Tell us your immigrant story

My great grandparents immigrated with my grandma and great uncle from Russia in the early 1900's to escape the Russian Revolution. Family lore says that my great grandpa was the youngest of 17 siblings and the only one to make it out of Russia and only survivor. They first arrived in New York and then moved to Massachusetts where my grandma met my grandpa who married and had my mom and uncle. My great grandparents were tailors and my great grandpa worked in clothing factories. My grandparents then moved to Los Angeles, California and soon after sent for my great grandparents to join them.

My great grandparents learned English, but had the most wonderful accents and would interlace English and Yiddish in their conversations. I loved listening to them talk. Neither of them ever learned to drive. They would walk or take taxi's if needed.

On my mother's maternal side, her grandparents immigrated to the U.S. (California) in 1920. Her grandmother was pregnant with her mother. They ran a small dairy farm. Her grandparents never learned English, and, after her grandmother died around retirement age, her grandfather returned to his home country. They never became citizens. I don't know anything about her father's side of the family because she fell out with him before I was born and I only met him on his deathbed.

On my father's side, both sides immigrated in the 1880s; one grandmother was a maid, but I don't know about the rest of them. They were in Wisconsin, and ended up in California -- my grandfather was a truck mechanic. I really don't know anything else about them (all of his grandparents as well as his father were long deceased before I was born).

My paternal grandparents came from Northern Ireland in the 1920s. Several of their siblings came over when the family farms couldn't support them. They met and married in Philadelphia in 1927. My grandmother's sister lived next door to her and her brother lived about a mile away. That side of the family was Protestant.

My other grandfather came from Ireland as a baby and my grandmother's family was largely Irish, so my mother's family was Irish Catholic.

When my parents were first married, my father's family didn't know my mom was Catholic and one aunt in particular would rant about "the papes" incessantly. It p*$$ed my dad off, but my mom thought it was hilarious. When I was a kid we'd go to big Orangemen's celebrations with picnics and parades. I didn't know it was because it was "Kick the Pope" day. When I went to Northern Ireland with my grandmother, she told me not to say I was Catholic. It was pretty funny to hear a relative going off about the man upstairs taking in a Catholic lodger. It's a weird take on things, but everyone was so lovely that I didn't want to embarrass them.

All on my paternal side. I don't know much about my mom's side other than her mother's family had been here a while and I think her father's family were at least part Native American. But none of this is confirmed.

My dad's mother's family came over a couple of years before she was born. So my great grandparents, they came from what was then Hungary but is now Romania. The Transylvania area. This would have been around 1907. Apparently my great grandmother's parent's came with them, but we have found little trace of my great great grandparents after they arrived. Anyway I'm not sure where they went first, but ended up in Milwaukee, then Detroit then the thumb area of Michigan. Once my grandparents married they settled in the Flint area.

My dad's father's family came over when he was a young child. Again, very early 1900's. It was just him and his parents as his sister had died before that (I think before my grandfather was born). They came from Hungary, but I can't recall where. They went to Chicago, Detroit and then also the thumb area of Michigan. This great grandmother was the only of the four great grandparents on my dad's side that I ever met. But even she died a few months after I was born.

My great grandfather's both did manual labor, brick work, factory work, I think one worked in the salt mines in Detroit. My great grandmother's were homemakers. One had two children one of which died young. The other raised seven children, two of whom died young, about six months apart. One set retired once they moved to the country. The other set had a small farm but great grandfather died young and then my grandmother's brothers helped my great grandma run it.  She helped raise a grand child and also died fairly young.  My father has no memory of her.  However the grandchild that she raised was the oldest grandchild and my dad also never met him.  However late in life he wrote a book about his years with my great grandmother that we just discovered about ten years ago and it was fascinating to read and learn more about the family.  Especially his tales about when my grandparents would visit and my uncles and him would play together. 

My family (me, DH, DD & DS) immigrated to the US in 1999. We came on L type visas. DH's L1 allowed him to work for his Canadian employer at their newly started US company. The kids and I had L2 visas that allowed us to live with him.

Our plan was to be here for 1-2 years, but things changed and we decided to apply for Permanent Resident status (AKA Green Cards), which we received in 2004. DH & I applied for US citizenship in 2014 and the kids received it automatically at that time.

FWIW, DH & I were first generation Canadians. My parents emigrated from Britain and DH's parents emigrated from Greece to Canada in the late 50s. DH's dad would have emigrated to the US to join his uncles in Seattle but was not able to because of restrictions in place at the time.

My dad immigrated after he retired from the British Army - he came to the States with his (American) wife and kids and lived with his ILs. Despite 37 years in the Army, 13 as an officer, he found it really hard to find work and went through a succession of minimum wage and commission only jobs but I never ONCE heard him complain about that.

