How far has your family come from past generations?

[Red State Rebel]

I was browsing thru some pictures my sister posted on myfamily.com and saw a picture that really made me realize how far things have come in just 2 generations.



The little girl on the left is my grandmother, I'm guessing this was taken between 1910 and 1915. To be honest, I'm shocked to see her with a nice doll, they grew up in pretty much poverty. I have seen a similar picture of my mother but in much worse conditions - a raggedy dress, no toys. Here I sit on a computer in a decent home with 4 kids who have attended college and I'm amazed at the changes.

Post any pictures you have of previous generations!

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

1. Since you asked

Here is my mother with my grandparents, circa 1926:

[skygazer]

2. I can't post pics but my story is mixed

My father's mother's family came to this country in the 1600's. They were fairly influential in New England - land grants, judgeships and when the Revolution came, a signer of the Declaration and later, a Secretary of the Treasury.

His father's family came around the same time. They were more farmers and the like. They were some of the first settlers in western Massachusetts, sent a number of men to the French and Indian Wars and the Revolution, worked their way up to being pretty solidly upper middle class, then lost everything in the Depression.

My mother's family came from Italy in the early 1900's and followed the immigrant route of slow upward climb. My father and mother were pretty much middle class but their kids are all more or less struggling. Really, it's more a story of decline than upward mobility - my dad retired after 25 years with a good pension but most of my siblings and I just work - not careers, just jobs.

[liberal N proud]

3. My mother used to have a picture of her father in front of the Sod House

He grew up in.
It was in Iowa.
I don't know what happened to the picture, last time I was home I wanted to get it and make a copy of it but she could not find it.
My father talks being young in the depression and what little they had to eat and live on.
By those standards we are very well off, but those time will return if we lose the things our fathers have fought for, Social Security and Labor protection (Labor Unions). Yes those unions are responsible for the prosperity of the middle class in this nation. It has even forced non-union shops to offer the employee protection and a fair wage.
Employers would still run sweat shops if it were not for the battles our fore fathers fought.

[wtmusic]

4. Cool pic

My parents' pictures look pretty much like yours. Farming families during the Dustbowl years. Flat broke most of the time.

[Cuban_Liberal]

5. They've come really far.

My paternal grandfather and grandmother came here as migrant workers. Their kids all finshed high school, and two even finshed college (nursing). All of their grandchildren are, or will be, college graduates.

Not too shabby, IMO.

:D

[HEyHEY]

6. Why do they look so pissed off?

And where did they grow up?

[Cheswick2.0]

8. people didn't smile in pictures back then

they had to hold still for too long. I have never seen a picture with my ancestors smiling until my grandparents were adults with a child of their own. My grands would be about the same generation as the OPs.

[yvr girl]

7. My mom's side was a little bit....stereotypically 'Italian'

I don't think my great-grandfather 'whacked' anyone, but he did hire the coast guard to transport certain liquid goods during the Prohibition. Rumor has it that he 'loaned' some money to the Premier and the Attorney General. What can I say, my family is colourful.

[WMliberal]

9. depends which side of the family

On my mother's side: her dad grew up as one of 4 kids in a one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx.
While her mom's family hardly even felt the depression.

[RagingInMiami]

10. Here's a picture Cuban Liberal might appreciate

Back in 1959, when Castro had just seized Cuba, he had the support of many Cubans because they had just spent years under the tyranny of dictator Fulgencio Batista.
My dad, who was an American expatriate living in Havana at the time, is pictured here sitting with a group of Cubans. He is seated second from your right, next to the Castro guerilla. My dad was ousted from Cuba a few months later and went to Colombia, where he met my mom.
As a gringo, he always had a thing for Latinas.

[Cuban_Liberal]

13. Cool pic!

:D

[JohnKleeb]

11. umm my ancestors were so poor

I don't have any pictures really, I don't even know what one of my great grandfathers looked like. I tell you this though, on my dad's side, we've been here since around the civil war and on my mom's since the early 1900's, my maternal great grandmother however came here in 1920, she was my great grandfather's second wife since his first wife died of TB. I really wish I had pictures guys.

[hickman1937]

12. I'm trying to research my family

I found my great great grandfather in Troy, New York in 1880. He was a butcher, and living at 81 Hoosick st. I wish I had pictures. His last name was, are you ready, Moran.

[yellowdogintexas]

14. don't have any old photos earlier than say 1925 or so

but I do have a geneology on my dad's mother's family, the line of descent from her mother.

The common ancestor came to North Carolina from England in early 1700's
and the line is traced down from him in this geneology. The family eventually migrated to Middle Tennessee and my great grandparents came to Kentucky sometime in the early 20th century..my grandmother was born in 1902 and was born in Tennessee, but they came to KY when she was pretty young.

So they go back pretty far. Don't know as much about any of the rest of my family..my mom's father's family had been in Kentucky since early 1800's, andprobably came from Virginia


Since I am from Kentucky, right on the Tennessee border and to my knowledge no one in my family was of any of the 19th century immigration waves, so I imagine most of them have descended from early English/Irish/Scotch settlers in the 1700's through early 1800's, starting out in Virginia or North Carolina.

Mostly farmers, except one of my great grand fathers was a sheriff and another was a blacksmith. I know they went through hard times and the Depression...my great grandmother used to make jelly fromthe cores and peels of the apples that were left after she made preserves from the actualy fruit. Probably the pears too. I have old quilts made from little scraps of fabric; no pattern or anything, and she could tell you exactly which dress or item each little scrap came from too.

i wish I had pictures, but many were lost in a fire several years ago.

[ZombieNixon]

15. Here's my mother at age 4 months

[Swede]

16. My mom's family where Royalists.

They got kicked out of New York in 1776 for not disavowing the King. They moved to Milwaukee. When the Americans came again in 1830 they moved to Saskatchewan. I don't understand the loyalty to a English king when they were French.

[CO Liberal]

17. To Get The History of My Father's Side Of The Family...

...read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle". My grandafther came here from Lithuania around 1912 and worked for Swift's Premium in Philadeplhia.

Later, they bought a farm outside Buena, NJ. As the only Lithuanians in an Italian town, the KKK burned a cross in front of their house.

My father and uncle both served in WWII - Dad in the Marines, Uncle Stanley in the Navy.

Everyone in my generation graduated from either college or tech school.

My mother's side has been here since the 1700s. Some of her ancestors were Hessian soldiers who fought for the British during the Revolution. The rest of her ancestors came over from Ireland and Scotland between 1860 and 1900.

[UdoKier]

18. 60 Years ago, my great-grandparents owned the largest...

poultry ranch in the country. They had a huge house and all the finery on a 500 acre ranch with dozens of chicken houses and a sizeable staff. They shipped white leghorn baby chicks to farmers all over the country. By the 60's they were old, their kids didn't keep the business up, and they couldn't compete with the factory farms that fed their animals literal pellets of garbage. It was closed in the early 70s when I was a kid.

My dad had a decent middle class job as a bureaucrat with the government, and now I'm scraping by as a Japanese translator. Not too good, I guess.

But at least I have moved on and made my own life. Many of my family are still back in that little Texas town, fighting endlessly in court over the sale of the ranch land. Those people make me sick. They cling to an empire they had nothing to do with building.

[NightTrain]

19. Here are a couple of my family.

My grandfather’s family, circa 1920. Grandpa is the youngest.




My parents and I in 1966. Note the cigarette in my father’s hand? That’s what killed him seven years ago, at age 62. :cry: