They're comin' to America
My paternal grandfather, Michael -- I'm at least the third in a line of Michaels, though we all have different second names -- seems lost to history, at least so far. Though I thought he was an Irish immigrant, a document prepared by my father lists his father as having been born in New York City. My maternal grandmother, on the other hand, does have some documents that give a bit of insight into who she was. She immigrated from Germany, making her one of two grandparents who I know immigrated from another country, preserving my second-generation American credentials to an extent. My daughter dug up a couple of documents related to her immigration, one her application for naturalization, the other her Declaration of Intention, both one page documents. Despite their brevity, I learned that she was born in Kesselbach, a town in western central Gernany, about 33 miles northwest of Frankfurt, and came to America when she was 22. The Crown Princess Cecilie, the ship t...