My maternal great grandmother came from a middle class Irish family and was sent to visit relative in Chicago (possibly due to conflicts with her stepfather - based on family lore). She got off the boat in Philadelphia, cashed in her train ticket, and found a job. She married and they ended up in RI where she ran a boarding house for years. She had 7 children but only two grew to adult hood. I know her oldest was stillborn, and she lost a baby and a toddler in 1900, I haven't found what happened to the other two. She taught her husband, also an Irish immigrant but from a very poor family, how to read and write. He worked as an unskilled labourer after immigranting in his early 20s.

My paternal great grandfather immigrated as a young adult after learning masonry as youth in Ireland. He worked on some of the mansions in Newport RI before forming his own contracting business. He left 7 houses in his will. His wife was American born but her parents came over in the 1840s as children with their parents/siblings during the Irish famine.

I'm born in Canada as were my parents and their parents before them. I believe my Dad's grandparents came from Ireland, and my Mom's grandparents from Italy (on my Grandma's side, not sure about Papa's side)

DH, on the other hand, is an immigrant. His parents came to Canada from Scotland when he was 6. He's not been back (bucket list one day) since. When he was 12, they all got their Canadian citizenship.

So my kids are first generation Canadians. They have expressed interest in getting their British passport, which they can do since DH is still considered a UK subject. But nobody has done anything serious about it at all.

Some of my ancestors escaped the pograms in Russia. My son did a deep dive into it during middle school. It was a terrifying time. I have the info saved somewhere.

Many of my other ancestors escaped eastern Europe during the rise of Hitler. Luckily, all of them got out and survived. It is very difficult to do much genealogy research as a result of how my family members came over to the US

My grandparents fled Ukraine during WWII. Traveled on foot to Germany and my mom was born at refugee camp there. They then migrated to Canada. They built their house there themselves on a street where other Ukrainian refugees settled. The first dug the basement and lived in it raising silk worms and working as janitors at an elementary school. Grandma eventually became at SAHM with four kids. My grandfather worked at the elementary school until he passed away. I have a stack of drawings the kids there drew for him thanking him. Apparently he was well loved by the kids.

When my mom was 18 she met my dad (a barker in a traveling carnival). He was from New York. She moved to the US with him and became a US citizen.

I remember my paternal grandfather being insistent that he was born in England. But it turns out his family was escaping Romania and he was actually born on a ship that was going from Romania to England. My maternal grandfather's family was from Latvia. Neither grandfather ever talked much about growing up in immigrant families.

My grandparents on my father’s side also fled Ukraine, separately, both ending up in Canada! They met when my grandpa went for lunch at a restaurant that catered to Ukrainians in Regina, Saskatchewan, where my grandmother was a young cook.  They had similar stories from Ukraine and they married and had a handful of children, all boys except the last one. 

My grandparents on my mother’s side were both born in England and attended the same school, although they never really talked to each other.  My mom says people at that time were very class conscious and Grandma’s family had more money than Grandpa’s family had so they didn’t associate with each other.  

Grandma was soon engaged to marry a young man from another wealthy family.  Then her father became very sick and could not work again.  Rather than let her parents lose their home, Grandma got an office job to help out.  Her siblings also got jobs. Her fiancé dumped her because women from the wealthy upper class that Grandma was born into did not hold jobs and he was embarrassed by her working.

My grandfather and his brother went to Canada immediately after finishing school and bought farm land, building a large home on one side of the land.  When the first house was finished, they returned to England to find wives.  My grandmother, freshly dumped for having a job, opened the door to find my grandfather there asking to court her.  She said she was afraid it would be her only chance to marry since she was already 19 years old and she knew boys from her class level would not consider her anymore.  Since Grandpa was from a lower class, he didn’t care that she had been working in an office, he just liked her for her.  Grandpa called at the house for a few weeks, proposed, and Grandma accepted.  

The brothers both returned to Canada to start building the second home, hoping to have it ready when the two young women arrived from England.  The girls travelled by boat to Canada with a hired chaperone.  The chaperone remained with them until both girls were properly married to the brothers.  My grandmother had 4 children with him, 3 girls and one boy.  And then my grandfather got sick and died.  That left Grandma to find work to support her 4 kids by herself.  (It was a good thing that she was a strong woman who was willing to do whatever was necessary for her family) Their house was on the corner in a regular neighborhood.  Grandma hired people to convert the exterior room on one side of the house into a little store.  She carried all kinds of candy and food items, somewhat like a little 7 Eleven.  She also had one corner of it as an authorized post office counter. This allowed Grandma to work while still being home to supervise her 4 children.

