I grew up with this question on my mind:
"Who are my ancestors, where did I come from?"
As I grew older I discovered a great find
My relatives hailed from a country called Poland.
With the help of relatives and genealogical sources
4 generations of moms side, 2 generations of dads found.
My sister and one cousin have become ancestral obsessed, of course.
They've flown to Poland, visited cemeteries, met relatives in a town.
What has been discovered pieces plenty more together
but wait there are ties missing somewhere in between.
There was no trouble viewing overseas census/town ledgers.
In free America it is a SIN to try to find your kin.
How dare our birth church forbid knowledge, it's public domain!
We want to learn more about our bloodline ancestry.
To forbid us sight of common records is a crying shame.
I want my children's grandchildren to be able to know me.
This is only one roadblock my family recently hit.
I am certain we will hurdle it well before our time on earth is done.
Someone in our lineage will someday ask a relative
This burning little question, "Who are my ancestors, where do I come from?"
Author notes
My family is becoming closer in finding more ancestrial generations dating as far back as the mid to late 1700's on moms side(Ukraine). WE are still trying to piece together my dads side(Poland). We have only 30% complete and go back 2 incomplete generations on dad's side. So much for Ellis Island records. How dare they change the spellings. Geesh makes it so much harder. Not to mention there was a port in New jersey that many landed at instead of ellis island and there seem to be no records for that trail of immigrants. SAD.
Written April 24th, 2006
To me I may have been born in America and be an american by birth, but I am much more than that. My soul, my family heritage is part of that equation answer of "where do i come from?". I enjoy learning more and more details about my ancestry and indulge in the telling of it to my children. Everything found is documented safely so that it can be passed down to each of our next generations and decendants with no falsehoods. We have even discovered we have some croation and hungarian and posibly some slovak in the lineage.
A contest entry
- Please come and take a look by celestial.
300 points, ended June 12, 2007, 20 entries
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What did you think
Comments
1 - 14 of 14
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What touched me the most was something you said in your author's comments,
"To me I may have been born in America and be an american by birth, but I am much more than that."
This is, I think, how everyone should feel. I think they should take pride in who they are today... but also embrace where you came from.... This wasn't exactly what I was looking for but I liked it very very much and it took what I was looking for and did something a little deeper! Very nice... wonderful job -
: )
It's good that you're findding out your family's history. I don't have it easy either. My family came here in the 1980s From Guyana, and the Indo-Guyanese came from India. So it's hard for me to trace to even the 1800s. Good luck with the search, and the contest : ) -
I tried to do this once but got so fustrated that I gave up
Yuo are right it is impotant to know where you can from
maybe I will give it another shot
good write
and don't give up you came to far -
genealogy frustrates me so i stay away from it and i think that you have hit all the reasons why. thank you for sharing this wonderful write with me. vilanger
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Something to ponder for sure. I have researched mine and only wish I could do so much more. Thank you for sharing this wonderful write. God bless.
Rose -
OOH this is really interesting, i have tried to do my family tree but found it extremely difficult,keep up the hard work and i hope that you succeed. well done
X tragedy X -
WONDERFUL PATTI
This is beautiful Patti, I have very little about my family on either side, The only thing I have is a hand written letter from my grandmother telling the story of two twins who came here from England around 1830, it is a very interesting story and all that I have. I am glad that you have found quite a bit of yours.
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Very nice write, well done and beautifully penned
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yay!
This was really good, definately make me think. Good Job! -
hmmm...LDS church? where is the link for that? i am not sure if we looked there? most of our research had been in Poland amd the morman Utah genealogical research center.
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Great words, goed poem and happy hunting!!
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I think this is great. We should all be concerned with where we came from. It matters more where we end up; but still we should know. I wish you the best in your searches and trials.
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You can do a lot of research online, especially through the websites that offer..like The LDS Church. Have you tried that source? This is an absolutely fab write and I love it 'cause I like knowing about my ancestors, too!
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creative
Pretty interesting topic to write about, itis like archilogical-poetry, i bet if you marketted this you could make some money out of it... or sold artifacts for that matter.
Nonetheless i truly enjoyed this poem and I thank you for sharing!
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