Question of the Week: Have you found your immigrant ancestors?

Question

Where are they from? What do you know about their journey to their new country?

You might benefit from one of the many projects on WikiTree that can help you find other members who are working together to research their immigrant ancestors.

Wishing all of you the happiest of new years and success in your search for your family!

Comments

My Great Grandfather, Carl G. Laurin, came to New York from Visby, Gotland, Sweden on Sept.10, 1881. He made his way up to Lowell, Massachusetts and continued his trade as a stone cutter. I firmly believe that I would not be here if he and my Great Grandmother (from Klara, Stockholm) hadn't immigrated from Sweden.

 

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My childrens paternal Grandmother

Frieda (Lotz) Weatherford

Born 16 Mar 1897 in Saxony (Sachsen), Germany

Frieda's mother died when she was young. Don't know what happened to the father. There were several siblings and all were farmed out to different homes. Some were used for labor and Frieda worked for a German General, keeping house.

Frieda told me stories of living out of town on a farm, riding a horse to town and the horse would get her back after dark; German officers,

• Frieda met an American soldier in WWI stationed in Coblenz Lutzel, Germany
• Harvey and Frieda were in their late 70's or early 80's when a friend and I asked them how they met. Harvey told us, A soldier buddy pressured him into a blind date that he refused several times. A reluctant Harvey finally gave in with the clarification that if he didn't like it, he was leaving. The guys entered the home and Frieda stuck her head around the corner of the kitchen to say hi. Harvey told me, "Right then and there, I took my hat off! I knew I was staying."
• Harvey Weatherford, applied for a Passport to travel to Germany and Belgium 26 May1922 and planned to depart from the States in Jul.
• Frieda arrived in Ellis Island 13 Jul 1922
• Married  about 1922

Frieda told me stories of returning to visit Germany during Hitler's reign, people greeting her with a Heil Hitler! salute. She would reply, "nein"

1980's I met Frieda's Nephew, Herbert Lotz, married to Hildagard (? ) Lotz, kids Angelic / Anjelic? and Wolfgang. Herbert's father was Frieda's Brother, a POW held by Russians in Siberia.

They married had 8 children and lived in Colorado then El Monte, L.A, CA, U.S.

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My 3rd g. grandfather John Acres b. abt 1795 in Nenagh, County Tipperary Ireland. The Acres brothers were owners of tenant properties in Ireland and these two sold their properties to leave Ireland.John and brother Thomas probably left Limerick June 25, 1819 together on the Camperdown with 256 passengers and arrived in Quebec Sept 7, 1819 losing only four settlers on the journey. The original homestead still is in use. Other lineage from this branch were Scots. 

 A serious depression at the end of the war with Napoleon left many people in Ireland homeless and poor. Crop failures occurred in 1800, 1807, 1817. Farmers were targets of terrorist gangs such as the Whiteboys who burned crops, Anglican small farmers could see no future and left while they still had money to buy passage it was cheaper to go to British North America than the USA. There were 6,000 Irish immigrants in 1819 including the " prosperous farmers" such as the 256 who left Limerick on the Camperdown described as "one of the best appointed vessels which has cleared this port in a long time." Most settlers were bound for the Military Settlements (E.G. at Richmond) or the Northern Tipperary settlements in the Ottawa Valley or London Area. Another group settled York (now Toronto). John and Pheobe died close together and were buried November 24 at the Christ Church in Huntley. 

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My 6th g. grandfather Beals/Bales b. 1650 in Wales. was a Quaker. John Beals came to Pennsylvania sometime prior to 1677. In a 1691 court case in Chester County, Pennsylvania, John testified that he had plowed the land in question some fourteen years earlier, placing him in Chester County in 1677. He would have come somewhat earlier. His father in law, William Clayton, had come in 1677 and he may have arrived at the same time. There is no arrival record that exists today.

One researcher states that John Beals, yeoman, arrived aboard the ship Griffin in 1675 and settled first in Fenwick's Colony. There is documented proof that the Clayton family arrived on board the ship Kent on August 16, 1677.

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Linda Davis, you are one lucky person to find such a dedicated

and sharrp genealogy volunteer.  She/He deseerves a medal.

Thank you for sharing that Never Give Up story.

