Growing up, I was just a kid in a working-class family. My parents grew up on farms in the southwestern region of Missouri. I had an interest in science and American history, but I viewed the history part from a distance. Events, names, places, and famous people all seemed pretty remote. As I grew older, I learned a little about my family history, namely, that we had French and German ancestors who came to colonial America before the American Revolution. There were a few remarkable stories: Christian Fast, who was captured by Indigenous people during the Revolutionary War, and Ben McWilliams, who served in the Union Army during the Civil War, was captured, and spent time at Andersonville.
But then I started digging, and what I found was surprising and even more interesting. It turns out that, through some stroke of genealogical luck, I can reliably trace lineages to the first settlers of Plymouth Colony, New Netherland, Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Quaker Pennsylvania. I also had many pioneering ancestors who made their way inland, away from the seacoast, although these settlements were not always established with the approval of Indigenous people. Many of these settlers became well known as among the first in their communities. For the most part, however, they were ordinary people, perhaps with a degree of stubbornness or opportunism that led them to become refugees or pioneers.
Knowing this about my ancestors makes American history more than names, places, and famous people. The American Revolution, the Civil War, and westward migrations become much more real when I understand my ancestors’ contributions and how these events affected them. Following their lines, I encounter ordinary people, mostly farmers, who helped build this country.
So my roots are deep indeed. But looking at my wife's family's migrations from Poland, I have also come to understand the migrations around the turn of the twentieth century and what escaping the Russian tsars for the promise of America meant to them. This, too, is a part of American history that we can learn about through genealogy. And the ideals and promise of a new life still attract people who throw in their lot with the United States and become new Americans. This is truly the promise of a nation of immigrants, whether their arrival was 400 years ago or just in this century.
