2024, Family, Travel

Where Are Your People From

54 Comments

Husband has decided that it is very important that the next time we travel overseas, we should go to Emden, in northwest Germany to see where my father’s people come from, and then go to Debden, UK to see the village where my dad was stationed during the Second World War. He also wants to go to Edinburgh and other parts of the Scottish lowlands to see where his mother’s people come from. He has no dates chosen for when we will do this, just some time after we move back to Minnesota when I retire.

When we visited my maternal grandfather’s village south of Bremen several years ago I felt a real connection because I still have family who live there. My father’s people left Ostfriesland in the 1850’s, and any connections there are long lost. Still, I think it will be pretty interesting, although it is my understanding that the people who live in Ostfriesland are frequently the butt of jokes in Germany and are stereotyped as backward and somewhat hapless. It will be fun to see for myself. All I know about the place is that it is low, flat, there is water everywhere, and the inhabitants drink more tea per capita than in any other country.

Where do your people come from? Where would you like to travel next, time, money, and health permitting?

54 thoughts on “Where Are Your People From”

  1. My mother grew up near Worthington, in Nobles County, MN. She left there at age 17 and went to live in a “dutch-y” colony south of Los Angeles. My suspicion is that she was very likely pregnant without being married. She went back to visit, but until her death in 2012 was a Californian. 

    My father was from Oklahoma, but settled in Los Angeles early in the 1930s. Not an agricultural refugee, but from a storekeeping family. I had always imagined his roots to go back to “sooners”, who invaded the Indian Territory before they were allowed to, so my ancestral name was one “made up.” I didn’t really care, though, because I am from Los Angeles, where anyone can be whoever he or she wants to be. Name it and claim it!

    However, my children got lured into a DNA test, and found that the clan is a genuine one, going back from Oklahoma to Alabama. That makes me some kind of Confederate descendant. I’ve no desire to visit those roots.

    I’m now in Michigan (after 39 years in Taiwan), and know that I don’t fit in Los Angeles, am in the way in Taiwan, so I’m settled here for the duration.

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  2. Having recently discovered I am a bit more Scots than German, if I am alive when you take this mythical trip, I will live it vicariously with you.
    Clyde

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    1. In 1990 we traveled fairly extensively in Scotland, especially Edinburgh and the highlands. Hugely memorable. Despite neither of us having much, if any, Scottish roots it felt like the homeland.

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  3. My people are originally from Sweden and Norway on my father’s side. I know the village in Sweden where my grandfather grew up and would perhaps like to see it in person.

    On my mother’s side are Bohemians from the Czech Republic and I have the town in my notes. From what I can tell, it’s not very inspiring. On the other side of my mother’s family, the folks are Swiss. As an place to visit, their village of origin, Iseltwald, takes the prize:

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/weiswaldemar/49074677228/in/photolist-2hLyxNC-ddiJyf-ddiJFo-24tczAZ-2m9BsRd-boka4h-2hoh8CB-2mG8jq5-2j6JUaB-2oyA9a3-2oyA9ao-2j3vXQ-2jSdREX-duJrBJ-2ijNnz-ZCMAA3-2oGg3up-peUe8T-rFruP-rFrtN-2hji2ks-2mFiebp-2kZVhxH-2oLCzSs-2hjiYRZ-h3Ep1-2kXjjwp-2m13UY1-21XzGmr-2jre66F-2j66uFv-2mCRqGp-2mCuB6n-2kZXZ3A-YAQ6EJ-2m12XWs-2oLBKHd-2oLCzT9-2bfYW9B-2oLBKHU-2oLEdrg-2mCZ32R-2nKvcgS-GkH4t3-2ijNgP-2hjgcVr-23rKrkf-2mky7fE-vhSecd-2kQ3ttF

    Why would they have left such a place to settle ultimately in Wisconsin? They were farmers. You can’t eat scenery.

    I also have branches of the family that go back to New York state and I have visited their places of origin there. They too ended up in Wisconsin. Because of the way the Federal census was recorded I have not been able to link those families to larger family groups much before 1850.

