My family migrated to the US from Western Europe in the late 19th century, like so many other white Americans. We’ve always kept up with our family out that way, though, like at least a couple aunts and uncles always make it to our European relatives’ weddings and whatnot, me and a couple of my American cousins still text back and forth with some more distant cousins of ours in Ireland, etc.
Other white or mixed Americans – do you all keep up with the folks across the pond?
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i’ve only seen my German grandparents. I do know that there’s at least a few other family members my family keeps in touch with, but I don’t personally know anyone
No. my ancestors came to America in the Colonial era. Any connections we had to Europe ended a long time ago.
No. My ancestors came over in the 17th century.
My most recent immigrant ancestor came from Russian-controlled Lithuania in the 1890s and my most distant immigrant ancestor arrived sometime before 1770 from England, so no, my lineages have long since lost contact with any distant European relatives.
My wife, though, is from Germany, and we’re regularly in contact with her family.
My grandfather’s family came from Norway (his grandparents). He and his siblings went and visited the family that stayed behind. They had a great time. But no I have not done that.
Like a LOT of East Coasters, my ancestors came over from Italy and Poland in the 20s and were dirt poor. The post WW1 environment in Europe was a bureaucratic nightmare, borders changed, bureaucracies changed. And WW2 didn’t much help. We have no family records from before their landing at Ellis Island, maybe some stories passed down.
No. My immigrant ancestors from Europe arrived between 1630 and 1709. I wouldn’t even know where to start contacting relatives from overseas.
No family that I know of is still there. My Mom is on a trip to Scotland right now to see where here parents were from. It’s near Motherwell or something. My father’s side was Mayflower and sons of the Revolution so a few hundred years but New England wasn’t all that diverse. I haven’t taken a test but I think I’m relatively simple with Britain or France.
No, not at all. I don’t even know, or care really, where exactly they came from. The most recent was several generations ago.
I’m mixed (Asian, and white) but my white side of the family are from Alsace… but have been in the United States so long that Alsace was a part of Germany when they came to the states.
So I probably have relatives in France – very distantly since it’s been 200 years. But I sure don’t know any of them haha.
A good portion of my family came over from Britain and France in the late 1600’s to early 1700’s. My parents actually met some very distantly related cousins decades ago but we don’t keep in regular contact. OTOH, I’ve had some relatives move back to England and Scotland and marry with the natives so we go visit them regularly.
I do! My family is mainly Dutch and French and we have a whole Facebook group.
Only my mothers side. She arrived in 1963. So, all my cousins are my age.
My paternal side have been here since the late 1600’s, soooo not so much.
Yes. Unlike most Italian-Americans where I grew up, my parents were first generation Italian immigrants and came to the US from Italy as children with their families in the 60s and 70s. Everyone on my father’s side of the family left Italy, but on my mother’s side of the family I still have a lot of relatives that stayed in Calabria. We visit each other every so often and I grew up going on vacations to see family in Italy. I haven’t been there since 2018 but I will be going back next month.
My ancestors came from the Pale of Settlement (Russia and Ukraine) and Austria-Hungary in the late 19th, early 20th century, so no. My furthest known relatives geographically live in Hawaii.
No. There’s centuries of separation at this point.
Yes. All my grandparents came from
Ireland. I have family in Ireland and England and keep in touch with them and visit.
Used to, but not anymore. They were giant dingleberries anyway, so no great loss. Serious moochers.
Nope. My ancestors came here between the early 1600s and late 1880s. Doing some genealogy I discovered (but have no means to verify) that in the early 1700s one of my ancestors was an immigrant from Scottish nobility, and that line still exists in Scotland. My American ancestor was born some time after 1700 and her grandfather was the 3rd Earl of Airlie. Today they are on the 14th Earl of Airlie. This guy would actually be the only European family member that I could even name, and that is just because how well everything is documented. We would only be like 1/1000th related.
Even with my more recent European ancestors, I know who they are, but their families in Europe are a total mystery to me. The more I learn about my ancestors the less I see them being European and more being American.
About 15 years ago, I did come into contact with someone when I was getting started with my business (Grandpa was an artist, I sell reproductions of his work). This individual and I shared the last name and he told me that his father was my grandfather’s cousin. We deduced that only ancestor we had in common, and the source of our last name, was our immigrant ancestor who came here in the 1880s. That is about as close as it gets for me. I am from California and he live in the far away foreign world of New Mexico.
The ancestor I know came here in 1640
My Great grandpa was told by an uncle they would pay his passage from Denmark to New York and teach him english if he works on their farm for 3 years. Great grandpa took them up on that offer. After 3 years, they didn’t teach him any english in the hopes that he would be trapped there. Great grandpa punched his uncle and left. Latter meet my Great grandma that spoke Danish and English and so he refused to learn English the rest of his life and cut all ties to his family.
I was in Denmark in 2022 and thought about visiting the town he was from, but quickly realized that there really is no connection there since we lost track of any of his family. I do wonder what their side of the story is and maybe one day I’ll track them down. but that is a problem for future me that has money and time to do so.
Most of them were murdered in the 1940s, so no. Any which survived would be fairly distant cousins by now. The closest relationship would be first cousin twice removed aka my grandparents first cousins.
I do know I have living relatives in the UK.
My grandmother calls her cousin every few weeks in Germany, and when I visited Hamburg I took a picture at a pub with my last name on it since it’s a popular name in the area and my grandfather is from there. Other than that, no.
Yep, they visit sometimes
I’m a daughter of the American Revolution, so my roots go deep. No luck with that part of the family. I do have more recent European ancestry, but I’ll tell you the story of why we don’t have contact:
Great-great-grandfather and grandmother came over from France. Whether their four kids (two boys, two girls) were born in France or the US, I don’t know either. I suspect France and we’ll get back to why.
At some point after arrival, GGGpa dies, and he dies violently. It’s unclear whether it was a bar fight or suicide, but whatever happened, the Catholic cemetery refused to take him. Now widowed, GGGma says fuck it and goes back to France. Only she takes her daughters and leaves her preteen sons, one of whom becomes my great-grandfather. That side of the family is also now Protestant.
Anyway, I like thinking about those daughters and their descendants and wonder if I could somehow trace them. Are they Catholic? Do they know about what happened to our side? It would be fun to find out.
I was born in the UK in 1952. Moved to Nortyh America in 1954. In the 60s we went back almost every year to visit.
After that kinda kept contact with relatives there
When my parents passed I was alone here. I have reconnected with my cousins in the UK and Australia since then. Try to get to get together with the cousins in the UK every year or two. I need to get to Oz to see my cousin down there.
From what I’ve seen, Italians (leaving out the hyphenation) do this more than anyone else, generations after the immigration that established them here. And even better, when someone in your family marries an Italian, you now have an Italian family, and relatives to visit in the Old Country.
Nah. My family came over a hundred years before the US became a nation
If your family arrived in America in the 19th century, none of your ‘family’ back in Europe are your relatives in any real sense. Like, 4th or 5th cousins, if not further removed, surely?
All mine were killed in the WW2 camps. 😔