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Poll: How many generations removed are you from immigration?

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61–70 of 137 posts

Re: Poll: How many generations removed are you from immigration?

#61
The poll doesn't fit me exactly. I made the count along my maternal line and chose the appropriate choice, but I have lived overseas for two three-year stays, so I know something of the immigrant experience and definitely know a radically different culture and language. And my wife is an immigrant (so she is at 0 generations by the poll rules) and that influences my daily life quite a lot.

My son, also an HN participant, and a would-be start-up founder, has similarly lived overseas even though he now lives in his country of birth, and he plans to move in another few years to another country none of us have ever lived in.

Re: Poll: How many generations removed are you from immigration?

#62

I'm a descendant of slaves so my family tree gets tricky once I get (back) to my great grandparents (who were alive during the U.S. Civil War). Best guess is 5th generation.

Same here for me, but it takes at least one more generation to get back to the U.S. Civil War.

Re: Poll: How many generations removed are you from immigration?

#63
Note that there can be other explanations than "willingness to pick up and leave your comfort zone completely". Immigrants may have a much higher "need"/want to: show their worth, climb to another social class, escape from the confines/limitations of the "ghettos" (psychological as they may be) typically associated with immigrants of same origin, etc. IOW, it just may be that the pain of working on a startup is more bearable than something else, and therefore an acceptable "escape route" ... And, FWIW, I voted "0" :)

Re: Poll: How many generations removed are you from immigration?

#70
post #6

Tricky one for me. We've managed to trace our family tree back 12 generations through family documents, etc. and our family are still in Ireland (where I'm from). From what we know though our family have had a presence in Ireland for over 500 years on both sides. It's actually remarkable when you consider the earliest record of our surname in Ireland is in the 13th century.

Go back far enough and countries pop in and out of existance.

Were there several countries in Ireland back then? Kings of Lenister/Munster/Meath, etc.? We'll get our cow back, etc.

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