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  4. Maternal ancestry is Scottish and Swedish (maybe a little Norwegian too). Paternal side is English. I beleive the English area was Cheshire–not 100% sure of that. Dad’s ancestors emigrated to Naperville IL in the 1830s and eventually branched out to Missouri and Kansas before Grandparents came to MN by way of Bismark ND.

    So many places I’d love to travel except for the fact I’m not as enamored with the adventure of traveling as I was when younger. But Iceland, Italy, New Zealand, and an full tour of the British Isles (including golf in Scotland and Ireland) are at the top of my list.

    Chris in Owatonna

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        1. If you look at the census in the early 1900s for the town of Barrett, where they settled, there was an overwhelming Scandinavian presence there. My paternal grandmother, who was born in ND but grew up in Barrett, spoke Norwegian as a child. I have her Norwegian prayer book.

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        2. I’ve related this once before. The brother to my Norwegian Great Great Grandfather also ended up in Owatonna. In the Steele County history book, he reported that he and his wife immigrated to Owatonna in 1872. However, their oldest son was born in Chicago in 1870. The Chicago fire was in October of 1871.
          What were they hiding?

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      2. Curiously, my GG Grandfather on my mother’s side, who originated in New York state also lived in Owatonna, having come there via Wisconsin. He died there, in fact, in 1878. I have never been able to locate his grave.

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        1. Try contacting the Steele County Historical Society. They may be able to give you some information on where some of the old old church cemetaries are located–or that are no longer there because they were built over or weren’t official cemetaries and were forgotten.

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  5. Husband’s people were in Northern Ireland and went back to Scotland in the 1860’s. I imagine they had been in Ireland for a really long time as part of England’s attempts to settle Scots in Ireland for hundreds of years. Their last name was Carson, a name reviled in Ireland as that of Scottish oppressors. His people were miners, and lived in Coal Island in Ireland, moving back to near Glasgow to a place called Monklands where they mined coal. His Great Great Grandfather died in a mining accident when the mine ceiling caved in on him. I read the actual accident report in the Mine Accident Archives available on line. His widow and children, some of whom were adults, immigrated to Ohio where they mined coal fir a while before finding other work.

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  6. I went through the lineage using FamilySearch. The LDS church seemed quite accurate. I’m sure they recognize the value of their reputation and their “Baptism For The Dead” doctrine.

    Paternal Grandmother Anne’s Norwegian history is limited.

    Paternal Grandfather Axel’s Danish history goes back to the middle 1300’s when Denmark ruled Schleswig-Holstein.

    Maternal Grandfather Jasper Tucker’s lineage is quite long. There’s a Sir Stephen John Tucker 1410-1460 Devon England. A name change with John Percival Toukere 1329-1360 France. Staying just with the grandfathers, it reaches Toukere 0721-0771 Normandy. 40 Grandfathers.

    Maternal Grandmother Lucy’s great, great grandfather was William Fairbanks 1814-1881. That line gets to George Fearbake 1528-1610 Yorkshire, England. One line gets to Clovis, First King of the Frank’s.

    When I went through this, I stayed with the parents and haven’t as yet explored the children who would become uncles and aunts. Fun stuff.

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    1. I don’t know if this is of any interest to you, Wes, but the University of Aarhus has released an online course of Danish history that I find quite fascinating. Unfortunately, the lectures are all in Danish, so it is probably limited what you’d learn from them, but the rest is in English and worth perusing if you have an interest in such matters.

      Here’s the link to it:

      https://danmarkshistorien.dk/en/open-online-course

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  8. I grew up in the same small town that my dad grew up in, and just a few miles from Bogø, the island where he was born. I have been there many times. His biological mother was unmarried and gave him up for adoption. She was from Copenhagen. We don’t know who his father was. His adoptive family were from Stubbekøbing and that is the place I feel most strongly connected to.

    Mom’s family came from Drogheda, about 35 miles north of Dublin. She and all of her siblings were born there, but only two brothers remained there throughout their lives. Her sister and three of her brothers immigrated to England and lived there in various places for the rest of their lives. I still have cousins in Drogheda, and must have several in England, but I don’t know them, and have no contact with them.

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  9. No one in my family has ever seriously researched our family connections so it’s not something I ever developed a passion for.

