Hmm...exploration. I am not sure how to interpret this theme in the context of my family history. I don't feel like I have explorers in my family history. In fact I feel the very opposite. I feel like my family got off the boat and was like, "Heck with that, we're staying right here!"
I have cousins everywhere but when there are stories of brothers, the one who went off and made his fortunes and the other who stayed at home and held down the homestead, I am always descended from the latter.
When I was in the 3rd grade we had to do a report on where one of our grandparents came from. Some of my classmates did reports on Ireland, Israel, Greece, etc., etc., etc. or about other states like Georgia, Maryland, Oregon, etc., etc., etc. I could practically walk to where each of my grandparents were born. I was really jealous.
According to Google Maps it would take me just over an hour to drive from where Grandpa Earle was born in Bellmore, NY to the far off location of Astoria, Queens, NY where Grandpa Gardner was born, while passing both my grandmothers' birth locations. I guess Google hasn't driving the Cross Island Parkway recently though because that is going to take way more than an hour.
In any case, I did my 3rd grade report on the Town of Hempstead, Long Island, New York. Boring (Sorry, Hempstead).
As genealogist I have come to value the fact I live in close proximity to where my family has lived for hundreds of years. All my documentation is right here! Well, not all of it but quite a bit. And New York is pretty good about holding on to all their records. They aren't great about freely sharing their records but they got 'em. Pay up!
I don't have a European immigrant in my family tree until my great-great grandparents and even then, only 2 of the 16 were born across the pond. I've got many ancestors who emigrated from Canada but from Europe there are only these two:
1. My great-great grandfather on my mother's maternal line, Johann Nepom Prinz (May 2, 1853 - April 21, 1929), was from Mladá Vožice, in the Bohemia region of what is now the Czech Republic. He arrived with his family in New York on November 28, 1866 when he was just 13 years-old.
AND
2. My great-great grandmother on my father's maternal line, Annette Hinch-Henry (February 22, 1868 - March 2, 1952), was born in Barnamelia, by Knockanna, in Co. Wicklow, Ireland. She came to New York sometime between 1886 and 1890 when she was in her late teens or early 20s.
That makes Annette my most recent European immigrant. Again, not big on explorers in this tree o' mine.
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