Did your ancestors immigrate legally?

[uppityperson]

Did your ancestors immigrate legally? Did they enter the USA totally legally, through legal channels, do the appropriate legal paperwork, pay the right legal fees, live in the right legal places, work at legal jobs?

Edited to add that I'm not sure if slaves were legal or not. Since slavery was legal but totally immoral (in the USA), that would be yes. Since slavery was illegal in whatever place they got kidnapped from, no. Good question. Will add another choice.

Edited further to add I'm not meaning to get into whether or not American Indians/Native Americans (whichever term you wish to use without offense) were legal immigrants since the current debate seems to focus more on more recent history). Hence that choice.

My apologies for missing the AI/Slavery choices in the first poll. Sorry all who have voted so far and my apologies to those who fit into those categories for missing them.

[elehhhhna]

1. yep. all listed at Ellis Island archives.

[chefgirl]

13. As are mine

Which is why, I must admit, I dont feel too much pity for those who did come here illegally.

Having said that, I believe that illegal immigrants themselves are the smallest part of the problem.

The real problems have to do with a stagnated INS buerocracy, which makes it damned near impossible to come here legally these days, the unwillingness of local and federal gov't agencies to prosecute the companies that hire them, and the bullshit spewing forth from the White House about 'jobs Americans won't do'.

If these corporations/companies weren't fully committed to having a near slave labor work force, if they would accept that paying a living wage is part of the price of doing business in this country, and if they were made to pay their fare share by our gov't, there would be very few jobs for illegal immigrants to fill.

-chef-

[_testify_]

15. mine too.

Along with relatives I didn't know about until I looked at the passenger manifests!

[readmoreoften]

2. No clue. /nt

[yellowcanine]

3. Most of mine immigrated in the 1700s before there was a U.S.A. So

I suspect they immigrated legally according to the King of England but maybe not according to the native Americans. Take your pick.

[Momgonepostal]

17. Right, same here

I have ancestors who came over on the Mayflower. That may have been technically legal, since there were no immigration laws, but that doesn't put them on morally higher ground than modern day illegals, particularly when you consider what the Pilgrims and those who came after them did to the native peoples.

[sandnsea]

59. Mine were French

So I guess they followed whatever process after the Louisiana Purchase, or the ones born here were citizens and it just went on from there. The only English one I know of was an indentured servant. I don't know how the one German ancestor got here.

[AndyTiedye]

63. Same Here

[CottonBear]

71. My Scots-Irish ancestors immigrated in the 1700s as well (before USA.)

I suppose the Native Americans didn't particulary like the new immigrants to the Western NC Mountains.

[Adelante]

74. Dutch, French, English

I know the Indians didn't think they were legal, but the colonial powers of the day surely did.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

83. Scots-Irish, English, German, and Italian...all before the Rev. War.

[wicket]

4. Some did, some were already here

n/t

[linazelle]

5. Was slavery legal?

:shrug:

[uppityperson]

8. Now that is a good question, will see if I can modify the poll.

very good question.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

6. Most did legally but ...

I have some doubts about the French branch of the family

[Gidney N Cloyd]

Ladies and gents, I am now doing "post-911 thinking"

[NoPasaran]

7. Three of four grandparents came through Ellis Island

One grandfather, things are a little hazy.

[uppityperson]

24. Mine also PERHAPS, may have at least 1 illegal

3 of 4 perhaps came through Ellis Islan, 1 not sure of. However, 1 greatgrandparent may not be the one "officially" greatgrandparent since parentage may not be accurately known. If this greatgrandparent is whom we think, rather than offically perscribed, is an illegal immigrant.

[smirkymonkey]

94. Same Here...

The Italian Grandparents also learned English fluently in a few years, although they spoke Italian if they didn't want other poeple to know what they were saying.

[dflprincess]

9. There wasn't much immigration control when my ancestors got here

Some of my dad's family was here by 1700 and most the rest of my relatives showed up during the Irish Famine. Though, I imagine the descendents of the family that was here by 1700 shook their heads in disgust when the rest of what would be my family was getting off the boat around 1847.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. Are illegal immigrants doing anything your ancestors didn't do?

Nope.

[Igel]

33. Yep. n/t

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

44. What's that?

[Igel]

118. Being here illegally.

Agitating for praise for being here illegally.

Trying to argue that their ethnicity, their numbers, their lack of money, their poor prospects in their home, their lack of education, or the fact that they worked here illegally rather than elsewhere legally means they deserve rights that the law-abiding people elsewhere don't have.

