While I realize the Thanksgiving story is fraught with problems, that the colonists never saw native Americans as equals and were looking for the first opportunity to get the upper hand and take their land, there was some sort of feast where Plymouth colonists and Native Americans sat down and ate together.
My earliest know Immigrant ancestor, Stephen Deane, probably missed that first Thanksgiving celebration by a month or so. Probably got on shore around this date in 1621. #genealogy
@poemblaze I wish I could trace my ancestry back to Spain. But that would mean having to go through Cuba, and that's not feasible.
@LiberalLibrarian I wish you were able to as well. 😔
Sharing the 17th century family history joy!
My ancestors (10th great grandparents) Giovanni Battista Delli Gatti & his wife Geronima Biacarella had 3 children in the southern Italian village of Nusco:
1633 Domenica
1634 Marco
1638 Giovanni
There they stayed until approximately 3 centuries later my grandfather passed through Ellis Island. Late to the party but here we are! LOL
@thatmac_cheese Very cool! Every line of my paternal grandfather's ancestors arrived in America before 1800. Most well before the revolution. The rest of my ancestors arrived between 1828-1855. Most toward the latter date. A lot of famine Irish.
The Irish wing of the family came in with the famine around 1860 and were almost immediately drafted into the Civil War. Always reminds me of that scene in Gangs of NY where the Irish come off the boats and are funneled right into the Union Army.
I've been able to track the Italian side back to the Renaissance era living in that same village. We always joke they probably saw Hannibal & his elephants from the same spot.
@thatmac_cheese They may well have been there at the time if Hannibal.
@thatmac_cheese You're descended from Geronimo! 🤣. JK.
My ancestor Stephen Deane's ship, the Fortune, arrived in Plymouth harbor around Nov 7-14, 1621. Though they didn't fully understand disease transmission, the ship was quarantined for a week or two offshore. That gets us to a probable arrival on shore in late Nov. 1621.
He set up the first grain mill in New England. He married, had children, and died in 1634. #genealogy