Poll: How many generations removed are you from immigration? • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by weavejester » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 4:47 PM UTC

The problem with this poll is that it has a strong bias built into it. Those with recent ancestors who immigrated (such as parents or grandparents) will be able to answer this question fairly easily. Those who do not will find this question difficult to answer unless they have good records of their family tree.

I'm not aware of any immigrants in my family tree, but I'm only aware of my ancestry two generations back, so I can't answer the poll accurately without additional research. It isn't really worth my time to do that, so I'm not going to answer the poll.

Assuming I'm not a rare exception, the way your poll is worded will therefore be biased toward recent immigrants and people who know a lot about their family tree. Without knowing how much this bias is, there's not a whole lot you can conclude from the results.

You may want to setup an additional poll, such as:

* I am an immigrant

* At least one of my parents was an immigrant

* At least one of my grandparents was an immigrant

My guess is that more people could answer that poll than your current one, and you'd therefore get less bias.

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

#72

Post by jeffio » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 4:47 PM UTC

First Nations (Native American) on my father's side (so, 1,000?) — and 4 generations on my mother's.

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

#73

Post by daimyoyo » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 4:50 PM UTC

0.75 my dad was born in Wisconsin but my mother was born in Germany. Her mother was German and insisted that her children be born there despite the fact she was already married to a GI who was originally stationed there but then returned to the US.

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

#74

Post by ojbyrne » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 4:56 PM UTC

Eventually settled? I was born in Ireland, moved to Canada at 6, currently in the US. I have lived in 3 other countries. My grandmother, of Irish descent, reverse emigrated from the USA to Ireland. I need a -1 choice.

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

#75

Post by kanyi » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 4:57 PM UTC

My dad was a refugee coming out of South Africa, had lived in Nigeria and Botswana for a decade, and he and my mom, who he had met in South Africa, moved here in the 80s after having me there. Both of my brothers were born here, and we have all been put through the American school system, and now two of us are working on start-ups.

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

#76

Post by kanyi » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 4:58 PM UTC

My dad was a refugee coming out of South Africa, had lived in Nigeria and Botswana for a decade, and he and my mom, who he had met in South Africa, moved here in the 80s after having me there. Both of my brothers were born here, and we have all been put through the American school system, and now two of us are working on start-ups.

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

#77

Post by riffraff » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 5:00 PM UTC

jeffio wrote: post #72

First Nations (Native American) on my father's side (so, 1,000?) — and 4 generations on my mother's.

please excuse my ignorance: why the choice of "first nations" as a name vs "native americans" ?

I can imagine why other wordings can be considered bad, but as a non-american I'm unaware of negative/imprecise connotations to the latter expression.

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

#78

Post by davidcuddeback » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 5:05 PM UTC

My great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather immigrated to New York from France in 1685 to escape the religious persecutions of King Louis XIV. I think that makes me 10 generations removed from immigration. There's a town in Normandy, France that bears our name (Caudebec was our French name before immigrating): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caudebec-en-Caux and a small town in New York that bears our Americanized name (Cuddeback after immigrating): http://g.co/maps/p2qm

Another fairly strong component of my ancestry is Cherokee Indian (native American). I don't know nearly as much about that part of my lineage, but I've read that the first traces of Cherokee are from about 3500 years ago. So anyways, my family has been in the US since before it was a country.

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

#79

Post by davidcuddeback » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 5:07 PM UTC

rmc wrote: post #68

French Hugenot (prodestant refugees from France) is the closest I've gotten.

Same here. I'm 10 generations removed, so you might be about the same.

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

#80

Post by Mz » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 5:11 PM UTC

expertmind wrote: post #51

Mz wrote: post #46

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…

No offense, But this is a great story for a film.

Not offended at all. Should I ever get famous enough for Hollywood to want to do a film about my life, I will let them know you think that tidbit belongs in the film. ;-)

Take care.