For this exercise we were asked to trace our family origin to specific ancestors as far back as possible. I am very lucky to have all of my grandparents still alive and able to tell me something about their parents and grandparents. An interesting part of my heritage is that my father was adopted from a German orphanage. Unfortunately, the only information known about his biological family is that he was from Germany. Most of my ancestors' focus had to come from my maternal grandparents and what they shared with me. I discovered that my grandfather's parents were both born in Italy and that my grandmother's parents were second generation immigrants. My grandmother's father's parents were Irish and my great-grandmother's family was Dutch. As a result, my origin is a mix of Italian, Dutch, Irish and German. My grandfather is a second generation Italian immigrant because his parents immigrated to the United States with their families around 1914. They wanted to leave Italy in hopes of starting over in America and building a better life. Both of his parents lived in very poor conditions in Italy. One of my great-great-grandfathers was a sulfur miner and the other was a sharecropper. My grandfather described them as “the lowest men on the totem pole” of the society in which they lived. They wanted to escape from it all and try to build a more prosperous life. In order for my great-great grandparents to leave Italy for the United States, they had to have a job lined up. Interestingly, they both secured jobs with the New Haven Railroad in Connecticut. Furthermore, men emigrated a couple of years before women and children to ensure that they had a safe place for their family...... middle of the document ......iate family observations, individual and family problems were kept among those involved. You didn't talk about family problems with strangers. I know that my maternal great-great-great Irish parents had the problem of their husband being an alcoholic, which led to domestic abuse. This very large problem was never talked about, until, after their deaths, it was simply ignored. Ignoring and pretending the problem didn't exist, the family decided to address it. Sometimes they would simply leave the house to help pretend the problem didn't exist. I can't comment on why serious issues like this were not addressed, but, as previously stated, it was how they chose to address it. In certain moments of crisis, the family always turns to other family members for help. Sometimes, it wasn't a real person they turned to for help, but their religion and faith.