Put the demand that others provide them with rights and respect ahead of showing sensitivity to responsibilities and showing respect.

I can go on but it would probably be pointless.

[Robbie Michaels]

11. My Grandparents Did Not Come Here Legally

They swam across the Rio Grande and fled into Texas around 1920 when the border was open. Their immediate family members also came across around that time period. Some stayed and assimilated into society, while others went back to Mexico during the Great Depression when they couldn't find work. That's why I have relatives on both sides of the border.

One of my grandparents was German. She's been dead for almost twenty years so I don't know much about her. I have no idea if she or her parents were legal or not. I'm assuming not.

You have to understand times were different time back then. According to my mother, the Mexicans patrolled the border to keep their citizens from emigrating. They would even shoot their own citizens as they tried to cross into Texas.

Imagine that.

[Kali]

31. hee hee no offense to anybody, but knowing my German friends

every i was dotted, every t crossed, and the underwear was ironed.

[goclark]

12. A few were indentured servants from England that were

put on boats to work here. Probably two at most.

My g grandmother was the child of White Indentured Servants from England.
They lived in Caroline County VA.

All of the rest of my family members, as far as I can learn from ancestry.com and other sources, came to America on slave ships and brought to this country, in chains.

Those Ropes and Chains were LEGAL at the time.

Does it make me angry still, you bet!

[Bridget Burke]

14. I can't be sure....

But the most recent ones came legally. All they had to do was show up at Ellis Island without TB. "Welcome to the USA!"

It was lots easier then. Especially for the whites.

[Zynx]

16. I'm not certain. Probably, but not certain about it.

[LisaM]

18. Yes, starting in 1635, and I support open immigration now

The last one I know of came (legally) from Ireland around 1918.

[Solon]

19. Technically no...

His name was John Billington, came over on the Mayflower and has the PROUD distinction of being the first Anglo that was Hanged on American soil for shooting a tresspasser. I don't think the Natives approved. Also, another note, his kids, before the ship left dock, almost blew it up, but that's another story.

[hippywife]

20. All of mine did.

I'm third generation on both sides but I bear no animosity toward any immigrants at all. They are doing what anyone would do when faced with the issue of survival...whatever it takes.

[Boomer]

21. Let's see now...

The West European Boomers probably came over in the late 1700s or early 1800s, so I'm assuming their entrance was legal. (I suspect they made up for their legitimacy by breaking laws once they got here.)

My mother was a Mexican citizen who gained legal resident status by marrying my father (and before that she was here legally as the daughter of a Mexican diplomat assigned to an embassy in the Southwestern U.S.). She was proud of her origins and never relinquished her Mexican citizenship, although she could have easily obtained U.S. citizenship if she had desired it.

[Reader Rabbit]

22. Not sure

I think my maternal grandfather's ancestors were sent over as inmates for the Georgia penal colony. Would that be considered legal or illegal?

The rest, I have no idea.

[Akoto]

23. I have no idea.

I know my ancestors were French (sorry, does that make me a Freedomite now? :P), but that's about it!

[ginnyinWI]

25. German farmers and tradesmen, coming for the great Western expansion.

At that time, around the mid- 1800s, the edge of the frontier was Illinois and Minnesota. A few Scots, French and Swiss were already in the mix.

[TahitiNut]

26. Clue: 'Native Americans' are ALL descendants of immigrants.

This romantic notion that aboriginal people in the Americas are somehown not descended from people who left their lands and 'immigrated' to the Americas is just plain false. I was born in this land, and that makes me a 'native'!

That does NOT make me unaware of the atrocities committed by western European immigrants and their descendants. The disgust I have for the genocide of indigenous peoples in the 16th through 19th centuries does not delude me into some romantic mythological notion that they weren't (the first) immigrants!

[uppityperson]

32. I used "Native American" as some still use PC for Indian/AmIndian

I am not trying to romanticize them, just trying to not offend by using term "Indian".

[Solon]

40. Its not offensive, just avoids confusion...

My best friend in High School was an Indian, and my first Girlfriend was Native American, do you know the difference?

[TahitiNut]

58. The romanticizing isn't in the words chosen for reference ...

... it's in the inference that they were somehow not immigrants or descendants of immigrants just like EVERYBODY else in the Western Hemisphere.

[texastoast]

61. Yeah, but you gotta admit

it was a long, long time ago. Thousands upon thousands of years ago, as opposed to a few hundred.

