My wife’s grandparents and my grandparents all came from Eastern Europe. I think over time, they herded the Jews into the Pale of Settlement. Most came from Russia/Belarus (St. Petersburg area, Minsk), one from the Carpathian Mountains, and one from Romania. I don’t think we would want to spend a lot of time in Russia/Belarus right now. We don’t really know where the others are really from. Probably they moved around and ultimately emigrated to avoid getting killed in pogroms. I don’t know that any were particularly attached to the last place they were from.
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My FiL’s family was from the Minsk area (Slutsk to be exact).
Before the war, Minsk was more than 50% Jewish.
Thanks. The ancestry and other websites were very helpful years ago when researching my mom’s family. Not so much with dad’s Italian people. I had not thought to check the obituaries in newspapers.com
One other newspaper source is genealogybank.com They have some smaller regional papers that newspapers.com does not have, so occasionally I’d be able to find relatives in it after striking out in the latter source
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I’ve been to three of the countries, but they were just tourist visits and not focused on finding extended family. More recently, I’ve looked through the ancestry and newspaper sites and don’t plan any other trips.
My maternal ancestors arrived in this country in the 17th C. A distant relative wrote a very detailed book about our ancestors which I found interesting to read. It became clear that I’d heard the sanitized version of the family history from my mother and grandmother.
My paternal ancestors immigrated to Canada several generations ago and my paternal grandparents moved to the states shortly before getting married. A (late) distant relative took up genealogy in retirement and also wrote a book. He shared the parts of it that were most relevant with my dad years ago.
When my oldest was in about 2nd grade they had a social studies assignment to dress a paper doll as “your immigrant ancestor”. I had no idea beyond my mother’s stories about her Irish great grandfather from County Cork, so we went to the library and found pictures of men from that time period.
Many years later I got interested in genealogy and spent a good deal of time at the microfilm reader and the genealogy section of the library. I found records of this ancestor. Born in Georgia. As were both his parents. His father’s Household included enslaved people. Who we come from can include some startling discoveries, which is why I’m such a fan of Henry Louis Gates’ TV show.
My husband’s great grandparents came from Norway, which is on our travel list, but more for scenery than “roots”.
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My husband is very into genealogy. At one point we went to England to poke around and do some research in some towns where he knows his family was from. We have pictures of my daughter next to a street sign of our last name in one village and visited a mill his family used to own (the owners have a small business and sort of bnb on site so they were happy to let us nose around). It was a nice trip for him.
I’m a bit more of a mutt. My family is mostly Poland, Germany and Norway. I wouldn’t mind visiting any of those places but I’m not sure it would be for genealogical reasons. The town my family is from in Poland was basically destroyed in the war.
I’ve been to the country of my Mom’s ancestors, but not to the region indicated by our ancestors’ documentation. I’m trying to get a hold of my Mom’s relatives to pinpoint specific areas.There are several regions of Spain where the ancestors originated.
My Dad’s ancestors are also Spanish but known to have originated from indigenous blood in the Americas. So, I guess I have “visited” the countries where my ancestors originated!
My kids had similar assignments, which, in retrospect I think are pretty misguided. There were a few adopted kids in their classes who may not have known anything about their birth families or what they did know may have been mom and dad in jail, etc. I know a few families with adoptive kids and their stories just don’t always lend themselves well to this kind of assignment and serve to single out the adoptees even more.
Not to mention refugees or folks whose ancestors were enslaved or Holocaust survivors, etc, etc. On the surface it seems like a cute assignment, but when you stop to think about it, not so much.
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I remember being really upset by a similar assignment in late elementary school to write a short essay about our family history. My parents were divorced, which was not very common (or talked about at any rate) when and where I was growing up and although I was a good student I totally couldn’t handle that assignment. I went to my teacher pretty much in tears about how to handle that essay.
Even if such a thing does not bother the kid, it may bother some of the teachers or school officials or other parents who prefer not to have some of the parts of history that they would rather not teach their kids about brought up in class.
For example, suppose a kid in Mississippi walked in with chains and said something like: “My immigrant ancestor was involuntarily immigrated as a slave into this state, which seceded to preserve its interest in slavery, which it called ‘the greatest material interest in the world’, but fortunately lost the Civil War and so they became free, but was denied the right to vote after the end of the Reconstruction due to unfairly graded literacy tests and poll taxes, …”.
