A strange request

[exsequar]

So, darling flist, I have something to ask of you. I have an assignment for my race in America class for tomorrow which is to give a four-minute presentation about our ancestry and how they came to live in America, and their experiences on that journey. However, my history is extremely boring - they came over from Scotland, the end. And that's just one quarter of my background! I have no clue about the rest of it, and no way of figuring it out.

SO! Here's where you come in. We're allowed to adopt someone else's ancestry to report to the class if ours is too boring. It's best if we can relate it to the topics we've been studying, which cover a broad range of themes throughout history, from colonization to the Chinese Exclusion Act, and everything in between. So I want you to tell me your stories! Do you have an interesting, colorful ancestry? I'd love if you would share it with me. Just a general picture, something that can be explained briefly and simply. I can leave your name unconnected with it if you prefer. You can either comment here, or email me at starlight1013@gmail.com. Either way, I might have some questions for you, and I'd like if you could answer them tonight, since it's... due tomorrow. Oops.

I'd really appreciate your help! A lot! Thanks in advance to anyone who replies! :)

I take it all back! I just talked to my daddy and my history is definitely interesting enough to fill four minutes, and it's best to go with my own story anyway, since I have more than a vague sense of it. Thank you so much to all you that replied! ♥

Comments

[hermioneluna.livejournal.com]

Pop on to AIM and I'll tell you a bit of my history. Don't know how interesting it will be to an outsider, but I thought it was kind of... Well, pop on and judge for yourself, dear.

[femmenerd.livejournal.com]

My mother's father is part French Canadian and part Scottish (hence: my hair) and her mother was "Pennsylvania Quaker" which means that those ancestors were Quakers who left England/Wales because of religious persecution.

My father, otoh is still a German citizen, a "legal alien,"--he came to the US by boat and landed on Ellis Island. His father was half Jewish on his mother's side so he didn't have a Jewish last name. Also, his mother came from England so they had no legal papers to prove it, therefore my Opa didn't go to a concentration camp--he was forcibly enlisted in the front lines of the German army, and ended up deserting because there were basically guns pointed at him from either side. I believe he also had some Gypsy blood in there too. My Oma was "Aryan" German, her brother was willingly in the Nazi army and died in the war. They fled East Germany when my dad was two, leaving everything behind, then later, when my dad was 10 that was when they came to the US.

Weird thing though is that both of my grandfathers fought on opposite sides of the same war...sort of.

Um, so yeah, that's that.

[onefishjyuufish.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what's colorful and what's not, but my father's family were one of the first French settlers in Canada, in the 1600s?

My mother's family were Pennsylvania Dutch from Nebraska (someone apparently documented the family tree and history at one point, but I never got a hold of it) and my mother's father's family came over from Norway just at the beginning of the 20th century.

...not really spectacular, I guess, but there you go. :)

[impertinence.livejournal.com]

Mine is fairly boring, but!

On my mom's side I'm Scots-Irish--my great-something grandaddy came over shortly before the Civil War, lived in Winston-Salem, N.C., and fought on the Confederate side in the Civil War. My dad's family lived in Kentucky and apparently have a museum. *grin*

[cathybites.livejournal.com]

well, on the dad's side, we've been in the US - or, at least, this continent - since 1650. Settled on Long Island, signed the Declaration of Independence, fought in the Revolutionary War, all that fun stuff.

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

Wow, definitely more interesting than my own! But I just talked to my daddy and there's actually more there than I thought - so I'm going to go with my own history, slightly boring or not :) Still, thank you so much for sharing - fascinating!

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how many places people can come from. Every story's fascinating in their own right! I've decided to go with my own tale after speaking to my dad, but thank you so much for responding :)

[femmenerd.livejournal.com]

Hey, no problem. It's cool that you're finding out more stuff about your family!

[onefishjyuufish.livejournal.com]

No problem! :D I'm glad you've found something about your own family worth talking about.