[TahitiNut]

70. I can trace my paternal grandfather's ancestry back to mid-17th century ..

... immigration from lowland Scotland. My maternal grandparents were immigrants from Norway less than 90 years ago. All were 'legal' according to the 'laws' of their time. Nonetheless, I'm a 'native' - with no greater or lesser legitimacy than them or anyone else born here.

How can we even begin to honor the efforts and labors of our immigrant ancestors who complied with the law and worked to create a heritage for their descendants without democratically establishing our own laws and complying with them and enforcing them? I'm all for legal immigration and enlarging the (legal) welcome mat. That includes paying for a sufficient administrative workforce in the INS/ICE to handle such immigration and naturalization in a reasonable time - less than the 14-year abomination we're seeing today.

There are over three billion people on the planet who're more economically and socially oppressed than those crossing our southern border. (Look at Darfur.) I feel pretty confident that at least 1/3rd of them would come here if they could. Do we have the room? According to current estimates, about 20% of the citizens of Mexico currently reside in the US. These are people who have the legitimate right to vote in Mexico and work toward democratically improving the quality of life and justice systems in that country. Why haven't we imposed 'regime change' on Mexico? Why haven't we insisted that Mexico's ruling elite clean up their plutocratic act? Corporatism is why. That's the very heart and core of the problem and until it's addressed we're going to see blood in the streets.

But I'm repeating myself. (sigh)
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/TahitiNut/110
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/TahitiNut/215
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/TahitiNut/223

[texastoast]

76. Mid-17th Century there were no immigration laws

that I know of.

"How can we even begin to honor the efforts and labors of our immigrant ancestors who complied with the law and worked to create a heritage for their descendants without democratically establishing our own laws and complying with them and enforcing them?"

Hey, I'm with you, since we are stuck in this divine creation called America now. We haven't imposed regime change on Mexico for the same reason we haven't imposed it on China. They are making money for the goldhats at the top of the American food chain.

God, I wish it were the year 1400, and I lived in North America.

[TahitiNut]

96. I think it'd be interesting to tell that to French or Spanish ships ...

... arriving in British colonial ports - or to British or French ships arriving in Spanish colonial ports. The boundaries and methods may have been a LOT different, but it was the MONARCHICAL "Ownership Society" that made the rules and enforced them. Make no mistake, it's "ownership" that aggregates the power to make the rules to help the wealthy get wealthier.

The current "objective" of corporate exploiters of cheap labor is being served - with a 'guest worker' program that merely decriminalizes hiring workers who cannot vote and who get deported if they rock the boat.

When corporations hold the controls over who gets and who does not get health care, our health care system goes into the toilet - in less than 50 years! When corporations hold the controls over whether a person can stay in their home or must be deported, the labor system goes into the toilet - in less than 30 years!

I am 100% AGAINST employers holding the controls over affordable health care.
I am 100% AGAINST employers holding the controls over whether workers get deported or can stay in their homes.

I am for LABOR rights.

[havocmom]

98. Pssst, am channeling Sam Gompers at present...

He said to tell you thanks.

[TahitiNut]

99. Maybe I'm guided by the spirit of a dear departed friend of my family ...

... Walter Reuther. I, of course, was fairly young (10-14yo) when he and his wife May would visit and our family would have summer picnics in the 'yard' (a couple of acres and three modest houses in the country compound) with them. (Their 'compound' was far more comfortable, of course, but only got one peek at it back then.) That's on one side of my family. On the other, my paternal grandfather was a part-time labor union organizer back when John L. Lewis' UMWA was unionizing the mining companies in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio, both before and after the NRA. He was black-balled by mining companies and occasionally harassed by the Klan. I guess I got some of his genes.

Funny. The majority of my career has been spent as a corporate 'droid - GM, Xerox, AMD, IBM, etc. Living in "the belly of the beast" was one way to avoid the teeth ... sometimes. :silly:



"The union miner cannot agree to the acceptance of a wage principle which will permit his annual earnings and his living standards to be determined by the hungriest unfortunates whom the non-union operators can employ." - John L. Lewis
Too bad this isn't well-understood these days.

[texastoast]

109. Well, if you can find the rules in place

from about 1710-1735, I would surely like to read them. Seriously, I couldn't find anything, but I haven't been to the legal libraries. And it would be interesting to see how the British and French controlled the Dutch immigration.

