My parents are descendants of the waves of immigrants from Europe to the United States in the early 1800s and 1900s. My first ancestor who came to the U.S. was my great-great-great grandfather Anton, who immigrated to the U.S. from Norway in 1870. Another set of grandparents on my father’s side got out of Germany just before World War 1 and built a big farm in Minnesota. The Cleveland side of the family does not have many records because they immigrated from Europe to Mississippi, and most of their official records were destroyed in the Civil War, which unfortunately happened to many families in the South. However, my Grandmother Cleveland said that many southern families kept their own records, which are appearing increasingly on ancestry websites. One day, it may be possible to figure out more from my Cleveland side of the family. On my mother’s side of the family, one grandfather was born on a ship coming to the U.S. from England. That could not have been pleasant. One great-great-great-grandfather on my Mom’s side immigrated illegally from Sweden to the U.S. and used a passport from a man named Baxter, who had died, so my great, great grandmother never really knew what her real last name was until our family did the research and found out it was Freudenclasen.

– JC

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more