I was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1940. For about a decade, I have been researching my family roots. All of my family immigrated to North America from the British Isles and western Europe.
The earliest was an indentured Puritan, William Knapp, who crossed the pond on the good ship Arabella in 1630 and helped settle Watertown, Massachusetts.
In the late-18th century, one of his heirs moved to Maine, then a part of Massachusetts. He, like nearly all of my ancestors into the 20th century, was a farmer. One of his heirs became a woodsman who immigrated to the Traverse area of Michigan in the late-19th century.
My father was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1920. His ancestors were English and French Canadians, mostly farmers. When oil was discovered and successfully exploited in Lambton County, some became oil men. In 1928, my father, seven years old, immigrated to the Detroit, Michigan, area with his family.
On both sides of my family in the early 20th century, my grandfathers moved to the Detroit area—from both Lambton County, Ontario, and the Traverse area of Michigan—for jobs in the nascent automobile industry.
Winthrop Fleet