[TahitiNut]

112. It takes an understanding of the Age of Monarchies.

It must be remembered that ALL enterprise was under the total control of the monarchies ... even shipping. The "means of production" were totally owned and controlled by the monarchy. Indeed, the very notion of 'capitalism' was the argument that there should be "private (not monarchical) ownership of the means of production." In other words, the bourgeoisie wanted a "piece of the action." There was really no difference between the state and global enterprise - they were one in the same. If the King didn't want certain people "on his lands" then they weren't there - simple as that. Ships were either owned by or under the protection ("entitlements") of the monarchies. Those that weren't were pirates - and even those were called 'privateers' when sanctioned by a monarch.

Even the Dutch East India Company was a state-sanctioned monopoly, like the British East India Company. It was the global state corporation that facilitated Dutch colonialism which, as we might recall, was hardly benign.

The very notion of the people in some 'nation' having a say in "immigration policy" would have been laughable, if comprehended at all. After all, they were living on the King's (or Queen's) land, living in a house they didn't own.

[texastoast]

34. That's right, we are descendants of Africans

National Geographic has an article in the March issue about how the earliest genetic markers (of which we all have some) come from African peoples.

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/about.html

[TahitiNut]

60. Yep. East Africa. There's something very comforting to me in that.

I find far more comfort than unease in the idea that we're all cousins with a common family tree. Of course I'd really LIKE to think I'm more closely related to Halle Berry and Salma Hayek than the Chimp, but that's another story. :evilgrin:

[Xithras]

111. OT: Yes and no, the east africa theory has been taking blows.

There have been some recent fossil finds in Morocco and South Africa that are putting the East African model under increased scrutiny. There's an increasing belief that our proto-human ancestors actually ranged all over Africa, and that the East African sites simply show more fossils because the drier environment there preserved the bones better and makes them easier to access.

[Yupster]

68. If people have been around for a million years

or so, then for 95 % of that time, there were no people in the New World at all. We're all pretty recent immigrants to the New World relatively speaking, even the Indians.

[texastoast]

75. I think the earliest bones are about 5.2 million years old

Of that time, we didn't wander much, true. However, my point is that the Native Americans have been here for much longer than other folks. 10,000 years as opposed to 500. Many of the "hispanic" people today belong to that 10,000-year-old bunch.

Never fails, what goes around comes around.

[texastoast]

27. I don't think the country was in place then

for the early Pennsylvania Dutch bunch. The Irish bunch, yes, through Ellis Island. The Brit and German side, not sure.

:shrug:

[LiberalEsto]

28. My parents and grandmother came here in 1949

from a displaced persons camp in Germany. They were refugees from Estonia. And it was damned hard for them to get here, even though they spoke fluent English. But they played by the rules.

[RaleighNCDUer]

29. Other than the German side of my Dad's family thru Ellis Island,

all my known ancestors came before there were any legal restrictions, ranging from 1690 (earliest) to 1870s, making it a moot question.

The vast majority of 'illegals' would gladly be legal, if the process was made faster and fairer. Easing the restrictions would make it easier to weed out the very few real criminals that slip in with the people looking for work.

[foreverdem]

30. All of mine came legally

I found them all on the Ellis Island and Castle Garden websites. They were all processed at either port, and although my Irish ancestors had it the hardest, they all found work.

[juajen]

35. Absof***inglutely. No illegal immigrants, except for the original English

My family is pre-revolutionary war on the English/Native American side and on my mother's side, we are French who came over to fight with General Lafayette. For that service, my ancestor was given a land grant in Alabama. My great, great, great whatever was the first settler with electricity in the state of Alabama; and, no, we did not participate in slavery. I'm not sure why, maybe because we were so very French.

Odd isn't it that I would end up in Lafayette, LA, when my great, great, great whatever was named Lafayette (he was called Fayette for short) and was, of course, named after that famous General with whom his father fought. BTW, my ancestor was an officer and fought alongside Gen. Lafayette and Gen. Washington; hence the land grant.

By the time my Mother inherited, she received 300 acres. So many divisions later, that must have been a huge land grant. Sorry I don't remember how much originally.

[longship]

36. Ellis Island

At the turn of the 20th century, when the USA basically took "Give us your tire, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free." serious. Those words mean nothing to the people in power now.

[VOX]

37. I have no idea...Scottish, Irish, Huguenots, English, Dutch...

Some probably came "legally," whatever that meant in the 1700s-1800s.

But it's a safe bet that some were on the lam (Georgia = debtor's colony), or were fleeing religeous persecution, probably without time or interest in any required legalities of the day.

[qanda]

38. Perhaps you should add another choice

My ancestors were slaves and there was NOTHING legal about them coming here and I refuse to say that it was legal.

[uppityperson]

54. added

even though it was legal to own slaves in the USA, it was not legal to steal them and I don't think slavery should EVER be legal. Is what I wrote ok?

