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How did you or your family ended up in the country you are living now?

How did you or your family ended up in the country you are living now?

Old Nov 4th, 2004, 01:00 PM
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How did you or your family ended up in the country you are living now?

Hello

Many of us here in the United States are recent residents, others are 1st generations or more, and others probably just lost track of their cultural/country background.

To me, it's fascinating to hear all of those stories of how families ended up moving to the United States or some other country. However, the most fascinating part is to how you or your family ended up living in the city that you are living now, because you could've move anywhere in that particular country.

For example, in my case I have only live here for 15 years in Connecticut; however, there is a large peruvian population in Hartford and in some other areas in CT. It all happened 50 + years ago, when an American couple were traveling thru some of the small villages in Peru, they ended up staying with a local family at this village (Ocros, Ancash - Peru) who didn't have the means to support all of their family members, but yet along had the great hospitality towards the foreigners. The family begged the american couple to help them in anyway they can. The american couple agreed and were able to get a visa for one of their younger daughters to come to the States as a nanny. Remember back then, there wasn't much paperwork or laws about immigration so it was easy for her to get a visa. The peruvian nanny ended up living with the american couple in West Hartford, CT.

Years later, she was able to bring her entire family, and coming from a small village. Everyone knows each other, and even some are related to each other. More and more people from this small village ended up moving to CT following the "peruvian nanny".

On a different story, my uncle moved to Hamburg, Germany almost 60 -65 years ago. He ran away from his house (same village), and worked on the streets for some years until he was able to buy a ticket. He wanted to go somewhere as far as he could possibly go and never come back. In his young naive way of thinking, he thought that Germany was the farthest country he could ever go. He ended up marrying a German girl, had two beautiful kids (my cousins), and again the story repeats itself, more and more people from this village ended up traveling to Germany following my "Runaway Uncle".

What's your story?
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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 01:09 PM
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Far more succint. I was born in London, I reside in London.
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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 01:09 PM
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Hi Carlos,
My grandparents left Ireland in a "floating coffin" in the late 1800's. They settled in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They went on to have 9 children---all boys--who worked with my grandfather, who ran a livery and horse & buggy service. One of my uncles became a jockey and moved to America when he was 15 years old! He traveled around to a lot of different race tracks, finally married and settled in Michigan. (He was the oldest of the 9 boys.)My dad (the youngest of the 9 boys) met my mom in Montreal, and they married and had 3 children. My dad worked as a sales executive with the telephone company, and when he was given a chance to come to America to work for the company, he decided it would be nice to be closer to his older (by 19 years!) brother, and the family moved here. About 4 years later, I was born into the family!

My oldest brother is developmentally disabled and still lives in Michigan, as do I. My sister lives in California, and my other brother lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

BC
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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 01:44 PM
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My family is a very typical tale. My grandfather was born 2 years after his parents arrived here literally dirt poor from Poland. His parents were newly wed in their late teens and fled Poland in search of something better. Arrived at Ellis Island where their name was promptly shortened and somehow managed the money to take a train to Chicago where jobs were plentiful and there were many other Polish immigrants (and still are). My grandfather was the oldest of 8, dropped out of school after 7th grade to "run" for the local gin mill-literally delivering homemade booze during the prohibition-he was so young the cops didn't suspect him of illegal activity. He married my grandmother who was also first generation Polish but sadly we know little about their family history.

On the other side little is known as well other than my great grandparents arrived in Nebraska via Wisconsin from Bavaria in search of a better life. Luckily this was before both World Wars so they did not have to live through that although many of their relatives did.
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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 03:01 PM
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In 1747 a man, his wife, their 12 children, and his father who lived east of Heidelberg got on a riverboat on the Rhine and sailed downstream to Rotterdam. They boarded a ship, stopped in Scotland, and landed eventually in Philadelphia where they swore allegiance to George II. From there they went up into the Blue Ridge Mountains where they stayed a couple generations before heading for Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois where they stayed five generations. The family sent men to serve in the Revolution, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. And so here I am in Arizona. An American saga, with changes in name-spelling along the way.
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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 03:33 PM
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In 1988 after my husband and I graduated in South Africa we decided to come to Canada on a working holiday and see North America. After 9 months working in a small town in Saakatchewan, Canada in the winter as well we then travelled across the US and Canada and went back home. Hubby started a residency program while I worked in an ER. After 6 months we decided that the sense of freedom and acceptance we experienced in Canada was how we wanted to live.So, back to Canada via Newfoundland for 8 months , Saskatchewan for 8 years, 9 month stint back in Durban, South Africa and now Toronto for the last 4+ years.Chances are I will stay here until I retire and then back to sunny SA to live.I love Canada. Its people are so warm and generous of their time and spirit but I will not be able to live through these cold Canadian winters once the Arthritis sets in.
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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 04:05 PM
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.....Thank you for sharing your stories. It's amazing what people have to go thru!!!!