My mom was helping her mother in the store one afternoon when she saw my dad getting off the bus and walking home.  She thought he was so handsome.  She began helping in the store more often and would run outside to sweep the steps when Dad’s bus would be due to drop him off.  Eventually Dad noticed her and they began to talk. Dad started going into a grandma’s store to pick up his mail.  Mom later learned it was all fake mail that he sent to himself just to have a reason to go inside the store to see her.

Mom had a job downtown and had bought a used car.  She offered to ride share with my father since they both worked downtown.  He told her his bus pass had just run out and that he was happy to share a ride with Mom. Years later, Mom learned he had just purchased a month-long bus pass, but fibbed because he wanted to get to know Mom better.  He sold the bus pass to his roommate to get money to chip in for gas that first week.

They eventually married in my Grandmother’s garden.  For their honeymoon, they went to California where one of Dad’s brothers had moved to with his wife.  They fell in love with California.  During a particularly cold winter storm after returning to Toronto, my parents started talking about the possibility of moving to California to live.  By the time they worked out the details, Mom was pregnant with my older sister.  They brought was little they owned and moved in with the brother already living in California until they found a place of their own to rent.  They remained living in California for the rest of their lives, making me and my siblings the first generation born in the states.

I am a first generation American on my fathers' side, but have never felt like I belonged to immigrants. My paternal grandfather and his 3 brothers left Switzerland for America in 1908. At the time he left his girl friend behind, and she was pregnant. I have never done the math, but I suspect that perhaps she became pregnant as part of the leaving for America drama. The brothers landed in NYC and got to work doing whatever job they could. They were chauffeurs for awhile. Meanwhile my father was born in Switzerland. As soon as she could, by grandmother came to America and left her baby (my father) behind with her sister. He and my grandmother married in NYC when she arrived.

At some point, some men who wanted to get settlers to Texas, visited the immigrant communities in NYC and sold them land in Texas. My grandparents came to Texas and were taken to their land and dropped off. The land is just outside of Houston in Brazoria county. It was prairie land with high grass on it. It was near a natural creek. My grandparents built a home in the Swiss farm style. It had a barn for animals in one end and a small house on the end of that. Eventually they had a house that was separate from the barn.


My great aunt and uncle continued to speak French in their household. Those relatives grew up bilingual.

My mother's family came to the US in the late 1600s or early 1700s. She had relatives in the American Revolution as well as the Civil War. They left England, but I don't know much more than that. I know she qualified for DAR membership.

I have done a lot of research. my mom's mom immigrated with her family from north wales --she was 10 in 1906 and they ended up in upstate new york. her dad drove trucks. my mom's dad--his dad was one of 10 kids.. the whole family (parents and all kids, one married with her own infant) all immigrated from north wales.. got on a train in new york, and got off the train in north east iowa. they had friends there. only the oldest boy spoke english. they walked down main street til they found someone who spoke welsh.. my mom's grandfather married a woman whose mom and dad immigrated from wales in the mid 1840's and homesteaded in wisconsin.

my dad's dad family is a somewhat mystery.. dad's grandfather immigrated 1870's from Denmark and married an immigrant from Denmark. they farmed in iowa. my dad's mom family... one side immigrated from Prussia in the mid 1850's.. settled in Buffalo ny and milwaukee wisconsin. the other side immigrated from far sw germany.. almost the Alsace lorraine next to the Rhine river.. he was a coppersmith on the railroad.

dh's side.. related to dutch living in manhattan in 1680's.. another came from scotland as a criminal in 1704, another founded harvard.. and descendents fought in every war. another line immigrated from switzerland in 1850's and ended up in sacramento then red bluff area in CA. another line immigrated from canada (irish) to skagit valley Washington in 1875, and his grandfather's whole family immigrated from northern ireland in 1913.. landed in british columbia canada.. and his grandfather and his brother were the only kids who came to the usa. one of their brothers died fighting for canada in ww1.

my german greatgrandfather, thought he had filed citizenship papers.. voted for 20 yrs and a friend who was a judge figured out he was not a citizen, so he got a second set of citizenship papers... in 1905.

Paternal side is pretty much from Ireland.

Maternal grandpa side is pretty much French with a little Belgium thrown in and maternal grandma side is pretty much Irish with some Russian thrown in and I am related to the Earp's. Yes as in Wyatt Earp. Thomas Earp, who moved here from Ireland, is my great x 9 grandpa. Wyatt is closely related to my great grandma as well. Great Uncle I believe it is.

Lots of info about that side in the canyon near me where he ranched and in Colton where he had a home and relatives lived as well.