[bleedingheart]

39. The majority of mine came legally from overseas that was the only way

to do it..

I know of only 1 who did it illegally...he went to Cuba legally and worked on the sugar plantations until he took a merchant marine ship to canada...from there he was illegally transported into the US ...

He gained amnesty during WWII because he was a farmer and his efforts were viewed to be part of the war effort..

[Cleita]

41. I said all of them did.

However, there is the question of my Dutch ancestors who settled in New Amsterdam, now NYC. History says that they purchased Manhattan from the indians, and that was where they settled in what is known today as Harlem so it would beg the question as to whether they took land from the indians legally or illegally.

[bleedingheart]

45. I am confused by the questions myself because were there rules

on immigration in the 1600's through say the 1800's ???

I am not familiar enough with those laws to know.

My family is rather new to the US...most of the immigrated in the late 1800's or early 1900's...the first immigrant worked to sponsor the subsequent family members that came over...

[TechBear_Seattle]

42. Several of my ancestors immigrated illegally

One set of ancestors came over as willing settlers. Another few were forceably emigrated for siding with the losers in the British Civil War. I doubt either group filled out landing cards and had them filed with the proper Native American authorities.

[Minnesota Libra]

43. All my ancestors were either here from the very beginning,........

....yes that means before Columbus or they came here through Ellis Island so yes ALL my ancestors came here legally.:applause:

[aquart]

46. Grandpa slipped over the Canadian border into the US.

There were some awkward questions about, I dunno, dynamite...he didn't want to answer.

[SeattleVet]

47. Most of them did, but some of the others had already been here

for many generations and met them when they arrived in the 16- and 1700s.

How many freepers would be here now if some of my ancestors had a strong immigration policy in place?

[bowens43]

48. By legally do you mean

come over on a boat with a bunch of armed thugs, murder those already living here and steal their land?

Then yes.

[uppityperson]

56. Yes, that is what I mean

ironic, isn't it.

[catmandu57]

49. Some were here waiting

Others from my father's side were scotch-irish who came here pre revolution and promptly joined the rabble rousers having a score to settle with the english.
The rest, those on my mothers side who weren't here already all came shortly after the revolution when there wasn't any laws about emmigration.

[Arkansas Granny]

50. I've never checked any immigration papers or archives, so I can't

be positive, but since they had to cross oceans to get here, I'm reasonably certain that they were legal.

[HereSince1628]

51. Did they stay legal once they were here? Hmm, there's a Pilgrim rub

I share this bit of family history with you to remind you all that border jumping and illegal "immigration" go back to the roots of European occupation of North America.

My 11th great grandfather was a 'legal' colonist, a yeoman even. He bought in to the Mass. Bay Co. as a free man. So far so good.

But he and a dozen or so other yeomen quickly were fed up with the share they got in what they felt was mostly the worst land in the area of Lynne (sp?)MA.
So, these disgruntled good old English boys, in purely puritan form, bought a small sloop, collected up their goods and family members, and proceeded to try to squat on Dutch colonial land on Long Island. They apparently even took down a territorial marker clearly stating the land they had squatted on was Dutch.

To make a not very long story even shorter, they got their illegal asses chased out by the Dutch when the local aboriginals squealed to the Governor's men.

Rebuffed, but undaunted in their quest, my ancestors and the intrepid band to which they belonged went on to buy land from the local natives and founded Southampton, Long Island. They petitioned for recognition by the Company and England and got it. But, that was only _after_ the had accomplished their little deed.

[BlackVelvet04]

52. Most of my ancestors

were here before the revolutionary war so I would say yes. A gg grandmother was Native American.

[Bridget Burke]

55. Do you have their papers?

If they went through legal steps, surely they got special permission.

Or--did they come back when anybody white was allowed in?

[rene moon]

53. No

My great-grandparents came up from Puebla, Mexico during the Revoultion. There was no "border" of any kind--no fence, wall or barbed wire then. So they just walked north and landed in Tucson, AZ.

[kwassa]

57. Both mother and father's families arrived in 1636.

Mother's side help found what was then the village of Roxbury, Mass. Father's side moved to New Hampshire coast.

[Blue_Tires]

62. ancestors were slaves.....n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

64. They all came over before the 1920s, which was when the

immigration laws were tightened up.

My German ancestors were middle-class and came on a regular passenger ship. My Norwegian ancestors I don't know much about. My Latvian grandfather jumped ship and spent his first night in America on a park bench in Hoboken, New Jersey, so I guess that by today's definition, he was illegal.