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The question of immigration is a tricky one. Supposedly, when my ancestors arrived to Finland, there may not have been any nation-states, so where to immigrate to? -and from? Dna research tells me, my genome is all Finnish made, yet I belong to the oldest European male haplogroups, I1, and have distant cousins e.g. in the British isles; especially in Lanarkshire. This branch of the dna tree was separated from mine over 1,500 years ago. Following the dna mutations it can be concluded that my forefather arrived to the south-western coast of present-day Finland some time 700 - 1,300 years ago. A Danish tradesman? Swedish Viking? Could be. But if this adventurous man stayed here and started a family, do we call that immigration? Immigration to me is a relatively new concept, it hints to state level bureaucracy and the burdens of the organized society. I'm inclined to say, I don't have immigrant ancestors; they just wandered here and stayed.

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I have a great many immigrant ancestors whom I have discovered and some who are quite close to me. I will start with my mother:  Gladys Turner https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Turner-19808 who married my father in London, England during WWII and came to Canada as a "War Bride". My Labossiere line goes directly back to my 5X GG grand father, Jean Baptiste Laboissiere   https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Laboissiere-7  This summer, we are celebrating the 300th. anniversary of his arrival in New France.  In addition, I am directly descended from at least 35 Filles du Roi ancestresses; four Filles à marier and nine Carignan soldiers, all who were early immigrants to the new world.  In addition, I have at least 100 other GG grand parents of various levels ( 5X to 10X) who were also early immigrants to New France.  Notable, among these many ancestors, is Louis Hebert https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hebert-1312 who is my earliest known immigrant ancestor to arrive in 1606.  He is a 10X GG grand father to me.  I also am descended directly from two of New France's blackest sheep, Gillette Banne https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Banne-1 and her husband, Jacques Bertault. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bertault-2.  They are one of my sets of 8X GG grand parents.  I am proud and honoured to be descended from such a varied group of pioneer people.

 

 

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I've found several interesting immigrant ancestors. My family has always passed down the lineage from Henry "The Puritan" Way, who arrived on the John & Mary in 1630. Then there are Thomas Fox and Thomas Woodford, whom wikitree thinks are descended from noble houses and royalty. I'm slowly realizing just how difficult those lines are to verify, however. I've even been forced to question our descent from Henry Way, since I've discovered there's controversy over whether his "son" George was his son, brother, or cousin!

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Julie Ricketts:  This conversation is so intriguing, and all of us have immigrants at one time or another in our families' histories. If we had a category (as in: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Immigrants) we would be consistently reminded to place a tag or/and a project membership on our profile pages. It's a refresher for the users and when someone checks out or into another tree, the information is automatically indicated--and then even more steps toward a unified one-world family tree are taken.

Please consider at least adding a tag. The Project establishment took me a year of work to do, and it just simply drove my life during that year. Way too much work involved for some people, yet we would be happy to use one.

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The main question remaining is, Immigrants to where from where?  I've had immigrants to "Canada" from Scotland, from New York colony, etc.  I've also had immigrants to the 13 original colonies from elsewhere including immigrants to New Netherlands from Holland.

We must remember we serve a worldwide audience.

Answer 1

Before beginning to research, I had a vague idea about our family origins. My mother's dad came from Canada, as did most of my father's family. Somewhere we had German immigrants and Scots. Well, I had no idea how deep our roots went on this North American continent. Those Canadians descended from Mayflower and Puritan families who headed north from Massachusetts in 1760.  Some of the Germans were Hessian Soldiers. The Scots were in Canada by 1804. In fact, the last European immigrant to North America came to Boston in 1852.

Answer 2

My Dad's immigrant ancester was one of the three or four William Staffords from England that landed in the 1600's, LOL!  What fun that has been sorting out!  I grew up fundamentalist......but always leaned toward a more pacifist faith.  Found out I came by it honest, one of my predecessors and original immigrant ancestors was Rev. Gershom Hobart, a mennonite, who established the Old North Church in Boston.  His daughter married the son of Rev. Peter Cassell/Castle second generation immigrant who came here with his father on one of William Penn's recruiting trips for Quakers.  I have been in awe of their perseverance!

Answer 3

Technically, my mother is my immigrant ancestor - she immigrated from Germany in Oct 1948. I would also be considered an immigrant because I was with her!!  On my father's side, I haven't been able to trace further back than 1755 and that is "iffy".