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Both my husband and I have visited the countries of our ancestors, but only because we were interested for other reasons. Not even sure of one country as what sounds like an Irish name (my maiden name) could have been originally Scandinavian according to my bro.
I’m part Native American and recently found the names of my great great grandparents on Ancestry. They were originally from Mississippi, so not really interested in spending time there.
Mississippi is pretty cool in places actually. Definitely worth a stop if you’re in the neighborhood. I’d much rather go there than many other states in the country.
I have used tools like Ancestry.com and 23AndMe to review background. Most paths had relatives who have lived in the US since at least the 1700s. There were no recent immigrants, including no living relatives or relatives I have known who were immigrants. This reduces the degree of connection to other countries. My pre-US ancestry is also highly varied, rather than primarily 1 or 2 locations, which increases complexity of traveling.
Rather than visiting countries listed in 23AndMe report, I am more interested in reading about what different relatives have done, including relatives living in the United States. For examples, I found some pirates centered near the islands of Maine, some on both sides of the Salem witch trials, some characters featured on the TV show Vikings including Rollo, etc. If I happen to be in the area, I might visit any of these locations… but primarily because I find it interesting, not because of ancestors.
I am German, Scottish, English. I have been to England. Haven’t been to Germany or Scotland. I also have family in Australia and have been there more then once. But, these were just for vacation, not for genealogy purposes. H is German and Austrian. Some his ancestors were from Konigsberg which is now called Kaliningrad and is part of Russia (the exclave of Russia between Poland and Lithuania). Probably wouldn’t want to go there now…
Apparently my great-grandmother was a distant cousin of president Grover Cleveland…so I guess I’m distantly related to him as well!
I have a co-worker who went to Slovakia this summer with her family and visited the village that her grandma was from. Her grandma was a Holocaust survivor.
I have a SIL (H’s younger brother’s wife) who is of Armenian descent. Her grandparents came to the USA due to the Armenian Genocide. She is very into genealogy and is hoping to go to Armenia at some point. She has made Armenian food and it’s so good!
Even though I’m not super into Genealogy, it is still interesting to hear about people’s heritage and where they’re from.
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Oh that is too bad! I had a student about 10 years ago who was adopted from Russia. And H has a co-worker whose kid was adopted from Ukraine. They’re just heartbroken by what has been happening. Both had plans at some point to visit their respective countries, but of course that has been put on hold and they have no idea when they can go.
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The recent events in Britain with the resignation of Lady Susan Hussey is interesting. Even the woman who complained did not seem to be calling for her resignation, more for an apology(which was given) and education for her about the issue.
The question, where are you from, who are you, can be painful for some people. Even if asked out of curiosity when meeting someone . I have a niece adopted from Guatemala years ago. We (her dad,h, me-all white) were out walking her and a lady, a total stranger asked the dad if she was Chinese! I still remember that many years later.
I thought this was a good article. 3 Ways to Correctly Ask Someone About Their Ethnicity | Grit and Grace Life
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A little off-topic, but this is exactly why we need to teach a broader definition of “racism.” I know most people will think, that Lady doesn’t necessarily think that African descent people are different or “lesser” than Caucasion, so why call it racism? (Leaving aside the actual question of whether she holds racist views). The racism is embedded in the automatic thought that someone with dark skin cannot be British. The assumption that this woman was from “somewhere else.” Not all racists sound like Archie Bunker.
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It is not like this type of thing is unknown in the US.
"Lawmakers said they were also questioned based on their appearance. Rep. Eric Descheenie, D-Chinle, said he was confronted by Trump supporters while helping defend a young student that he said was being harassed.
They asked Descheenie, a Navajo lawmaker, if he was in the United States illegally."
One of my cousins undertook a trip to visit his ancestral homeland, and was always proud of his heritage. I kid you not, that while he was there, there was a large annual parade where the highlight was carrying a burning effigy of his ancestor (same last name) through the streets.
(He was never in any danger, but felt awkward with the hotel folks who knew his name).