Thinking how spread out we all are it got me to thinking. Perhaps a trait of those that left everything and everyone behind to begin anew in America was the desire for adventure and travel. Seeing new things, meeting new people, going to new places, a "spirit of adventure". My grandmother Lydia was one of nine children. Six remained in Sweden. Admittedly, I don't know a whole lot about those family members that remained in Sweden nor their descendants. What I do know is that the majority of those folk seem to have remained in Sweden. Sweden is a wonderful place to live today, not the poor and crowded country of a century ago so that is a hugh factor I am sure. Lydia and her sisters, Ruth and Anna, chose to emigrate to America. I am thinking that one possible trait that may have set them apart from their siblings was their "spirit of adventure". An inward personal quality that along with the "push and pull" of those European immigration years prompted them to be the ones to leave. The descendants of Lydia, Ruth and Anna Abrahamson now number in the hundreds. The sisters started out in Rock Island, Illinois. Children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great-great grandchildren have lived all across this country. Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Montana, Florida, California, Washington, Iowa, Connecticut, Arizona, Ohio and Michigan are the places I am aware of. There may be more and I almost forgot a cousin now in Canada.
The new emphasis on DNA, being the latest way to look at your family history, makes we wonder. Is the "spirit of adventure" inherited? Has America, the nation of immigrants and the children of immigrants, inherited that spirit of adventure? After all, doesn't that "spirit of adventure" seem to be a very American quality?
Just a thought,
-Ranae