    On my mom’s side, both parents came from German stock; one great grandmother was the only child of eight to be born in this country and my grandfather’s family gave us the Von Rump legacy. Every Von Rump in the world is a relation of mine. All my mom’s folks ended up settling in St. Louis.

    On my dad’s side his great greats came over from Scotland and settled in northern Wisconsin; the family homestead is still standing. And his other folks came from England but so far back that nobody really knows when. 

    When I was living in Northfield (decades back) my dad paid money for some family tree info but it didn’t look trustworthy at all, especially when it shows that I’m descended from Eleanor of Acquitaine. Not that I wouldn’t love that, but I’m pretty sure my dad got fleeced.

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    1. The nobility was so intermarried that if you can be connected to anybody related, however obliquely, to a noble you can trace a lineage to Eleanor or to William the Conquerer or somesuch. It means very little.

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      2. well Eleanor did have a lot of children however, it seems suspicious to me that the line goes back straight to her, one of the only noble persons of the time that I’ve even heard of.

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      3. In using FamilySearch, I’ve found that to be true concerning nobility. The detail is frankly amazing but not unexpected. Royalty had better records and better everything including diet and longevity.

        The lineages I tracked stayed with grandparents only. The website is excellent in keeping family trees focused on that. It helps so that a person doesn’t have to go into uncles, aunts or cousins.

        I recommend FamilySearch before Ancestry. I’m not a Mormon but use it freely without a hint of proselytizing by them.

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        1. Sticking just to grandparents, which double every previous generation, you end up with a lot of people. If you figure a generation to be 25 years, four generations per century, 600 years ago 33,554,432 people were your grandparents.

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        2. Not really, of course. If cousins married, that would cut the number of antecedents in half. Still, even direct lines incorporate a lot of people.

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  11. There is a special organization In English for those who are descended from a royal bastard. But all original English people by statistical probability are.

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  12. my mother’s German family is related to the family from which Queen Victoria descended. Which means I am related to most of the royalty of Europe. Which does not make me very unusual.
    Clyde

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  13. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    `I have written about some of these people before, but I don’t think I have told you about what I found 10 years ago when I was trying to research Norwegian heritage. I found nothing on that because it was all recorded in Norwegian. So I had that researched by the Norwegian Geneologists in Stavanger, Norway. But on the way to that I discovered that Maine was settled at the same time Plymouth, Massachusetts was settled, but by a competing company out of England. All the Maine settlements failed. The settlers who lived through that relocated to Plymouth in 1621, including my ancestors, John Harding, and Martha Doane who married in England, travelled to Maine where John died. She went to Plymouth to be with a relative, She gave birth to a son, then she died. The child was raised in Plymouth by an uncle and went on to have a Puritan family in Massachusetts who can claim me and the illustrious Warren G. Harding as descendents.

    I have been to theNew England area but it was before knew how deep the Puritan and Quaker Ancestry was. When I visited the New Jersey area that was part of the Penn Quaker Colony, it felt familiar and like home.

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  14. Some of Husband’s Scots/Irish relatives immigrated to Virginia in the early 1800’s, and ended up in Pennsylvania and what was eventually West Virginia. My Boomgaarden relatives sailed into Philadelphia and settled in Illinois in the 1850’s before moving on to Iowa.

    My Great Grandfather Boomgaarden was a small boy when he and his parents sailed to Philadelphia in 1858 in a boat named The Gertrude. He was almost swept overboard on the voyage but saved by a Ostfriesland woman with the last name of Freerks. She and her husband eventually settled in Iowa, too, and they had a daughter named Harmanna who married my Great Grandfather, the boy her mother saved from going overboard.

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  15. WP… I’m shaking my head.

    No one has taken the time to really research our genealogy. My first cousin, Linda, was working on our fathers’ ancestry but I haven’t heard from her how it’s going. Her brother, my cousin Mark, has the old cloth-bound book I had from our grandparents, much of which is hand written in the old German script. My paternal grandfather’s relatives apparently came from Prussia Germany in the late 1800s. In that history, it tells about them being French Huguenots and fleeing to Prussia in the area of what was called Kreis Wirsitz im Posen.

