Hmm. If my father is not in my birth certificate, I doubt I have any options. Also my option is Italy, and I don’t really care for their justice system.

Argentina, JenP? That sounds exciting! It that interesting to you?

I love hearing about people's relational connections. When I started this process, I dove headfirst into Ancestry desperately, trying to find an Irish connection for ease of bureaucracy.

I found it...in the late 1600s.

Turns out, my people have been in America a loooooong ass time, and not even remotely in the blue-blood kind of way. Carpenters and military, of no real renown, as far back as the mind can reach.

Sign. But still, no different than having to everything for myself in this life, eh?

Turns out, my people have been in America a loooooong ass time, and not even remotely in the blue-blood kind of way.

Same. Mostly farmers. Both my father and mother's sides pre-date the revolutionary war.

When I started Ancestry, I thought my grandfathers family were recent German immigrants. They are English and Scottish and have been here since the 1600s. They were just poor and lived in the Germantown/Dutchtown section of the city, so my mom assumed! My grandmothers history was exactly what I thought, except it gets a little hard to trace because there is a Cornelia Bourbeau and a Cordelia Bourbeau in the same town. Cornelia was nicknamed Nellie. Cordelias daughter and mother were Helen, nicknamed Nellie. I am a relative of Cordelia.

Yup, my ancestors were poor Cajun farmers a long way back. I don't think France would take me. Or Canada.

David, SAME. Mississippi, Oklahoma and Ohio. There were a few farmers, but mostly the wood trades and soldiering. I still have some beautiful lathed pieces from my paternal grandfather who was a Mason (so, multi-wood gavels) and an electrician in the Navy known for winning shipboard track an field events. That is 100% the most interesting fact about my family on either side. I guess it is a failing of the US education system, but I never even considered that my family could have been here prior to the revolutionary war.

I don't think France would take me. Or Canada.

Dana, you just never know! It's worth inquiring.

This is true. France seems to continually change their requirements. I believe in my case it would be much easier to claim my French citizenship now than it was when I first did it.

Keep in mind that a lot of developed countries are having a population decline as people choose to not have kids or have them much later, or have fewer kids. So lots of places will probably be looking for some people to bolster the tax base.

My mother traced a branch of my family back to before the Revolutionary War and we are still amazed by that because all the family stories are about the immigrants. The part of the family that was presumed to have immigrated more than 4-5 generations back was said to be Scots, Grandma even claimed a tartan, but mom has found no evidence of that, just a 17th century English sea captain and most of his descendants leaving very little record of any kind. I like to think I have inherited that flair for anonymity and obscurity.