We can trace it to pre-revolutionary 'America'. The person who discovered this is DAR-affiliated and wanted to shake things up there... we didn't. We're also Afro-Indigenous. Complicated origins, man. BUT, I delight in telling a certain type of person about it, though.

And for people like myself that can trace my roots deep in the 18th century in Texas, guess what? not great.

In the 18th century, Texas was Mexico.

Pedantic MFers are insufferable. You get the point, it was still part of Mexico sure, but that doesnt change my point which has nothing to do with this.

The sky is blue, what's your point?

1000% truth.

This is true, but the Native Americans trump all of us. Of my four grandparents, one branch of my mother's family goes back to the early 17th Century in Long Island. The other ancestors didn't get here until the 1830's, 1850's and 1890's.

On my white mom's side, the latest I can reach is 1830 or so? Father's? No records past a more recent point, but its millennia.

Also...

My white ancestors got here in the 1630s. My non-white ancestors were already here. I'm gonna get me my DAR membership just to tell them old racist bitches to sit their immigrant asses down.

I’ve got a census record of my grandmother, Grace Webster (b. 1896) and my great-grandmother, Marion Wall (b. 1879) 💕 💕

One side of my family arrived in 1657, the other in 1912.

adding to the anecdata: white jewish guy, late 1800s at the *absolute* earliest

Adding my own, as a white guy, my English family arrived in the 1920s. I guess I’m excluded as an American lol

Absolutely correct!

OMG! THIS. My family can trace its roots back to North Carolina in the 1700's. My cousin Dr. Jada Shipp took it one step further and did the genealogy back to West Africa. White people cant write Indigenious or Black people out of the history of this country. Nice try though 🤣

Trump knows very little about most everything.

I can trace my mother's side back to 1770, and I am SUPER PROUD of this. Since we lived in the same county for so long, and they kept great records, it was easier than I thought. My dad's side only goes back to about 1890 sadly

Mine, early 20th century. Jews fleeing pogroms in Russia, Ukraine, Poland. God knows what they’d encounter now.

Trump’s mother wasn’t born in the United States.

1700’s here - Irish Famine Group. There were several of those. Some driven by England.

I ain't an American, (thank you Jesus🙌🏾), but for so long I have been questioning why white folks who's ancestors were immigrants from Europe, and came though Ellis island, think they are more American than Black folks who were here for centuries? WTF is up with that shit? #FuckWhiteSupremacy

My grandparents arrived in the 1920’s.

I have an English name that goes back a thousand years. ...tho the amazing lack of information on my recent family tree suggests that my great grandfather, who everyone was afraid of, changed his name for "reasons unknown." I have no idea where we're really from, and I doubt I have "good genes."

Although we have had spurts of nativism at various points in the past, the through-line of Americanism is that it is voluntary, by choice, and that immigrants are welcomed and celebrated. Most Americans believe this. Why are we letting ourselves be drowned out by the few blood and soil lunatics?

There are Black folk who can trace it back to Thomas Jefferson

Now all I can think of is the K&P skit. 😂 Thomas Mother F'n Jefferson

Hilarious 🤣

I can trace my ancestry to Jamestown and Plymouth - A distinction of no real significance.

I have 18th century VA/NC/KY roots with my paternal line. The rest are so new European, starting in 1840 lol.

My grandparents came to America after World War I, Black people almost all have longer American lineages

so, basically far enough back to believe in the proposition ? 👍

Given the country's historical treatment of its black residents, it's not surprising that white immigrants were more common throughout most of its history.

Most white people in this country descend from immigrants who came here between 1870 and 1920. So the appeal Schmitt is making us not onky racist, it's off the mark in terms of demographic and historical accuracy.

I can trace my ancestry in this country too. I’ve learned a lot from using ancestry website. I have connected with a Half 3rd cousin through Shared DNA. We just wanna know where we come from. Where do we get this or that from? We just want to know who we are. Excerpt from my DNA summary.

