Getting to know your Classmates

On this page I would like my group to write a little information about their family tree! Where are your ancestors from and how did you come over to America? 

I will use this type of assignment so students are able to understand their own family history, but also so they are aware of the other students in the class background.  I will use this to introduce my history lesson on how America is called a melting pot and how all of the students are apart of this melting pot.

please add your background on this page so we as a group can discover and understand that our world is made up of so many different cultures! I feel that cultural awareness is very important in a classroom.

Stephanie:

My great grandparents came over from Czechoslovakia.  They spoke Slovak and my grandpa grew up speaking this language with both of his parents.  He had to help his mother communicate with neighbors because she spoke very little to no English.  When my great grandparents came over to the US by boat, they found a home for their selves and family on a farm in Rothbury, Michigan.  

Maggie: 

I am a first-generation Polish-American. My parents wanted to leave Poland because of communism so they came to Detroit, MI in 1987. A year later, I was born. We've been here ever since and every so often (not as often as I'd like) we go to Poland over summer vacations where my entire extended family still lives. I started kindergarten not being able to speak a word of English, and now, unfortunately, I speak better English than I do Polish. Nevertheless, I am still fluent in Polish and hopefully I'll pass the language on to my possible future children. My mom is still not very good at speaking English after having lived here for over 20 years, but my dad is good. I have to be a translator sometimes. 

Amanda T.: I am Finnish and German, and a tiny bit English. My great-grandparents are from Finland. There is a little bit of Finnish influence that has trickled down- certain foods and phrases. I only know one phrase, but I don't know how to spell it. It means "Don't lean back in your chair!" German traditions are also prominent in my family. At Christmas, we tie a pickle ornament (it used to be a real pickle!) on our tree and whoever finds it gets to open an extra present.  We have a huge genealogy binder at home, and there was a Tyler who came over on the Mayflower! Though my ancestry hails from few places, it's fun to enjoy the cultural aspects of each.

Amanda J.: My father's side of the family is very much a mystery, but there's a lot of French and Dutch influence.

My mother, however, loves family history lore and so she could tell me from where our family members came from. There's a lot of German and some Swedish and Dutch. One of the more interesting stories comes about from a small cluster who carries my grandfather's name, Wright. They claimed (on Ellis Island) that they were Irish, but Wright sounds pretty English to us. We found out that these folks stole horses to get the funds to go to America and are probably from England, not Ireland. The Irish thing is merely a cover-up.

Rebecca: My father's ancestors are originally from Germany, but a couple hundred years ago they moved to Russia and lived there for 2 hundred years.  They lived in a german area and lived only with german people, so I don't really have any russian ancestry.  The family then moved to Kansas and got a plot of 160 acres of land.  I don't remember what it was called, but it was when the president was offering 160 acres of land to people if they moved to the US and that is where they got the land.  My grandpa's first home was on this farm where he was one of nine children and he didn't learn English until he started school.  The farm is slightly smaller now, but is still in the family.  My grandpa's brother Gene now owns it, as he is the last one left.  My grandpa moved to Battle Creek, MI when he was drafted in WWII as an interpreter.  He was sent overseas, and my grandma waited for him in Michigan.  He sent home a parachute that he found in Germany and she made her wedding dress out of it.  I know less about my mom's side of the family. I know that my great-grandma came over on a ship when she was a teenager.  Her younger brother got lost on the ship when they were on the way here, and they couldn't find him for a long time and they thought maybe he had fallen off.  I know a lot about my dad's history because one of my distant relatives did a lot of research and made a book about our history.  I'm so glad that they did that.