However, he had been educated back in Latvia, and he eventually earned a college degree, a master's degree, and a law degree.

[ken-in-seattle]

65. Well they left France illegally...

Abandoning the family lands and bribing the catholic garrison assigned to oppress them.

But here they slipped into the swamps north of Charles Town SC (Charleston) and traded with the Indians that had not already been killed by smallpox or the Spanish.

That was approx 1670. The Lords Proprietors probably never noticed them or recorded their passing. More relatives arrived soon after that and were recorded...

On my fathers side they were driven from their land for refusing to become Christians and take a last name... Eventually they were assigned one and most became miners and emigrated whereever there was coal. Ended up here a few generation later in the coal mines and train yards across the east coast.

Approx 1790

At the time there were no quotas and damn little record keeping for immigrants.


But it is hard to imagine either bloodline has maintained any kind of purity so I can only assume some of my ancestors were indeed illegal.

I know for sure some were outlaws of one sort or another.

[puerco-bellies]

66. Apache Nation Baby!! Now get the hell out if you entered after 1491

If not at least honor all treaties with the Native Nations.

[etherealtruth]

67. Mine immigrated in the 1700's ...

...however, they immigrated to what would become Canada ... 3 of my grandparents immigrated to the US legally ... my paternal grandmother did NOT.

[AngryAmish]

69. Mom yes, Dad no

He falsified some of his immigration papers to get here. But he became a citizan as soon as he could.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

72. My grandmother and mother crossed the border in 1919.

I don't know if my grandmother was "legal" or not. But, I do know that she wouldn't have given a damn either way. My mother later married a "yank" so I'm pretty sure she was legal.

[DemExpat]

73. Mom's side in the 1800s, Dads came through Ellis Island in 1926.

All from northern Europe/Scotland.

DemEx

[AllieB]

77. Mine came from Europe through Canada in the 19th century

I'm pretty sure that they crossed the border illegally. I guess I should go back to the British Isles.

[B Calm]

78. My grandparents went through Ellis Island in 1911

[SemiCharmedQuark]

79. What a bullshit question..back when "legally" included just about everyone

If the point of this poll is to defeat the "we are all immigrants" idea, it's pathetic. If the immigration process was the same now as it was in the days of Ellis Island, I guarantee you, Mexicans would be coming here "legally". But they would STILL be accused of undercutting wages, because all of the other LEGAL immigrants were accused of the same thing.

On Edit: Yes my ancestors came here legally. That didn't stop asshole bigots from deporting my grandmother and all her siblings while her father was away.

[uppityperson]

93. Thank you for taking time to respond to a "bullshit" pathetic question

The point is NOT to "defeat we are all immigrants idea" but to see how many ancestors WERE immigrants as most people in the USA descend from immigrants. Sounds like your grandmother and sibs got shafted.

[npincus]

80. steerage, baby, steerage.

[slackmaster]

81. Some of mine arrived in North America before there was a USA

The last batch, including my father's father's father, arrived from Germany in 1874.

[Retrograde]

82. The immigration laws were designed to keep people like my ancestors out

Mine were all in the first wave of mass migration from eastern Europe, late 1800s. AFAIK, there were no immigration quotas then: those came about in the 1920s specifically to keep people like them, and immigrants from Southern Europe, from "taking over" the country. Y'know, with their strange inhuman sounding languages and their weird customs.

Not that this stops certain of my relatives from complaining when modern immigrants act the same way their grandfathers and grandmothers did.

[Ron Mexico]

84. All of those who emigrated do so legally. Most stayed in Europe.

However, even if they had come illegally, I wouldn't support illegals or anyone who hired them.

[xmas74]

85. One group came here in the early 1630's.

I'd say they immigrated illegally since I'm sure that the native did not personally invite them to steal their land.

We've researched our family tree and have hit a dead end. We suspect that someone lied about their name and came here w/ another one. That would make him illegal also.

[DemGirl7]

86. I guess my ancestors came here legally

First off my family history is not that intact. I don't know much about my grandfathers' family on my dad's side, because his parents died when he very young, and was raised as an orphan. I know my grandmothers' family on my dad's side came from Ireland, but not sure of the date. As for my mother's side of the family, it is mostly made up of the Pennsylvania Dutch, which have German ancestry.

[degreesofgray]

87. That's a loaded question

for one thing, many could answer that their ancestors came over in the 17th or 18th centuries, before the United States existed. The question, though, is legally to whom? To the people who originally occupied North America?

