What was it like visiting birthplace of your ancestors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents live in the same town (in the US) where my mother’s family has lived since the 1770s. There are times when I feel a pull to move there, but it’s a town of 14,000 (and dwindling), so in reality I do not want to live there. Most people are like my mother - they move away for college and don’t move back until they’re retired.

I haven’t yet visited any of the places in Europe my family came from, so I’m not sure how I’ll feel, but I am a highly sentimental person, so…

A couple of years ago we visited the country my husband’s family fled as refugees when he was a wee tyke. Both my FIL’s childhood home and the house where my in-laws lived when my husband was a baby are still standing, so we were able to see them. My husband found it interesting but nothing more. I think I was more moved than he was (see: highly sentimental, above).

Is it common in US to move back after retirement? Wouldn't they stay where they had been working?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have been to an area where a branch of my family was from. They were extremely poor.

I was able to visit some of the churches where they were baptized and married, and generally walk the streets they might have walked. They were there for many generations- I trace them back to the very late 1600s in that area, but it gets hazy after that. Too many related families giving their babies the same names!

What was it like? It was very cool to think about being in places where 3-4-5+x great grandparents had been. To stand in front of the same altar where some had been married and to see the font where some had been baptized and think about what their lives must have been like.

Would I want to live there? No, I like where I live now. It could be fun to stay there for a few months though for a limited time job assignment or sabbatical perhaps.

Is it a "happening" place?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My family lives in occupied Palestine going back many generations. Yes, I have been. I think you probably have an understanding that it’s hell on earth but some of the most historic and meaningful places in the world are there.

You don't know what we think understand or that we agree with your loaded set of statements.

No, my dear, I think most people on DCUM who are educated and follow the news understand occupation and apartheid. Nothing loaded about that!

More projection. Your passion and fervor and Iran-sponsored propaganda campaign do not define truth.

Before and after photos make a good case versus whatever wild propaganda you're consuming

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents live in the same town (in the US) where my mother’s family has lived since the 1770s. There are times when I feel a pull to move there, but it’s a town of 14,000 (and dwindling), so in reality I do not want to live there. Most people are like my mother - they move away for college and don’t move back until they’re retired.

I haven’t yet visited any of the places in Europe my family came from, so I’m not sure how I’ll feel, but I am a highly sentimental person, so…

A couple of years ago we visited the country my husband’s family fled as refugees when he was a wee tyke. Both my FIL’s childhood home and the house where my in-laws lived when my husband was a baby are still standing, so we were able to see them. My husband found it interesting but nothing more. I think I was more moved than he was (see: highly sentimental, above).

Is it common in US to move back after retirement? Wouldn't they stay where they had been working?

I meant people in this town, not in the US generally.
Many of the people who grew up there are like my mother and have a long family history there. It’s a bit of an odd place, and many residents tend to be fiercely devoted to it, but it’s also small and somewhat isolated with no real industry - and therefore no jobs to keep young families. But once they retire, many of them come back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Native American reservation. where the members look at you confused: you're a Native Amrican?

If you were American Indian you’d know it either by your CDIB or your tribal card.

Some have almost full Native American ancestry and no card while others have no longer traceable genetic links and have one. Thousands were taken from their tribes to live in poverty or under slave wages, pushed from their lands and connections to free up real estate for whites and some where kidnapped to be sent to missionary schools and orphanages. This happened in Canada too. Nevermind the stories of those who did not survive to have current descendants. It makes some people unimaginably uncomfortable and they love to downplay and belittle the tragedy, there are some modern parallels.

[Anonymous]

My uncle hired a bus and took 40 family members to see the “village” where our great-great-grandparents used to live, which is now a town. They were prominent landowners in their time. There is still a part of the farmland left, and the mayor showed us some city records with marriage and birth rates for some of my ancestors. It felt like any other place, and I have no desire to go back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wonder what it was like in Spain in the 1500s the area has transformed

What part of Spain? 🇪🇸

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been to an area where a branch of my family was from. They were extremely poor.

I was able to visit some of the churches where they were baptized and married, and generally walk the streets they might have walked. They were there for many generations- I trace them back to the very late 1600s in that area, but it gets hazy after that. Too many related families giving their babies the same names!

What was it like? It was very cool to think about being in places where 3-4-5+x great grandparents had been. To stand in front of the same altar where some had been married and to see the font where some had been baptized and think about what their lives must have been like.

Would I want to live there? No, I like where I live now. It could be fun to stay there for a few months though for a limited time job assignment or sabbatical perhaps.

Is it a "happening" place?

I’m not sure what you mean by “happening.” It is a pleasant, walkable place with lots of things to do. I would also be able to do further genealogical research in the area if I had a few months that I could spend there. Two other branches of my family came from places within a few hours away by public transportation, so I would like to see and do research in those places also if I had the opportunity.

[Anonymous]

I feel a strong sense of place when I visit where my great-grandparents and grandparents grew up. I haven't tried to visit ancestors' towns from further back in history, but I might I'm ever in those countries. I'm not big on visiting places like Oświęcim, Poland, where all the remaining Jewish people were killed.

[Anonymous]

I enjoy visiting the places where my mom grew up and lived. She was the only one who left the country among her immediate family. I would love to move back to her country at one point when I am retired. Her relatives are still there and I don't get to see them as often as I like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I enjoy visiting the places where my mom grew up and lived. She was the only one who left the country among her immediate family. I would love to move back to her country at one point when I am retired. Her relatives are still there and I don't get to see them as often as I like.

She may have had a reason to leave, you may not enjoy it as much as you think

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Native American reservation. where the members look at you confused: you're a Native Amrican?

If you were American Indian you’d know it either by your CDIB or your tribal card.

You realize that people have to apply for tribal cards, right?

[Anonymous]

My brother traced the paternal side of our family to indentured servants in Cornwall
When I visited Cornwall, it felt very familiar and comfortable.

[Anonymous]

Fine. Why?
I wasn’t going to be patronizing or emotional. Just to explore, see historic sights, eat, hike, museums.

I’m 3G American but can cook all the foods and remember my great grandmother, who immigrated.

I had a good vacation there w friends, was 25 yo.

My mother and my grandmother went to the capital city before my time and did the whole ‘meet relatives you’ve never met before” thing.

[Anonymous]

My dad’s side of the family landed in St. Mary’s City in the 1600s. Part of my mom’s were in the eastern shore, around the MD-VA border in the 1600s as well. We lived in St. Mary’s County for a few years when I was a kid. No matter where I am down there or on the eastern shore, I feel at home.