Answer 4

I have many immigrant ancestors, but the most recent were my grandparents:

Hans "John" Josef Weber b. 1892 Toss Bauma, Zurich, Switzerland.  Arrived in U.S. about 1915 on a steamship.  His is long but very interesting story!

Elisabetha Bona Kessler b. 1894 in Saulgau, Germany  - Her story is also wonderful and tells us what grit and courage she had to make that journey alone.  She arrived in 1921.

Answer 5

My Father's parents both came from Germany in the 1920's.  My Mother's side is not as cut and dry.  Maternal Great-Grandparents grew up together in the same Hungarian town but did not meet until they had immigrated to the U.S.  Paternal Geat-Grandparents came from Canada, but I believe were French

Answer 6

Yes.  My maternal grandmother was first generation American.  My maternal grandfather was second generation American.  Both of their families came from Eastern Europe which was then Russia and is now parts of Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine.  I have not yet been able to find anything from that area dating back to the 1860s.

My father was adopted as an infant.  All he knows is he was "born to a healthy Irish woman".  His cousins have traced their linage back to the 1600s in Ireland.

Answer 7

As an Australian, my immigrant ancestors fall into two distinct categories, those who were convicts sent from the United Kingdom and those who came free.  My first ancestors arrived with what we call The First Fleet on 26 January 1788.  Two were convict women, Ann Forbes from London and Margaret Dowling from Dublin, the third was Able Seaman Owen Cavanough from HMS Sirius and who is believed to be the first white man to step foot onto Sydney Cove.  A further five convicts were transported to this new colony.  We have the War of Independence to thank for our ancestors being sent to Australia rather than America.  I have ancestors from Germany, Norway, Scotland, England and Ireland who arrived in the new colony and who were pioneers in the nation.  I find it interesting when doing family history to see that a number of my ancestors also were immigrants from Ireland, Switzerland, France, who migrated to the United Kingdom before their descendants migrated to Australia.

Answer 8

Well there are several. A couple from my fathers side.  Henry Dettwiller born 1794 in Switzerland and his wife Mary Mandury born 1804 in Switzerland.  

And John Thomas Williams born 1714 in Wales, direct Williams line down to my father, among very first settlers in that area of VA. Was a ranger who kept lookout for hostile Indians and was killed by Indians in 1763. His wife was Mary McCoy from Ireland.  When the Shawnee Indians attacked Settlement of Archd. Clendenning (Clendenin), (who was killed along with two of his sons) and Muddy Creek Settlements they also killed John Williams and took [his wife] Mary, Nancy (age four) and David (age two) captive to their villages on Scioto River in Ohio. Thomas, Richard and John were not at home and escaped captivity or death.

 

There are many but just a few on my mother's side are Johan Valentine Reintzel emigrated from Prussia in1738 and his wife Sarah Reigel who emigrated 1733.

John Call Sr, an Ensign who fought in King Phillip's War, ca 1635 with his parents at age 1. 

Richard Kettell from England born 1614 came in 1633.

Rice/Ryse/Ryce Cole (later morphed to Call) in 1630 from England.

Lieut. Ralph Sprague from England in 1628 ... Ralph came to Salem, Massachusetts in 1628 with his two brothers, Richard and William, his wife and two boys, John and Richard. Whether actuated by desires for religious liberty or by hopes of gain there is some controversy. With several others, they journeyed twelve miles to a hill on the north side of the Charles River, and on the south and southeast slope they made a settlement in 1628, building their homes in a semi-circle on the two acres of land Governor Endicott granted to each of them. This settlement, called Charlestown, was within the present city limits of Boston. Here they found one 
solitary white man, Walter Cook Year: 1643 Place: Massachusettsomas Welford, an Englishman, living in a pallisadoed house upon their arrival. 

Walter Cook Year: 1643 from England. Place: Massachusetts.

Thomas Townsend Moved from London to Lynn Massachusetts about 1635/1637 aboard the Handmaid

 

 

Answer 9

The first ancestor I knew about growing up was Norwegian, Olof Odegaard, who came to the United States with his older brother Ole in 1888. The opened up a furniture manufacturer in New York state but it burned down; then they moved to Chicago and started the Flat Iron Laundry, which catered to the downtown carriage trade. There is a cute story that relates how one of their customers worked for a toy company, and they had an idea for a board game in which properties were bought and sold, and houses and hotels built upon them (this would become the famous Parker Brothers' Monopoly game). They asked the brothers what sort of tokens they should have to move around the board and the brothers suggested a thimble and an iron. And they liked that idea! The rest is history. The Flat Iron Laundry closed in Chicago with the decline in the carriage trade and the Odegaard family moved out to Hinsdale and opened one in the western suburbs of Chicago. It was still going until just a few years ago!

