The story of my family is one of immigration, as it is for all white Americans. In my current drawing project, I draw at the places of my ancestors and am quite surprised to see how fruitful my research can be, and how lucky I’ve been to find that so many of my ancestors lived within driving distance of my home — inviting me to keep driving and drawing.
Envisioning the research, I picture it as a digging up of roots rather than the growing out of a family tree. So much is hidden, unexpected, and interconnected. I’ve written often of the surprise that a good part of my 1/4 ancestry — Nova Scotian — was found to be transplanted Colonial Americans. That group is so well documented, that the information about them dwarfs what I know about my dominant cultural heritage: Irish. I can trace my English and Scottish roots back 13 generations or more. They came to North America as pioneers and Puritans, with land grants. By comparison, my Irish ancestors came across the ocean as paupers, mostly tenant farmers from the western and southern coasts of what was then a colony of the British Empire. Research on my Irish ancestors comes to halt after four or five generations.
Regardless of their status — whether they arrived from prosperity or poverty — it’s striking how interesting and consequential the stories of immigrants are. They are the shakers and the movers. Whether they came in the 17th, 18th, 19th or 20th centuries, it is clear not only that America changed them, but they changed America.
Visiting the Relatives 