    Later I learned that “wilkow” is plural for “wolves” in Polish. That explains a lot to me. It means our name means “wolves” and was given a German or Polish suffix. Many names may have been changed due to German influence. We were told that the suffix “-ske” was German, not Polish. I don’t know. I’ve read some about the changing political histories and boundaries of Prussia/Germany/Poland, but not enough to discuss it intelligently.

    My paternal grandmother was from an orphanage in Kansas, if I recall correctly. Her maiden name was Steinkamper. She said she was “Hoch Deutsch” or high German. There is no more information about her family. She was a large part of my Dad’s feelings of inadequacy and dependence on alcohol.

    My Mom’s ancestry is less clear. She always just said that they were German and wouldn’t discuss it further. Her mother was certainly German. Her father’s ancestry, however, is much less clear. I think he was Irish. He was from a strict Catholic family with an Irish surname. When he married my Protestant grandmother, he left the Catholic Church, which was a sin in the 1920s. He wouldn’t discuss it either, probably due to the discomfort of having left the Church and been disowned by his strict mother. I didn’t meet his brothers until much later in life. I never met all of them. They’re all gone now.

    One of my distant cousins from that branch is Pam Wheelock, who was Commissioner of Finance under Jesse the Body, then Commissioner of DHS under Governor Walz. I don’t know those cousins well. We did attend 4th of July family picnics on their farm near Waseca when I was perhaps 10 or so. I played with Pam on her family farm. I don’t remember more than that and, while I knew her mother quite well, I don’t remember the connection with the Gleason family (my grandfather’s). They were all from the same Sacred Heart Catholic Church that my grandfather left behind.

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    1. Guessing your mom might have wanted a distance between herself and her “germanity”. During WWII my mom’s family got a lot of abuse for being German and she told me their house got egged more than once.

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  16. There also is this completely false family myth that the Boomgaarden’s are really French, and were French Huguenauts who fled to Ostfriesland for safety and religious freedom. I think the myth was devised as a way for them trying to make sure no one thought they were Dutch, especially Dutch Reformed. The Boomgaardens were Anabaptists and didn’t like their Calvinist neighbors. My father was ever so surprised to learn from a DNA test that 34% of his DNA was actually Swedeish, with 10% Norwegian and the rest German, and no French. Ostfriesland was invaded by countless Norseman over the centuries, hence the Scandinavian DNA.

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  17. I’m going to Washington DC for the first time in June. Smithsonian and Holocaust museums get two days each. I have a feeling two months is not enough.

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    1. Smithsonian has I think about 7-8 parts, not all on the mall. Oh, how I wish we had seen more than the five parts we did. Holocaust was not there. I envy you that.

      Clyde

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    1. A very long time, I think. I found several “British Bastard” lines on my tree. A bastard named Douglass was funded by his Scottish Earl father in the 1700s. He took the ship provided by Earl whathisname, came to America where he lived in wealth. I have never seen a penny!

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  19. My dad’s mom Helga came from Bergen, Norway at age 12, after her father died. I don’t know much about Dad’s father’s side, but in coming through Ellis Island their name was shortened from Ingebritson to Britson. My dad was writing to a cousin in Bergen in the 1970s, but we’ve lost contact by now.

    My mom’s mom, Ruth Thyra Augusta Blom, was an orphan by age 4, lived with an aunt near ______, Sweden, till she came to Iowa to live with her sister when she was 15. If I could find my copy of that sister’s “memoir”, I could tell you the name of the town.

    For my mom’s dad’s family, the Sterlings, there is quite a lot of genealogy written down, and they came from Scotland and Wales via Connecticut. I believe there is, still standing, the original farmstead from the 1800s outside of Hamburg, CT, and I have photos, drawings, and cards that were printed up.

    I would love to visit all these places, if I could just have someone else do all the legwork and I’d just tag along.

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  20. My ancestors mostly came from Germany and Austria. A lot of Germans and Austrians settled the Midwest. 

    The one exception that I know of was one great-grandparent who was from the Roma people, who originated in northern India. Many Roma were brought to Europe as slaves, but I don’t have any knowledge of that history in my own family.

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