Answer 10

Well, New Englanders, many PGM on my father's side. My mother's parents came from Ukraine around 1910. Interesting though some of the DNA cousins are on my mother's side, we just don'y know how to connect..

Answer 11

A school assignment along the lines of this question - to identify all my immigrant ancestors and tell their stories - is what sparked my interest in genealogy. Decades later, I'm still at it. I've more or less identified a bit more than half of the 1000+ immigrant ancestors that I estimate that I descend from.

Richard Anderson's PGM series has allowed me to finally feel that I am on the verge of a decent first pass at my CT and MA immigrants. My Southern, Mid-Atlantic, and Rhode Island roots remain very problematic. I estimate that my ancestry is 2/3 English, 1/5 other British Isles, 1/8 Italian, and <1% other European and Native American.

The earliest immigrants came on the Mayflower (earlier still in Jamestown is possible), the most recent in 1910 from Scotland.

Answer 12

My sister, cousin and i have found a surprising number of immigrant ancestors, many more than I would have thought.  On my father's side I have Wing, Slossan, Hamilton, Belden, and others who made the journey in the 1600's.  On my mother's side there are fewer from that early, but the big shock was that there are several of the same people.  Another surprise is that many of my maternal travelers arrived from the German Palatine region in the early 1700's.  I don't have this all in Wickitree because I never uploaded my gedcom file, just typed in some of my paternal side. At this point I don't have the time to edit 4,000 entries from my Ancestry account.

Answer 13

I keep forgetting that I'm an immigrant, the only story is that I arrived just as the radio announced the death of Elvis Presley.

The only story I've found about my ancestors journey was not true.

Answer 14

My mom's dad, Frank Taborsky, immigrated to the US from the Bohemian Kingdom of Austria-Hungary just prior to World War I.  My mom's maternal great-grandparents immigrated from Ontario, Canada in the 1880s.

My dad's ancestry goes back to colonial days.  Andrew "the Immigrant" Alexander came from County Tyrone to Virginia about 1740; his ancestors went to Ulster, Ireland from Scotland..  The Pitts and Stroud families were in the Virginia colony even earlier.  Sylvester Prophet was transported to Virginia from Scotland.

That's only a small part as my mom's Ontario ancestors were on the British side during the American Revolution.  I also have German ancestors who were on the American side in the American Revolution.

Answer 15

Yes. I have my ancestors on my mom's side came from Russia, Germany and England. They mostly came here in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They were I believe they were mostly Jews though I am not 100 % sure if all of them were or practiced.

Answer 16

As an Englishwoman, I have not found any immigration yet but with names like Cullen, Humfrey and Mumfoot (a variant of Montfort) in my tree, there may be Irish, Welsh and French forbears I have not discovered yet, pre-1700. So far, all of my ancestors lived within 200 miles of my parents' birthplaces.

My married name is french hugenot in origin and it is said that all of the people in the UK with that surname are descended from the same hugenot migrant, but I have not really delved into that.

Answer 17

Mine didn't move, the borders did. So at one time they lived in the Netherlands, then in Belgium or Germany. The last 350 years - as far  back as I have researched till now -  they all stayed in a region now in the southeast of the Netherlands and  the border region of Germany near it.

Answer 18

I have found a few of my immigrant ancestors. My biggest brick wall is my paternal great grandparents who immigrated from Hungary in 1903-1905. I have recently made contact with the archdiocese here in St. Louis which may help me find the correct maiden name of my great grandmother. My great grandfather is a bit of a mystery. Still trying to find his alien registration. Other than that line, the rest of my family were the people who were here before the founding of the United States of America and built the cities that became homes for millions later on. And since most of them were "average" people there aren't a lot of records on them. I suspect DAR records may help on some lines, but that's always iffy since sources aren't always available.

Answer 19

I have not found my descendants, but several of my husband's, whose ancestry is the most delicious to research.