My Ancestors

posted in: The Stories of Chicago IL | 0

By Carol Strauss, July 18, 2017 – My ancestors, the Leslies, lived in the northern part of Scotland where it was cold and the soil was of very poor quality and much too rocky for farming. In around 1850, during a particularly difficult time, a small group of young family members wrote good-bye letters to their grandparents and set out for New Zealand.

When they arrived at the port, they learned that the ship that was bound for New Zealand had left the previous morning. The steamship company suggested that they trade in their New Zealand tickets for tickets to America. Within a day or so, the Leslies were heading west across the Atlantic.

This is the story of how my forbearers ended up in America by accident, and initially chose to settle in Iowa. Several generations later, the Leslies were sharing stories of the old country and looking at pictures of the area from which their ancestors had emigrated to America. They quickly realized that the rocky terrain of northern Scotland looked exactly like the “home land” the Leslies had left behind for New Zealand many decades earlier. In their new adopted country, they had chosen Iowa, a state with a terrain that was as uncultivatable as the rocky highlands of Scotland. The Leslies had a knack for ending up on the poorest land imaginable!