Mixed race here with half the family with pre-revolutionary roots and the other half a first gen immigrant

And that’s why they want to erase the history, can’t challenge the narrative they want to push.

It’s fascinating as we’ve trying to trace our English and Irish _very_ working class ancestors and hit some dead ends around the same periods. A couple of strands get back to mid 18th century through random DNA hits but between the British destroying records and London poverty we have nothing.

I can trace mine back to the 1920s. Relatively shallow roots…

I once had a very illuminating argument with a right-wing guy on this subject who was pretty put out when I pointed out the ridiculousness of his position that I - kinda American, grew up in the UK, feel British - have a 'claim' to America that black Americans somehow don't have.

(Not least that he thought I was somehow being rude by not being grateful for being included in all this on racial terms)

I think about this often. Particularly now that I live in Charleston.

my old man came over here from Italy at the age of 6 months. My mom's side is Mexican and came over here on foot about 4 generations ago. Neither one has had it easy.

1880's (for the most part; Ireland, England, and Canada)

Only 1902. But I'm Jewish and some days we don't count.

I know at least one side was 1920s entry via Ellis Island. So not that long ago. Immigration then seemed like you kinda just showed up, filled out your form & went on your merry way, easily marrying, getting a job, etc with no hassle or lengthy waiting period for authorization.

First generation here. Counterpoint: family from Norway, which the nationalists think is a good place to come from.

I'm curious, could you add more context to that? I'd Google it but not even sure what terms to start with (There's some Norwegian a few generations back in my family tree but no one knows anything here )

Not to mention, when you're white and *can* trace your roots to the 16 or 1700s, it ... usually doesn't look good on those roots! (source: I'm a white Alston from the Carolinas)

The more pertinent story is that a handful of folk with 'shallow' roots in the US are hell bent on upending the pillars of this country. All the blood and suffering and guts, etc of 'deep' rooted folk be damned...

I gets so frustrating! My family tree was present before Europeans were here and added branches in basically every Northern and Central European wave of migration up until WWI. I'm the product of all of those waves, not a specific one, just like the US itself.

75% of my family arrived in the early 20th century through Ellis Island lol

My mom’s family arrived in Virginia from England in 1619 with a Royal Land Grant. I can’t imagine what they were fleeing that made the harsh wilderness start-up a better option. An uncle in NJ signed the DoI & was imprisoned, died, his family left paupers. We’re also immigrants fr 1900’s. mutts.

Probably religious persecution.

Which translates to "they won't let us cut off the tongues of people who missed our abusive church service." The first whites here were an evil lot.

I don’t know how enlightened i might have been given most were barely literate, sickly, malnourished & cold or hot depending on season. I’m brave not heroic. Going against the tide was life threatening. Fear ruled. Superstitions were gospel. God’s wrath seen everywhere…but for “grace” go we. Scary.

Some Quakers. Mostly Protestant 3rd sons, I guess. No inheritance.

I can only imagine there was a rich mix of motivations in that boat.

I still can’t imagine the courage &/or desperation it took to leave the known world & end up in cabins or lean-to’s. I balk at moving from 1 state to another. It was radical to cross the ocean & start with little or nothing. Setting aside the entire First Nations experience of it…

Moving to the other side of the world, at a time when that journey took months and wasn't particularly safe, was a BIG step. First Nations experience indeed a whole other (pretty horrific) thing.

I don't care how long my ancestors were in the United States, my future is in Canada.

And you're welcome. Let's make sure the same MAGA rot doesn't take over Canada as well. I'm starting to see very creepy rhetoric online.

1912 for me. Poland wasn’t a country then, just territory under the control of the Czar.

I'm probably one of the few who can be confident about 18th century linkages...though one of them is from Canada in the late 19th.

Ancestor was Hans Herr. He got a land grant from William Penn. I'm sad that not everyone can so easily trace their ancestry because their ancestors were stolen 😢

Good point. My maternal grandfather was born in Canada after his family moved from Ireland. That was 1919. I’m technically only 3rd generation.

