Saturday, June 3, 2017

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Which Ancestor Moved the Furthest?

There's another genealogy meme with a lot of questions going around, but rather than use the whole thing, it looks as though Randy Seaver will be choosing one question at a time to post for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  That's ok by me!  It will make the fun last even longer!

For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), I challenge you:

(1) The Family History Hound listed 20 Questions about Your Ancestor, and I'm going to use some of them in the next few months.

(2) Please answer the first question:  "Which ancestor moved the furthest from their home?"

(3) Write your own blog post, make a comment on this post, or post your answer on Facebook or Google+.  Please leave a link to your answer in comments on this post.

My Ancestors

For my ancestors, I looked at the side of the family that came from Eastern Europe.  Since Google Maps has problems determining distance when you cross oceans, I used Distance Between Cities for my numbers.

• My ancestors who appear to have moved the furthest distance were my great-grandfather Joe Gordon (~1892–1955) and great-great-grandfather Victor Gordon (~1866–1925).  Although I have yet to verify the information, both are said to have been born in Kamenets Podolskiy, Russian Empire (now Kam'yanets'-Podil's'kyi, Ukraine).  Distance Between Cities gives a result of 4,602.20 miles between Kamenets Podolskiy and Brooklyn, New York, where both men immigrated.

• The next furthest distance for a move appears to be my great-grandparents Morris Meckler (~1882–1953) and Minnie (Nowicki) Meckler (~1880–1936), who immigrated from Kamenets Litovsk, Russian Empire (now Kamyanyets, Belarus) to Brooklyn.  Distance Between Cities shows that was 4,358.40 miles.

Collateral Relatives

If I look at the collateral lines in my tree, there is one clear winner.  Betty Ellett (1935–2006), the mother of a second cousin once removed, moved from Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia to Reno, Nevada, a leap of 9,340.41 miles.  Not quite as far as Linda Seaver's great-great-grandmother, but a pretty impressive distance all the same.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for stopping by my blog. I too tried Google maps to no avail for transoceanic mileage. Somehow I don't think our ancestors flew across :) Thanks for the tip about Distance Between Cities.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're welcome! I'm surprised Google is still stuck in driving mode. None of my ancestors came recently enough to have flown across, that's for sure!

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