fayeberry

There is a very interesting book called Coffin Ships which describes some of the conditions immigrants coming from Ireland (to escape the famine) endured in the mid 1800's.
It was very rough indeed and many, many poor souls died en route. But conditions were so dire at home they were willing to risk it.
I realize your ancestors came over later, as did mine, but interesting reading nevertheless.

2manyhobbies

Sure wish I could have asked my grandmother that...she was the only grandparent living when I was born. But she didn't speak Englisk, and I was young enough when she died that it wouldn't have occurred to me to ask her. My parents never shared that information. 😢

JuneBillie

On my mother's side I have German decent, and on my father's side Irish. My maternal grand mother's maiden name was Oxier. I haven't heard that name around outside of my family. My maiden name is Tompkins, but many want to spell it like Thompson with an h after the T, but there is no h in it.

Many names changed in spellings due to however some one interpreted the name through out time.

leaha

My gramps was a cabin boy on a sailing ship, from Scotland he sailed around the horn and past san Francisco in. 1905 the year before the earthquake, he jumped ship in Portland oregon he was twelve years old

Geri B

Family histories are so interesting......wish I, too, had asked questions of family members who had came over...lost forever information..

Geri B

Re ancestrycom. Someone said if you go to the library you can use their account...don't know if that true, haven't tried it.

maviskw

You can see that a lot of people don't read the replies or remember what the OP wanted.
I forgot to say that the trip for my great-grandparents and their three children took 16 days on the ship. They had missed the Cimbria, the boat on which they were suppose to sail. It had left port the day before they arrived so they had to wait three days for the next steamer, the Amerika, and live at a hotel till then--"a heavy drain on our purse." Later, when they were in Wisconsin, they learned that the Cimbria had gone down in the storm. Their relatives back in Germany thought they were on that ship, and were now lost.

I will quote some of Aunt Annie's writings.
"I recall the boarding of that ship--walking up the plank bridge, holding tight to mother's skirt with one hand, carrying in the other a little box cage containing a pair of carrier pigeons which my father had entrusted to me, and which he meant to take to his new home somewhere in the primeval forests of northern Wisconsin.
I can recall the stormy voyage. Our bunk was near the stairs heading to the deck. For three days we were not allowed to go on deck. The iron trap door kept us imprisoned while the big ship rocked from side to side, spilling our oatmeal gruel and unpeeled potatoes which two sailors brought down in a big canteen to feed the people in the hold. Most people were sick, and so were we.
On the 16th day of this stormy voyage, the good ship brought us to Baltimore harbor. There we boarded the "Immigrant Train" for the West. The car was a dirty thing. The seats were of tin, dirty and cold. It took three days to reach Milwaukee--three days of hunger and thirst with only oranges for sale. Then we remembered the ship as a very good friend that provided ample good food in the form of wheat bread, oatmeal, potatoes, and often some salt herring or meat. When we reached Milwaukee, a hack brought us to a hotel where we got something to eat and a room to sleep in one night. Next day a horse streetcar, running on wooden rails brought us to a train headed for northern Wisconsin."
The rest of the story tells about their trip north and how they found a fertile farm with a drafty cabin and spent a very cold winter with very few provisions and poor clothing for this climate.
Aunt Annie started teaching school at 16 years of age and had to walk through the woods to get to the school. Later she went to college and taught German in high school until 1918 when she lost that job because they no longer wanted German taught.
I hope you enjoy this story.

Tothill

I think the Refugees from Syria who have been bombed out of their homes and are often walking hundreds of miles with very few possessions could relate. Especially those who are getting into dodgy boats to cross the Mediterranean with the few possessions they can carry.

I find the movement of people around the world to be fascinating, but often heartbreaking. Since the late 70's there have been the Vietnamese Boat People, European refugees from Serbia and Kosovo, Rwandan refugees fleeing genocide, while the world looked on, and now millions of people in Syria being displaced by war.

My cousin's family is Japanese and they were forced from their home during WW11 in Canada. Forcibly moved hundreds of miles away.

For the most part my family has been lucky, they have moved around the world by choice, not due to war, genocide or economic necessity.