I taught my nephew about the Gullah Geechee over the weekend. I am as melanin challenged as they make us, but I want to make sure he is learns things about his black half that they ain't gonna teach him.

and by "they" I mean the white dominated education system and world that is getting worse and worse

Can we stop with the casual racism you hear in news today? When they say, "people," they mean White Americans. Conversely, "People-of-color" is ridiculous. ~80% of humanity fits that label. If you're going to generalize, the WE are The People, THEY are "People-without-Color," the minority

My grandmother's family founded the first Polish community in the New World. 1848. A few years later the Thumb fire happened and they lost almost everything. The Irish side of my family however I can trace back to a rake poet in 1680. They didn't come here until at least the 1900s.

Clara Barton's newly founded Red Cross got its start helping survivors of the Great Fire. One of the volunteers spotted women lacking bonnets, said something about them not having to go about bonnet-less, and donated some to them. The fire would spare someone on one side of the road and...

...wipe out the other side of the road. Speculators, wealthy landowners who didn't live in the Thumb and just wanted to flip property for a profit, are in great part responsible for the fire. They "developed" land by draining swamps, clear-cut ting dense forests, and leaving remnants...

...of dead vegetation all over the place. They got their money, whilst families in the Thumb got burnt. There were large fires in 1861 and 1871, as well. The 1861 fire pushed frightened bears into the Thumb.

I believe I had shared this a while back, from the EJI sculpture garden here in Montgomery. The wall has the recorded last names taken by freedmen following emancipation.

trump's *mother* was foreign-born. four of his children have foreign-born mothers. deep roots.

Mine traces back to the 1600s (Mayflower) and the before times (Cherokee, Choctaw, and Wampanoag). My family helped build this country. Quite literally in some cases. (George Washington is my 1st cousin 9x removed.)

I realize I'm extremely lucky to be able to trace my ancestry back as far as I can. And there's Afro-Latino in my line that I have zero clue on where to begin with since it was all hush hush on my father's side via my great-grandfather.

Ten of thirteen colonies vote democratic

and for those of us whose families *have* been here for 400 years, our ancestor's "discoveries" and rich histories are often convoluted horseshit with the real heroes being all but forgotten. bsky.app/profile/imdo...

James Baldwin said, paraphrase - "This land is soaked in the blood of my ancestors. How can my right to be here even be questioned?" I, for one, refuse to let the sacrifice of my families' past enslavement be stolen by Trump and those racist scum white nationalists - his voters.

It’s so incredibly SHALLOW, to see other human beings in terms of skin colors, sexual orientation or identity, or economic status. Taking away their core humanity, is PSYCHOPATHIC.

My family on one side has more roots in Québec than the United States. I have ancestors going back basically to Samuel de Champlain. The other side wall foreign born going back to the 1870's. Only three generations born here before me.

Louis Hebert, am I right?

There is a reason so many white americans suffix their identity, and it's because many still have some feeling about being an immigrant, and having a family background with those roots. I happen to know my Irish great grandparents arrived on the RMS Teutonic. That ship wasn't built until 1889 lol.

According to the wikipedia page, it made its first voyage to Quebec (Where my ancestors arrived) between 1911-1914. That part of my family has thus been here, tops, 114 years. That is theoretically a single lifetime, not even two.

Black Americans are living monuments to American history. www.statesman.com/story/opinio...

In 1912, 99% of Black Americans in the US had been born here, while only 60% of whites.

I remember seeing a poster from 1910 by the City of Cleveland encouraging immigrants to enroll their kids in public schools. The same message was published in German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Italian, Swedish, and Yiddish

I bet.

My father’s family came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638. My mother’s family came through Ellis Island from Ireland in 1893. My take on this? I’m proud of, intrigued by, my family’s history. But I’m no more American than the person who went through the naturalization ceremony six months ago

Aside from some famine-era Irish immigrants and two sets of 3x great-grands who moved to Canada from England and whose kids moved to the US after marriage, it's all colonial ancestry for me.