The whole immigration debate is so much bullshit. It pits poor against poor and once again the powerful and connected draw our attention away from the issues that really matter. It's not that poor Mexicans are taking jobs away from poor Americans--it's that our system is set up to encourage and grow instability and exploitation, and that our government encourages it and allows it to happen. And when Mexicans assimilated culturally and economically, then the corporate power structure will go looking for another cheap supply of labor (this is already happening in some parts of the country, where migrant farm workers from Southeast Asia have been brought in, displacing established Mexican-American workers).

The US has entered into one "free trade" pact after another, and people are suffering as a result, on both sides of the border. The so-called guest worker proposal is exploitation with a different name. We need fair trade, living wages, fair and affordable housing, universal health care, affordable college education, and job training. We wring our hands over poor people who want to better themselves, who want to escape depths of poverty we can only imagine, and all the while the corporatists continue to rape the environment, exploit the poor, and hog resources for themselves while our cities rot and the real concerns of the people go untended.

So, my great grandfather most likely was undocumented. He was a poor kid from Italy looking for a better opportunity. That's all anyone wants.

[teknomanzer]

88. Can't really answer this poll...

Some of my ascestors were here before Europeans arrived, some of my ancestors were Europeans who arrived with the spanish colonization of the new world, some of my ancestors were brought to the new world as slaves, some of my ancestors were immigrants who arrived from Europe to seek a new life in the country called the United States, and some of my ancestors come from a colony of the United States, an island called Puerto Rico. I am the future. I am an American.

[bigwillq]

89. Yes. As far as I know. (nt)

[BlueStater]

90. My great-grandfather came to Ellis Island circa 1911-12

So, yeah.

[justabob]

91. Arrived with Huguenauts in 1685

which I assume was legal under the Edict of Nantes, but other than that, I have no idea.

[One_Life_To_Give]

92. Kidnaping/Enslaving was legal

Reference your last choice. Enslaving people was legal in parts of Africa up through at least some portion of the slave trade to america.

[Saphire]

95. Mine were here before the Rev. War....I suppose they were legal!

[Solo_in_MD]

97. 3 of four lines qualify for DAR, the other was legal as well

[bemildred]

100. According to what law?

The modern legal construction is quite recent in origin, and people have been coming here for quite a long time. What about all the persons in annexed territories who became "legal" without doing anything? What about the children of European conquerors by native "spouses"? One could ask many similar questions. We are mostly of very mixed blood now. The notion that some of us are "legal" by some fiat of government, and some of us not by the same fiat, is bogus. The whole issue is contrived. I am willing to consider the issue of population control, which lies at the center of this, but not based on some notion of a class distiction where some are "legal" and therefore have rights, and some are not, and therefore have no rights. This is not a failure of persons, but of government.

[brindis_desala]

119. mildred your perspicacity never fails to inspire.

Would that your searing insight could be packaged and sold like crackerjack or cheerios. ;)

[LittleClarkie]

101. Well, let's see

I think most of mine came over before it was an issue, the French and British did anyway. The Norwegian I think went through Ellis Island.

The Native American didn't have to, as she was already here.

[Spider Jerusalem]

102. Most of them that I know about came over in the 1600's and 1700's.

The earliest was a cabin boy aboard a ship of the Virginia Company that landed in Jamestown in January of 1608; the others included so-called 'gentleman adventurers', colonial officials, indentured servants, Royalists who left for the New World under Cromwell and Puritans who fled England after the Restoration, Ulster Irish Presbyterians, Catholics who came to Maryland looking for a safe haven, Palatine Germans and the descendants of French Huguenots who settled in Pennsylvania in the mid-1700's. My most recent immigrant ancestor arrived here in 1859 from Ireland; they all came 'legally', I suppose (if 'legally' even applies in the case of the 17th century immigrants, when they'd take any British Protestant who could pay his own passage or would work it off and would swear allegiance to the King).

[TankLV]

103. Yep - and great aunts and uncles, too!

It's all available in Ellis Island's records.

Early 1890's.

To get away from the Crimean War, mainly.

By way of Hamburg - on the "Bremerhaven" or something like it - steerage, naturally.

Sent all the girls first - my one grandmother was her a few years before she married my grandfather at 16! Don't know as much about my mother's parents. Know a lot about my aunt's parents, too.

Started the first Ukrainian Catholic church in Buffalo - actually it was "Ruthenian" back then at first, then became Ukrainian.

[goodhue]

104. I don't believe there was an illegal / legal distinction

When my ancestors arrived in North America they were neither illegal nor legal, as there was no such regulation in place at the time.