My wife was born and raised in Poland. She came to the States about 13 years ago following her grandfather. She decided to stay in America and continue her dream without a family (her grandfather ended up moving back to Poland), was going to high school and working full time at the same time. Managed to get good grades to get scholarships and we ended up meeting (blind date) and here we are ...husband and wife. She speaks polish, russian, spanish and of course english. And the story repeats itself....her mother is coming tomorrow from Poland to stay here in the States.

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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 04:18 PM
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My ancestors on my mom's side came to the US from Germany and Luxembourg in the the 1860's and settled in Northeast Ohio. On my dad's side, they've been in America since the Mayflower and other early ships. They originally settled in Massachusetts and Virginia, then eventually found their way to Alabama.

My dad's parents moved from Alabama to Ohio when he was a boy and my parents met in high school. I was born in Ohio, then the family moved to Michigan - where I've lived for the past 17 years.

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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 04:34 PM
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Both my mother and father's ancesters came to the New World circa 1720. They arrived on boats arranged by the John Law Company headed for the "agricultural paradise" of Louisiana.
Most of the immigrants were planters and craftsmen from Alsace, Rhineland, Black Forest area and German-speaking Switzerland.
These people settled the area upriver from New Orleans known as the "German Coast".
The first time I ever visited Germany, I was at a Christmas market in Frankfurt. Everybody was standing around eating sausages and drinking beer. I thought I was back home. The faces even looked like folks back home.
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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 04:36 PM
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One of my ancestors (although I'm a mutt) was a founding member (in the 1650's) of the town that I was born and raised in, Northampton, MA.
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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 04:47 PM
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My parents and I came to this country as refugees from Cuba in 1960. My father had and his parents had ended up in Cuba while fleeing the Spanish Civil War, though his grandparents had fought the Spanish during the Cuban war of independence.
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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 04:49 PM
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I've always loved these stories, too; my family is like so many in that it's quite a mix of old time and new: on Mum's side, there are English Quakers who came with Wm. Penn, and on Pop's there's my Russian grandfather who came at the age of five and ended up in the US cavalry and an exhibition rider. (The family legend is that my {also English} Nana thought that he was Irish; the family name evidently got Gaelicized at immigration.)

We don't move too much; some part of my ancestors have been at least in the suburbs of Philadelphia for more than three hundred years, and this is where my Russian grandfather settled. Makes me happy!
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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 04:54 PM
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Grandpa always said the prison ship was blown off course by a violent storm.
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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 06:12 PM
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My story is quite simple..
When I was 20, I went to Germany in vacation, met my DH in Frankfurt, he is American. Classic Coupe de Foudre, came back to Rome , after 6 week we were Married in Campidoglio..

We are still married and have 3 Grandchildren.

PS.All the members of my family still live in Europe..It give me an excuse to go back often ..
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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 06:57 PM
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We were born in former Soviet Union which is now Ukraine. Being Jewish we were persecuted for religious and ethnic reasons. Under Reagan, when pressure was put on Soviet Union, Jew were allowed to emigrate. Most of our families left for Israel and USA however myself, my husband and 5 year old were refused to leave for no reason. It took us another 3 years until Brezhnev died and something changed, once we were allowed to leave, we packed and left in few weeks, practically ran in 1982. We spent 1 week in Austria and few months in Italy, waiting for VISa. We arrived to NYC in 1983. That's our story.
Now we are almost 50, our first son who came with us just graduated from Medical School and became a doctor - MD! He would never made it like this in Ukraine. We had another kid who was born here in USA who just started college in NYC.
We love to travel (actually travel now is our profession - we own travel agency) but love to come home.
We live in Westport, CT.
That's my story.
Sophia
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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 06:58 PM
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All of my ancestors came here from europe in the latter half of the 19th century. Like many others they were fleeing opression of one kind or another. And originally all settled in NYC.

