Apfelpfannkuchen.  Or in English: Apple Pancakes

  Really the only thing I could find that pertained at all to my family's migration to America was an old recipe for Apfelpfannkuchen, which is German for Apple Pancakes.  While you would perhaps think that it would be easy to find some old family object due to my family's extraordinarily mixed heritage (I'm some sort of combination of German, English, Irish, Scotish, and Dutch, but I identify the most, perhaps, with my German heritage largely due to my physical appearance), it was not easy at all.  My family, and my family's family, has lived in America for generations and generations, to the point where it is no longer an issue that we know many details about.  When people ask us what nationality we are, we unthinkingly say "American", because that is exactly what we are.  None in my immediate family remember our ancestor's migration, nor do we speak of it, at all.

  The recipe does not really hold any particular meaning for either me or my family, it's simply a good meal to fix when we're all home of a Saturday morning.  I suppose, if I were to really dig down deep, it is kind of fun to imagine my German ancestors sitting around a table like we do, eating the same meal and perhaps sharing some of the same concerns that we do today.

  In fact, no one in the family really knows the exact time or the time period when my family first moved here; all I know is that it was at least two generations before my great-great grandparents on the paternal side were born.  Simply due to the nationality factor, I would assume that the reasons they emigrated to America were the same as other immigrants of those nationalities:  better opportunities, more land, or perhaps religious persecution.