Tell us your immigrant story

I am second generation. Both my maternal and fraternal grandparents immigrated from Russia to escape the Czarist regime.

The story about my maternal grandmother's family was they owned tanneries and were forced into making boots and other goods for the Russian Army to support the revolution. They did not comply, everything was taken from them and were being exiled to Siberia. The Children who were teens and young adults, all eleven of them escaped and immigrated to New York, England and South Africa.

My Grandmother was well educated in Russia and was fluent in multiple languages when she arrived in the US. I do not know the history of my maternal grandfather or what happened to my maternal great grand parents, but I understood in the 1960's some relatives remained in Russia living in poverty. My Grandmother ended up in Massachusetts, where my parents were born. My maternal grandparents were divorced in the 1930s.

I do not know much about my fraternal grandparents, just they managed to immigrate to New York in the early 1900's, then moved to Massachusetts. Not many of their relatives immigrated to the US and went to other Eastern European countries where many were wiped out during the Holocaust. My fraternal grandmother was not as well educated as my maternal grandmother though she spoke but did not read English.

I do not know much about my fraternal grandfather, other than he owned a dry cleaning business in this country. My fraternal grandfather's name was changed/shortened when he immigrated and I am not aware of the original family name.

Both my parents spoke Russian and Yiddish with their parents and my fraternal grandmother had a heavy accent. Both grandparents made regular references to "the old country".

My maternal grandmother took classes to reduce her accent, managed to own rental properties and rooming houses. It was amazing what she accomplished considering the time.

My fraternal grandmother worked as a baker and was so kind and nurturing.

My paternal grandfather came from Holland and married a woman who was 1st generation, having a French mother and an American father.

My mother met and married my father while he was a soldier in her hometown, Trieste, Italy.

My maternal great-grandparents came from Sweden to homestead. My paternal great-grandparents emigrated from Norway with their eight children in 1899. Their three older children homesteaded in South Dakota. Their younger five children homesteaded in North Dakota. My maternal grandfather emigrated from Norway in 1920. My other paternal great-grandparents emigrated from Norway in 1894 and homesteaded in Minnesota. After the death of her parents, my paternal grandmother homesteaded in North Dakota.

I love reading all of these!

My maternal great-grandparents immigrated from Poland. My grandmother was the first person in mom's family born in the US, in 1900. I'm not sure how they ended up in Minneapolis. There is a large Polish and Ukranian community here.

My dad's family has been traced to England from before the American Revolution. A father and son traveled together, but the father died shortly after they arrived. The son was only 14. Dad's family migrated to Illinois, then Wisconsin, then Minnesota over the generations. One of dad's cousins did all the geneology work on paper. She generously gave me a copy. I'm sure someone probably has it on Ancestry.com, but I haven't ever looked.

I am a first generation immigrant I came with my husband ,two kids and a black lab 30 years ago and it was supposed to be a job rotation. My husband worked in a Swiss chemical company, he his a engineer.It was supposed to last four years after three years they asked him if he was interested to stay a little longer we said yes, and then came a third job and when finally they offered him a really awesome job in Switzerland we realize that we had missed the window to go back. It would have been really hard on kids my oldest being 15 at that time , we really enjoyed our life in the US and decided to stay , I have no regrets, but we didn’t do it on purpose.
We became US citizen in 2010 we all have a dual citizenship included our grandchildren and we still have labs , life has been good to us .

My maternal great (x11, I think?) grandfather came over as an indentured servant on the Mayflower. He (George Soule) helped organize Plymouth Colony and was one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact.

My paternal grandmother was born to immigrants from Sicily, soon after they arrived in New York. They became vegetable vendors, and eventually landowners and farmers. My relatives in that line still have strong ties in the horticulture space.

My paternal grandfather immigrated from Naples, Italy after WW1. He arrived on Ellis Island on the Giuseppe Verde. Upon arrival, they changed his first name from Rosario to Anthony. He told me many times that in Italy, he was so poor, he had no shoes.

He settled in Brooklyn, never finished junior high, and worked as a machinist for Lockheed Martin. He lived to be 102. I am extremely proud of his and my grandmother’s legacy of hard work and love of family. Also, the family’s Sunday Sauce recipe. 😂

My grandfather came to the United States when he was 17 from Albania and worked on the railroads. He saved money and went back to buy his family a cow and show them how to set up a garden.  Came back to the States and was taken in by a doctor and his wife (who was a doctor as well).  My grandfather met and married my grandmother when he was 38 and she was 19.  They had 3 kids and worked on the doctor's farm and took care of their house until they died in the late 1950's.  It wasn't until after they died that my grandfather discovered they had adopted him.  I guess so he could inherit their estate??  About 10 years ago I was looking back through old Census's.  I found one from the 1940's which listed my grandfather, grandmother and my mom as "servants".  I was somewhat shocked, but in reality that is sort of what they were.