It doesn’t take long for a genealogist with immigrant ancestors to realize that families do not all arrive at the exact same port on the exact same day. People migrate over time. I got to wondering in my own family what longest stretch of time was for members of an extended family to immigrate actually was.
I’ve determined the family, but need to work on locating a few records to see just how long the time frame actually was–it looks like it was nearly fifty years.
All but one child of my fourth great-grandparents immigrated to Illinois in the 1850s and 1860s. The couple was
- Jurgen Ehmen Tonjes ( 1778 Wrisse, Ostfriesland – 1850 Wrisse, Ostfriesland)
- Frauke Eilers (1780 Holtrop, Ostfriesland – 1857 Wrisse, Ostfriesland)
One son, Johann, remained behind and married a local woman:
- Johann Luken Jurgens Ehmen Goldenstein (1814 Wrisse, Ostfriesland – 1891 Wrisse, Ostfriesland).
- Tjode Anna Focken Tammen (1824 Buhren, Ostfriesland – 1882 Wrisse, Ostfriesland).
Johann and Tjode’s children immigrated in the 1860s through the 1880s to the same location where their uncles and aunts had settled in Hancock and Adams Counties in Illinois. Two of Johann and Tjode’s children remained in Germany, Jurgen and Johann.
In the 1890s through the 1910s two children of Jurgen Goldenstein immigrated. They initially settled in Nebraska where other members of the Ehmen/Goldenstein family were living at the time.
I need to do a little work to determine who was the earliest immigrant in this family and who was the last immigrant in this family.
It wasn’t just immigrants whose families moved from one place to another over time. Members of my Tinsley/Rucker families left Amherst County, Virginia, for Bourbon County, Kentucky, (and environs) for a ten year period around the turn of the 18th century.
What is your longest family migration connection?