I think I read somewhere that about half of white Americans are mostly or near wholly descended from pre-1800 settlers, who had massive families (myself included). Than there were the Irish and Germans mid 19th century, and the Ellis Islanders who arrived in the midst of the demographic transition.

Facts. My family can’t even trace them past my great grandparents. They’ve been trying too. And we’re not a close family at all so there’s that. I know we’ve been here awhile but 🤷🏼‍♀️

You beat me, we got here in 1857

All 4 of my grandparents born in Eastern Europe and all came here on or close to the year 1900.

1850. I yield to your superiority.

I think ancestry is a semi-interesting hobby. But man, when it's used as a basis for aNything else (much less actual Laws), it's so juvenile, so ridiculous, that I can't even.

I’ve never thought of it this way before, but as one of those with “relatively shallow white American roots” (20th century European immigrants), I have to say he has a point. Just illustrates how ridiculous the “blood and soil” crowd is.

I can trace my lineage through 3 of my grandparents to the 1600s on this continent and IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER! What makes a person a true American is believing in liberty and justice for ALL. Full stop.

😂😂😂

Your family arrived here much earlier than mine (my mother was an immigrant; my paternal grandmother was a refugee from Tsarist pogroms; my paternal great-grandparents were potato famine Irish.)

Ironically, I somehow have it both ways. One side of my family came here on the Mayflower, the other moved here from Canada in 1949.

Yep I'm a white American and we can only trace the family back to about 1900.

All four sets of my great grandparents didn’t come here until the early 1900s. I’m sure that’s common with many Americans.

Same.

Tracing my wife’s family tree there’s this big, depressing, wall at the 1860 Census. There’s a single line beyond that where a distant cousin got the Ancestry dot com DNA test and linked to the slave owner who, well, you know.

It gets expensive after that. One needs to figure out which areas the family lived in and when, and peruse old wills, estates, tax, sales, and other records in search of any names and ages that might have been written down. It takes learning about the whites in the area. Eats the soul.

Genealogy absolutely can be expensive. I can't recommend familysearch.org enough. It's free because it's part of the Mormon ministry. I've had an account for years, and they have never been evangelical about their faith. There are loads of the docs you mentioned available for free.

What I mean by expensive is that the kinds of records that Black People have to seek out have not been digitised. They lie dusty on shelves buried in the bowels of libraries, courthouses, attics of old mansions. One needs to afford transportation, hotel, and sometimes entrance fees. Food, laundry.

One also needs the knowledge of where it is safe to lodge overnights, access restrooms, and procure vittles.

I am a white. I have been able to trace some lines of my tree to the Renaissance and Medieval Eras using FamilySearch dot org. That sort of privilege does not extend to Black People.

It true that only a fraction of genealogical records are digitized. Still best to start with what is free and online.

I’ve paid to have military records searched out and digitised in the hopes that a disability report might mention an ancestor. I have tiny volumes listing Black names in wills. I have thought about the specialized databases that aren’t covered by Ancestry or FamilySearch.

Did you go through the Freeman's Bureau records?

Going forward from that wall, though, is kind of inspiring. A founder of Brooklyn, IL, the first Black incorporated town in the US. So many churches founded by her ancestors. So many soldiers.

Anyone claiming that “white” Americans have some unique claim to America should have to do research into Black genealogy. Read the account of a Black forefather buying PART of his family out of slavery in 1832. Read how his progeny didn’t reject the nation, but fought to preserve it.

And, maybe, reckon with the fact that 2 million Black people died in the Middle Passage.

The 14th Amendment is my favourite in part because it resets who is and isn't American every generation. I think that's beautiful. If you were born here to immigrant parents you're as American as I am even though my ancestors have been here for 300 years. It's a beautiful thing

We were able to look up the last known plantation one of my great grandparents was at, but somehow JD Vance is more American than my family despite his family not being in the US until the 1900s at the earliest

It's the same with Natives. We've been here for 20,000+ years, but some white people still think we are lesser.