[Marie26]

114. Right

The US didn't even start regulating immigration till the late 1800's. Till then, it was basically open immigration. If you could get a ship ticket, you could become an American.

[politicat]

105. Depends on your definition.

The Scotch (and soda) side of the family came before there was much in the way of immigration laws, but if the English had known they were getting on those ships, they sure would have been illegal. They were supposed to hang or be transported to Australia.

The Irish (whiskey) side of the family came during the Famine, and they were probably running from various creditors, landlords and other types of oppressors, but again, not much in the way of immigration laws. Still, the Irish weren't much welcomed in that period.

The German side of the family are displaced mercs that fought for the Brits in the Revolution. I'd say that the colonists would have outlawed them if at all possible.

The Welsh heritage were entirely indentured. Servitude is not exactly what I'd call the best immigration status.

There are a few Native Americans and French way up the family tree on one side of one side of the family. The trappers were not exactly enthusiastically welcomed after the Purchase, considering they had strong sympathies with Spain and France. The Native Americans basically didn't welcome anyone else, even if a few of the ancestors were crazy enough to decide to wed with Euros.

The Native Americans in the family didn't have their paperwork together when they crossed the land bridge, but paper hadn't yet been invented, so you can't fault them. They were probably a bit shy on the birch-bark passports and visas, too.

So technically, everyone was legal, and everyone was illegal, from someone's point of view.

As it applies today, my issues with undocumented immigration have almost nothing to do with the people who immigrate, and everything to do with the nitwits who make it economically viable to employ the undocumented, and those asshats who DO employ the undocumented.

[booley]

106. Mine all did but think about that for a moment

For ancestors, immigrating legally involved getting off the boat and being checked for lice.

The only way my ancestors could have been considered illegal is if they metamorphed into Chinese women.

[proud patriot]

107. some did , some did not , I'm also 1/8th Native American

[RoyGBiv]

108. Not sure how to answer ...

All the research I've done on both my mother's and father's side of the family is linked to people who came to what is now the United States before the United States existed. They came here under the terms of conquest that guided most early European settlers. A faint Cherokee branch came here long before records existed and were moved to Oklahoma under a quasi-legal agreement with the US government, i.e. one of the removals prior to the so-called Trails of Tears.

Now, one of my g-g-g-grandfathers came to what is Oklahoma illegally, made friends, started a town, and called it good. He wasn't a Sooner. He was sooner than the Sooners.

[FlaGranny]

110. I've been researching our geneology

and I believe that all ancestors came here legally. I know my father's side of the family came legally from England in the late 1800s. Some of my mother's side of the family have been here since the early 1600s (Massachussetts). One ancestor is the younger brother of a Mayflower passenger and came a year or two after the original voyage - so I guess the natives did not approve. The rest of my mother's ancestors I have traced to the 1700s, and all before the Revolution, but have not been able to trace their actual arrival dates.

[Marie26]

113. I guess

But back then there weren't really any immigration laws anyway to stop them. (1910's)

[Left Is Write]

115. My great-grandparents came over in the late 1800s.

I have no idea what the laws were.

[verse18]

116. My ancestors were "immigrated" from Africa

to the West Indies.

My family legally immigrated to the USA in the late 1970s when I was 2 or 3. I'm a legal citizen because I was born in a US territory, but my grandparents, my mother, her siblings and two of my older cousins had to be naturalized.

[Raksha]

117. They all came legally. However, when the "border" is

the Atlantic ocean, it's a bit difficult NOT to immigrate legally! Difficult, but not impossible.

[mmonk]

120. Well, yes under a different government.

A family member was one of the Eight Lords Proprietors.
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0833687.html
So, I guess legally for the time but not under the U.S. government or maybe not according to Native Americans of the time. But legally, yes.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

121. My first known ancestor in

America was with the 2nd Jamestown colony. He was supposedly killed by a Native American around the mid 1620's. Further adventures of the 'pede family involved a governor of the Carolina's and a guy who served in the Revolution with the Swamp Fox. Plus a ancestor of my father who married an ancestor of my mother, which would make them some kind of cousin, which if I told her about it her head would... well she's 94 now and I won't.

[mmonk]

122. No need to tell her.

So an ancestrial family member served with Francis Marion? Interesting.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

123. Had an old boss

try to be smart with me. He showed me a letter from 'Francis Marion H.S' and asked me if I knew Marion's nickname. I said I did, but that when my ancestor served with him he probably just called him 'Col Marion, sir.'