settled there). Father’s uncle (who was in Texas) sponsored dad and his brother (in the 1950’s, had to have a financial sponsor). Mother had trouble learning English (met dad in evening English language classes, and he would give her a ride home - very quick romance), while father’s language skills were improved greatly when he was inducted into the army and was made a switchboard operator at a SC base. Dad’s accent was only apparent on words that were not part of his regular vocabulary (I could notice it on ‘thank you’ - the th). Swiss German was my first language. Older sis went to K and was sent back to learn English. So when I am in Switzerland, I do think in the Swiss language after a day or two. My first trip to Switzerland was when I was 12, and was around some cousins who could not speak English. Growing up, I heard a lot of the Swiss language spoken, but would answer back in English. Looking forward to making a trip to Switzerland in 2016 - a lot of family/friends to see. Neither parents had a middle name - was not common in the 1930’s in Switzerland to have. Maternal grandmother’s family may have been Romanian and may have Jewish history, but have never investigated. I know family bible at dad’s family farm in Switzerland went back 300 years. Since dad and younger brother had better prospects in US, that has us here. Dad was able to build up a successful business, and his brother (and uncle) all had done well too.
H’s maternal lineage is German, one and two generations from immigrating (all before WWII) - and his grandparents lived into their 80’s - heart attack and stroke as cause of death; H’s paternal lineage is very interesting - some French, some German, Five Sioux Indian women. In the early 1800’s, he had a relative survive as a 10 month old being scalped (they thought she was dead as her father was; some hours later when washing in preparation for burial they realized she was alive - and she lived a long life - had a metal plate to replace the skull bone - amazing survival w/o the antibiotics of today). H’s paternal grandfather lived to 96 and five of his six sisters lived to 103-108 (one died of heart issues in her late 70’s). Grandfather’s grandmother lived to 83 (died in 1917). The grandfather and siblings were quarantined when their mother contracted and survived small pox (this mother had her youngest daughter when she was 40, and that gal lived almost as long as her older sister, a few months short of 108 in 2012).
So interesting! Scottish, 100% on one side, and I am curious as to what genetic testing would say about lowland Scots background. My dad emigrated to Canada after graduating University, like much of this graduating class. Few professional jobs in Scotland back then, post WW2.
The other side is a mix of the family that founded Pennsylvania, a Minute Man in the Revolutionary war, all English and more recent protestant Irish immigrants who homesteaded in Iowa. All British Isles aside from a little Dutch mix along the way.
Blood of the Isles looks like an interesting read.
How did any of your families interact with historical events, even tangentially?
My grandfather came to Ellis Island on the Aquitania which was the sister ship to the Lusitania.
My grandfather had 2 sisters who married 2 brothers and they owned competing dry goods stores in Johnstown, PA.
In the Johnstown flood of 1936, one of the stores was destroyed. Apparently that sister/brother-in-law asked my grandfather, who by that time was a successful merchant in another city, for money to help reconstruct his business. My grandfather said no. That started a feud between him and his sisters that effectively tore them all apart and we the descendants of all these people have had to piece it all together, and of course we make no judgment as to whether he was “justified” in refusing or not - who knows?
My oddest genealogy story is that I “bumped” into someone on either genealogy.com or ancestry.com when beginning research. As it turns out, his grandmother and my grandfather were sister / brother who came over here at ages 17 and 15 respectively, and then were divided by this feud and so never had anything to do with one another, nor obviously did their children. So he’s my second cousin - his father and my father were first cousins who had never met.
I’ve had ancestors in pretty much every American war going back to 1812-- I can’t find any hard documentation for the Revolution, but we were here, somewhere, as far as I know. Probably our biggest “brush with history” is either my great-grandfather who was instrumental in the formation of the UMW, or my husband’s grandfather, who was a high-ranking police official during the Newsboys’ Strike immortalised in the movie/Broadway show Newsies.
Nobody flew to the moon, or won a Nobel prize. That’s up to future generations, I guess.
@Pizzagirl : I’ve found family members on Ancestry-- or rather, they’ve mostly found me. I discovered the answer to one of my most compelling genealogical problems that way, in fact. My great-grandfather (not the miner, a different one) had a fairly uncommon name, and two different households showed up with men of that name in nearby towns. I assumed they were related, maybe cousins, and could never figure out which one was “ours”.
Turns out they both were. He was a bigamist.
Robert Treat Paine signed the Declaration of Independence.
Charles Jackson Paine was a Civil War general and later went on to win a bunch of America’s cups.
Another relative founded Middlesex School and another one Winsor School.
