Poll: How many generations removed are you from immigration?

Good point!

5, and that takes us back to the late 18th century.

In the center of the US, and there is actually quite a lot of moving around, just no overseas travel. (Go back farther and we find native americans, some possible Melungeons, a witch burned at Salem, and Scottish refuges from a civil war.) There are several who traveled in from the east coast, but from established families.

I'm not so certain your thesis has value going back that far. When one ancestor arrived in the state, from New York (he and his family were not immigrants) the state was a territory and almost completely unsettled. And he was most definitely entrepreneurial. Founded the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi in the middle of the wilderness.

My mother is not only an immigrant to the US but when she was an under-aged teenager (either 16 or 17), she escaped East Germany with forged papers, with her infant niece in tow to return the child to it's rightful mother who had been denied the right to take the baby home after a visit. She claimed the baby was hers. I have heard that the only reason it worked is because the baby threw up on one of the border guards while they were checking her crappy forged papers.

My mom was also self-employed for many years (something people here would call a "lifestyle business", not a "start up"). I definitely think my family background is part of why I have a fairly high tolerance for risk while being routinely misread and not really seen that way. Time will tell whether or not that will lead to successfully developing an independent income so I can leave my day job.

I am now an expat so pretty close to being an immigrant but in my family there are no immigrants at least 5 generations back. The only half-exceptions are my parents who now each have different nationality because our (their?) state split into two. Also my grandma moved inside the state to a region speaking completely different language so she could be considered an immigrant.

The closest that is known in my family tree would be two generations, when my fathers father came over from England around the time after WWI (exact records we never knew, since dad didnt' care about genology until it was too late, and I was three when his dad passed on). Two of the other branches have Scot last names, and we traced one back to the highlands around the early 18th century so I'd estimate that's at least ten or so generations?

On my soon-to-be wives side, she's actually an immigrant herself (from the United States to Canada), but her family has been in the mid Atlantic area of the US since the 1840's. was told it's around eight generations or so.

In fact outside of myself and her, our family trees seem to find a place, and then stay there for generations. Rarely any moving at all.