welcome home...Thank you for all the love and kind thoughts...
I was born in New Zealand...My great, great grandfather Guy Stephen Secord was born in Canada and was the grandson of American born Loyalists..he went to NZ as a young man..
I learnt of our US roots as a child...We had Guy’s Bible and his history had been written on pages that were then sown into the cover and fly leaf..
It said his father was also born in Upper west Canada (Ontario) the descendant of French settlers (Huguenots in New Rochelle, NY) and his mother had been born in the United States (Vermont) so for us America was the old country..
After immigrating to America, I visited Canada and found that the Secords were Huguenots, and Loyalists, and was able over years to find more than 70 ancestors here in the US before the family fled north to Canada during the revolution...
I have ancestors from Suffolk that were the first settlers and founders of Boston with Withrop’s Fleet in 1630, and also ancestors on the Neiuw Nederlandt to New York in 1623.. (the earliest date) Jesse De Forest also is my direct ancestor through Isaac De Forest who had one of the first breweries and taverns in NYC :)
Jan Peeke of Jan Peeke’s Creek (Peekskill, NY was my direct ancestor...and his wife Maria Du Trieux..
and so on...I have blood lines that some men would kill for just so that they could join the Holland Society LOL
My last Secords who lived in the “lower colonies” settled in Mehoopany, Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, in 1773..by 1776/7 they were gone from there, the women and children to Canada, the men to Butler’s Rangers and the Indian Department of the Loyalists..
My De Forests line and extra families were gone from Albany, NY in 1777 to Canada and the refugee camps near Montreal..
A Secord boy married a De Forest girl after the war in Montreal, Feb 23, 1784..the grandparents of my GGF Guy Stephen Secord..
BTW Guy’s mother was visiting her youngest daughter who lived in Gowanda, NY when she died in 1888..Shes buried in Canada next to her husband..
Although I didn’t know all of our family history and characters on the day I became an American citizen, I knew some and I knew there was a lot to find out..
It was thrilling for me to be back in the land of my father’s so to speak ...
So the day I attended the ceremony to become an American citizen, it meant everything to me..and I meant every word I said and promised..
This is the greatest country in the world and no Obama, or Romney or Clinton or moslem terrorist can change that try as they might..
America was kissed by God at the outset, and He holds our future..
the Founding Fathers acknowledged God as the creator of these shores and He and only He will determine our path..
Pity no Southerners in you family tree. Only thing that keeps yours from being truly impressive.
Wait, you’re now in Tennessee?
That’s a horse of a different tune.
>> This is the greatest country in the world and no Obama, or Romney or Clinton or moslem terrorist can change that try as they might.. America was kissed by God at the outset, and He holds our future.. the Founding Fathers acknowledged God as the creator of these shores and He and only He will determine our path..
Well said, and AMEN.
Huguenot,
fled France due to Catholic persecution.
Sounds like a lot of our forefathers came here for that kind of freedom.
Course a lot of jails and were emptied to America too.,
Beautiful! Thank you.
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...for us America was the old country..
**
That one made me smile.
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America was kissed by God at the outset, and He holds our future..
**
That one brought a tear to my eye.
^^^
God bless you, Nan.
welcome home...I just got back home and what a surprise you have left! You come from quite a lineage, eh?!
Somewhere along the way I think I just fell off the cabbage truck or something.
Seriously, I feel a bit ashamed reading of your history and of your love for our country.
I desperately love this country but I believe I have spent my life taking this country for granted.
You’ve shamed me and also given me hope in declaring that none of those knucklehead politicians can change the greatness of this country.
Thanks for choosing to become an American citizen, Nana...you’ve made it a better place.