The Irish ancestors were fleeing the British (my multi-great grandfather had actuallty been sentenced to be hanged for revolutionary activities but fortunately escaped to NYC), the German ancestors were fleeing the Emperor of Prussia (who was in the business of gathering up the last small bits of Germany he didn't have yet and sending the young men off to war) and the Czech ancestors were fleeing the Austro Hungarian Emperor (ditto).

Today the great, or great/great granchildren are spread all over the US (NYC, Chicago, Boston, FL, VA, PA).

The immigrants started out as everything from ladies' maids to trolly car drivers, doormen and even laborers. Things have worked out pretty well for descendents of the miserable poor political refugees (all in the last 3 generations are college grads or better and include judges, physicians, attorneys, writers, college professors etc.).

Just shows what a little freedom from oppression will do.
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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 07:08 PM
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Paternal half of my family were Devon fisherfolk who commuted between England and a small group of rocks ("islands" is a big compliment) off the New England coast in Tudor times. They finally got around to coming ashore shortly after the Mass. Bay gang arrived. The local natives had yet to get into the casino business, so things were stressful for a century or two. Over the next three hundred years some of them moved west; my g-g-g-father ended up in Mexico via Utah; Brigham Young and Pancho Villa had their hands in the story. Grandpa and Dad lived in Death Valley after that, finally got tired of scorpions so ended up in LA.

There Dad met my mother, whose own grandparents had come from Scotland, thanks to the Campbells, who evidently needed their land for some better purpose, like maybe - uh - nothing? They had also come west in search of something better than dark satanic mills, and found it - her grand-dad was one of WR Hearst's chief gardeners at Xanadu. Went swimming as a girl in Hearst's Roman pool at the castle. Take that, your Grace.
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Old Nov 4th, 2004, 07:10 PM
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My father's father escaped from Russia as a very young man during the Russian Revolution. My father's mother came from a small town on what was once the Czech/Polish border. Neither spoke English when they arrived to the US and neither did my Brooklyn-born father until the age of five, because he had a Polish nanny.

My mother's parents both came from Ireland on one of the last immigrant ships that passed through Ellis Island. Their names are etched on the stone on the Island with countless other immigrants.

My husband came from the UK as a visiting engineer after he got out of grad school. He took one look and decided this was the place for him and stayed.

All of them came seeking better opportunity. All of them found it!
 
Old Nov 4th, 2004, 07:12 PM
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I love to read all these interesting stories .
These people were so brave to come to a different world , culture, language some did not have a job waiting for them or a place to call home.

But they came anyway, bringing with them their hopes for a better life for themselves and their children
.
They were truly amazing people.
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Old Nov 5th, 2004, 02:24 AM
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I have a bunch of amazing ancestors. My maternal great-grandmother was desperate to come to America to live near her sister in NY from Russia. Her husband was content to stay-why not? His wife ran the family business and he studied in the shule. My GG smuggled herself out of Russia several times (at that time a wife traveled on her husband's passport) but returned each time he wouldn't leave. When the Russia revolution broke out she said 'that's it!' and she came with whichever of her 9 kids were interested and a trunk each of rubles and duck down. He stayed. My grandmother from Minsk met her future husband who was from Pinsk in a NYC club.
My paternal great-great-grandfather took his 15 year old girlfriend and split the scene in Moscow, came to NJ and set up a commune.
My other paternal great-great-grandfather, also Jewish, came here from Russia, got off the boat in NY, took the train and stagecoach to be with family in Dead Wood, South Dakota.
Most of these moves took place in the late 19th century and early 20th century. It is always amazing to me the courage it took to leave everything you know to move to a new country. I had a great uncle who was a mild mannered accountant, elderly when I knew him. One day he mentioned smuggling himself out of Russia on the top of railway carriages.
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