There were two who were in the first Olympics in the pistol shooting event (and won) that I mentioned in my first post in this thread. I’m told one of them (Sumner) fought a duel on Boston Common and had to retire to Paris, but I’ve never found any evidence of this - though he did spend quite a few years in Paris.
My dad’s mom was half Scotts Irish. Her dad made his way from a farm outside Londonderry to Portland on the Oregon trail. Her mom was from a “better” family that had come west from central Ohio. They were English and had been here a long time. Apparently I could be a Daughter of the American Revolution from that side. His dad was first generation German (mom never spoke English). The went to Missouri from North Central Germany (just a bit SW of Hanover) in the mid 19th century - that younger son not getting the farm thing. They had 13 kids and a bunch of the boys all went to Oregon together. We visited the family farm in Germany. Generations of oldest sons have been there for centuries.
My mom’s family is Irish and French-Canadian on one side and English on the other. Neither side were new comers and they all came west on the Oregon trail. Her mom’s family were and are “gentleman farmers” in the Palouse wheat country and sent all 4 kids to college.
At any rate, farmers on both sides with a mix of German, Scotts Irish, English and a dash of French Canadian.
I did 23andMe. Nothing too interesting other than my results were fairly different from my parents’ and sister’s. For example, I only came out about 10% Asheknazi when my sister was in the 20+% and my dad was over 1/3. 54% Northern European, 15% Eastern European, the rest Southern European and East and South Asian. What did come as a little surprise was that i came out only 6.8% British and Irish despite my maternal grandmother being 100% British and having quite a bit of Irish on my dad’s side.
For coincidences, both Mr. Romani and my dad have the same specific paternal haplogroup from a place in Northern (?) Ireland.
I also made Mr. Romani do 23andMe. He’s always been told that he’s at least 75% German. Results? Less than 1/4 French and German. Almost 1/4 British & Irish and 10% Scandinavian. The rest broadly Northern European with some Middle Eastern thrown in. Oops… someone isn’t telling the truth in that family 
He was also told that his great grandparents were immigrants which is why they didn’t speak English. Nope, his German family lived in an Amish-esque village in Ohio for many, many generations and didn’t bother to learn English. Came as quite a shock to his “This is AMERICA, learn the LANGUAGE!” family. Oh and his surname is distinctly German so in theory his paternal haploid group should back to Germany… not Ireland.
Genealogy is one of my hobbies.
On my side the most recent immigration was from Germany in the late 1870s. The earliest immigrants came from England in the 1600s.
On my husband’s side the most recent immigrants came from Bohemia around 1870. The earliest immigrants on my husband’s side were Native Americans, so thousands of years ago. His people actually walked the Trail of Tears from Mississippi to Oklahoma in the early 1800s.
My whole family did do 23andme a while back. It is very interesting. The Native DNA did show up for my husband, his mother and our children. I am 99% European.
@pizzagirl we also had siblings marry siblings - two brothers married two sisters (one of the sisters was my great-grandmother); so that produced ‘double cousins’ - being cousins from both the mom and the dad. Great-grandfather died before I was born, so I didn’t know him.
My great-grandmother’s dad was an explosives expert with the Swiss road and railroad, bombing open the mountain tunnel passes. Unfortunately he was blinded during an explosion - but had a good pension and with his high paying career, was considered well to do. His wife had a nurse at home with their youngest, and the evil or mentally disturbed nurse put chemical drops in the baby’s eyes that blinded her! That baby became a nun. I don’t know what happened to the nurse.
My mother’s family has been in the US so long that I can’t find when (or from where) they immigrated. The funny thing is, most of them have lived and died in the same 50-square-mile area of land since the early 1800s, except for the time they spent fighting in the Civil War (for the losing side. My 100-year-old grandmother can still tell stories about her grandfather’s experiences at the Wilderness.)
My father’s side goes back just as far - he has ancestors that fought in almost every U.S. war, including the Revolutionary War. (Yes, I could join the DAR if I could ever get that application done. Emily Gilmore and I could be DAR buddies.) Family legend has it that his ancestors originally came from Germany.
I like doing genealogy too, although I’ve found that the older I get, the more I want to find pictures and stories (rather than names and dates).
Cool! The question of where they were from prompted me to look of the family farm in Germany - I knew the name of the road as it is after the family name. BAM! There it is in satellite view in Google Maps . . . so cool!! My dad and I stopped in in HS after finding the place via the town archives. We drove into the farm yard and I explained who we were in stilted German. The man ran inside and came out with a photo of my grandfather and several of his brothers after a successful bird hunting outing. My dad looks just like his dad so the farmer must have immediately know.