This is a fact that I've had to remind my Republican brother about on more than one occasion. It also bears mentioning that some 5000 Black soldiers fought for America during the Revolution. They made up roughly 20% of the total force.

My dad’s family was here before the American Revolution so I must be more American than Trump.🤷‍♀️

Oh, if time is the measure, your family could have gone to America long after that and still be more American than that sack of fermenting dung. 1/n

Fred Trump's parents were German. Fred's father went to the Klondike during the gold rush and made his money as a brothel-keeper. He returned to Germany and tried to get permission to remain, but he was expelled because he'd been a draft dodger. 2/n

The family moved to NYC a year or two before Fred was born in 1905. (They spoke German at home.) Trump's mother was a Gaelic-speaking illegal immigrant from Scotland. She arrived in the USA in 1930. 3/3

Can we go back to the part where we consider Trump a typical American. Feels like the premise is off.

Peregrine White

I can trace some of mine to Jamestown and the Mayflower and what I know about them is they were all starving to death until indigenous people and your ancestors showed up. My folks were not prepared for what it took to survive and thrive

Nearly all of my ancestry can be traced to the German immigration wave in the 1880s-1890s, on both sides. There is one line that goes back to the British American period. So yes, most Black folks have deeper American ancestry than I do. FWIW

I can with certainty trace back to James Keith, Sr., who came to VA from Scotland in 1720 after being on the losing side of the first Jacobite Rebellion. Other family lines I can trace with less certainty to mid-1600s VA. DNA test says I have 2.8% Sub-Sahara African. No idea where that came from.

For most of the last 300 years, my known ancestors lived in trans-Allegheny Virginia, so had less opportunity to intermarry with later European immigrants.

Similar cases with Irish from the Great Famine. And faced the same kind of fear-mongering an anti-immigrant sentiments. Probably part of why the most rabid nativists are second/third generation Americans.

It's a matter of shame and disappointment to me, as a first-generation Irish immigrant, that the descendants of the famine Irish have forgotten where they came from, the greatest of Irish sins. When I got here I was "Yes, you support the IRA, of whom you know nothing, but why are you a racist?"

Even if you know it might not help. There’s a wall caused by the British destroying records and the habit of birth recorders using Latin and mangling family names that makes it hard. Plus to say the Irish had a lack of imagination on names is an understatement.

We have 2 families from the village both the same last name. Not related but with identical names in both generations born at almost the same time.

Want to know something weirder? There are two groups of American Harbisons -- Catholics and Protestants. We have entirely different DNA. No genetic relation whatsoever, at least since 1700. Of course, I have a theory :-)

The Cappamore McNamarra’s are the same - it’s odd. But the generations before that are an intertwined bush.

Actually, we destroyed the records. The side that rejected the Treaty holed up in the Four Courts in Dublin in 1922; the Irish Army shelled them, and the building caught fire. Almost all the census records before 1901 were destroyed. Baptismal records is what we got.

The baptismal ones are not for the faint hearted. Between Latin and handwriting and the mangling of names you need to be pretty focused to try and figure it out.

I have practice. :-)

Good luck :)

There were priests with good penmanship, and priests with not-so-good penmanship. The latter are spending extra time in purgatory. :-)

Mack Namara is annoying. Neale is worthy of eternal punishment.

The census records were destroyed by the British before that to hide the numbers of the famine.

That’s what I heard? As there are later records. We have late 19th century limerick records but nothing mid century.

the east coast (not looking at you but definitely looking at you, boston) is full of bhoyos who have fallen in love with the feeling of holding the cudgel. we with irish ancestry in this country would do well to remember as warsan shire wrote "no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark"

it was thus for our elders, and they weep at our weak memories. bernadette devlin, revered in my home, spoke about this at length, and about it as a boston phenomenon specifically but i know the same foresaken and forsaking critters in new york.

Yeah, I recall that after visiting the US she felt more solidarity with black Americans than Irish-Americans.