Essay about Human Geography

Submitted By hannaxdahlen
Words: 2204
Pages: 9

America has changed in so many ways since my ancestors immigrated, moved, to America and they all brought their own family traditions from Norway and Sweden that are still present in America to this day. There is always push and pull, positive and negative, factors in immigrating to a different country and the main push factor in my families move was because of famine and the main pull factor that brought them to America was the job opportunities and the start of a bright new future for the younger generations to be a part of. Throughout this paper, many words like immigrants, someone settling into a country, will be used because everyone that has come to America is an immigrant. Also, ethnicity, a person’s background, will be used in relation to the original traditions that they are bringing to the new land that they immigrating to and the word diversity goes right alongside with ethnicity, because diversity means to have a variety of something such as; opinion, color or style, and when people bring in diversity it will bring tradition right with it. Majority of the people that wanted and succeeded coming to America was looking to better the life of his or hers family and to better the future of their children’s lives. And since America is described as the “melting pot”, which pretty much means no matter where you come from you are automatically put into the “pot”, I think that when everyone settles here he/she will be a true American, because I hope that all Americans want the finest outcome to every dream that a fellow American has set their mind to. I believe that last statement, because I feel that if my family could do it, than anyone else can too. By 1904, 90,000 people emigrated from Norway to America for a better life and because of a famine that was taking over the country. Before any immigrants came to America, immigrants needed a sponsor from America to sponsor them. The sponsor would have to guarantee that the immigrants would have food and place to live during their stay. And this is the story of how and why my ancestors immigrated to America. Clifton My great- great- great- grandfather, Johanas Kaluften was born in Gudbarandsdalen, Norway and he immigrated to America when he was 28, where his identity was changed to John Clifton. He married Maria Paulsdaughter from Gudbaransdalen, Norway on November 20th, 1880. That is also when they immigrated to America in 1880. They migrated to Michigan when they moved to America. My great- great- grandfather, son of John Clifton, Ingwald Clifton was born in Republic, Michigan on June 29, 1884. In 1885 they migrated 700 miles to Devils Lake, North Dakota in a covered wagon. They lived in Ramsey County for two years, and then John and Maria Clifton moved to a farm south of Maddock where they raised eleven children. My great- great grandmother, Bertha Nilsine was born September 13, 1888 in Ullensaker, Norway (Later called, Gardenmoen, Norway). Bertha was born to Inger Annette Nilsdatter Notnes and Axsel Karlsson. Inger Annette was from Norway and Axsel Karlsson was from Sweden. In 1904 Axsel Karlsson, Bertha; 16 at the time, and her brother immigrated to America to look for a better life, leaving 3 other children back home. When Axsel Karlsson migrated to America he changed his name to Axel Stromberg. (His last name changed because he was from the Stromne area.) Axel, Bertha, and Art moved to Axels’ brothers, Albert’s homestead, South of Maddock. Bertha got a job from a very wealthy family in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They were so wealthy that they did an unheard of thing; they went to Florida for the winter! Bertha returned to the Maddock area one year around harvest season and she took a job in the cook car with a neighbor of her uncle Albert, Elsie Clifton. While Bertha was working in the cook car with Elsie Clifton, she saw a handsome fellow and she told Elsie, “I’m going to marry that man.” And that man was Elsie’s brother, Ingvald Clifton (Ingwald changed his