Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Location: Midessa, Texas Home Yangzhou, Jiangsu temporarily
1,506 posts, read 4,279,697 times
Reputation: 992
Advertisements
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian-K
Yh I just looked it up, and the top three are German Irish English in that order. excuse my ignorance..lol
im mostly English, btw.
That makes me a typical American mutt then. My ancestors where English, Irish , and ethnic Germans from what was then Czechoslovakia.
Family trees are fascinating. According to my aunt, the English part of our family is related to Pocahontas by marriage. I am very skeptical but she says that she has documented proof. Who knows? But we do have good documentation of my Father's side of the family back to the 1240's in England.
Where are the Norwegians! That I know for sure - German, Welsh, Norwegian. Only my father's father has been researched. His family (German) went back to 1700s in PA but we got stuck there, suppose to have come in through Maryland. I can't imagine they were all Germans but I haven't looked. My maternal grandfather's parents seem to go back pretty far in Virginia. I think they were English and there is a family rumor that there is possibly African. I'd love to someday continue researching family history--it was a fun project. I grew up in the midwest and east--never knew I had relatives out here until I moved here four years ago and found out I have a great-grandma who left her husband and my grandfather in Virginia in the early 1800s and moved here, remarried and is buried not far from me.
I believe I read in Samuel Huntington's book on Immigration (I forget the name) that if immigration had ended after the Revolutionary War then this country would still have 150 million people in it (compared to the 300 million people of today). So while all of the immigrants in the 19th century & more recently have had a big impact, a lot of the original people are still here, its just that everyone's all mixed up these days and not that many people are 100% any ethnicity anymore.
I traced my ancestory (fathers and mothers on all sides) along w/ my husbands. WOW!!! Every single family was in the "New World" no later than the late 1600's. Amazing to me how thru all of the generations, marriages, etc that somehow our ancestors managed to marry someone else that had roots so deep in this countries founding. One of my ancestors was on the Mayflower. One of his (my husbands) helped found Jamestown and he had one that was appointed to the Continetal Congress. We both had families that fought in the Revolutionary War. What is rather interesting is how they all settled into areas from Virginia, Maryland, Rhode Island, New York (one of my ancestors helped found Long Island), Pa, etc yet with each war they fought in they were given land grants and moved farther south. First into North Carolina then into South Carolina. From SC they went in a few different directions between Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi w/ only one family on my side going to the Midwest before heading to Texas. From those states they either stayed put or ventured to Texas w/ a few in California and Florida. Some were recruited by the Mormons out of Alabama and ended up in Utah. Thru my research I found that his fathers family and my maternal grandfathers family were both in neighboring counties in South Carolina at the same time. It is just amazing history to find and see how your family played a part in the founding of this country.
As for where they came from: Germany, Ireland & England for the most part.
I laughed when my daughter came home from school and repeated what a teacher told them, "most of your ancestors came to this country thru Ellis Island". Not in our family they did not. ALL of our relatives were in this country a good 200 years BEFORE Ellis Island was even opened.
I'm half Norwegian, half German, and a smidgen of Greek. Supposedly my forbears emigrated thru Liverpool to the midwest, Minn. and N.D.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
