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Donald Trump’s Ancestry: How His Immigrant Family Made It In America
Ancestry.com ^ | September 13, 2016

Posted on 09/22/2016 6:13:15 AM PDT by Kaslin

Whatever you may think of real-estate mogul-turned-presidential-candidate Donald Trump’s politics, you can’t deny his many ups and downs are entertaining.

As he continues to make the subject of immigration one of his talking points, his own origins tell an interesting tale of ambitious young people crossing the ocean to make something of themselves in this country.

Some of that story is documented right in the Ancestry archives. Let’s take a look at Trump’s intriguing ancestors.

A 16-Year-Old Crosses the Atlantic

First, you can find on the passenger list of the SS Eider in 1885 Trump’s grandfather, Friederich Trump (or Friedrich Trumpf, the spelling is inconsistent).Friedr TrumpfThe passenger list of the SS Eider in 1885 shows Friedr. Trumpf, age 16

He traveled to New York from Germany when he was just 16. [Picture yourself crossing an ocean and starting a new life at 16!]

NYC Barber to Klondike Gold Rush Entrepreneur

After years of working as a barber in New York, Friederich, now going by Fred Trump, made his way to Seattle.

According to Trump biographers, he ran a restaurant in the seedy part of Seattle before eventually packing it up and heading to the Alaska-Canada border town of Skagway in 1898.Skagway during the Klondike Gold Rush (c 1897), where Trump's grandfather set up shopSkagway, where Trump’s grandfather set up a business, during the Klondike Gold Rush

That was the first stop for prospectors in the Klondike Gold Rush. Trump and partner Ernest Levin pitched a tent along the trail and sold the travelers food, including meat from horses that had died along the way.(!)

With their profits, they opened up the New Arctic Restaurant and Hotel, which had a reputation for fine food but not-so-refined women.

Death by Spanish Influenza and a New Generation of Trumps

After three years, Trump pulled out just before the gold rush began waning and returned to New York. He then took a jaunt back to Kallstadt, Pfalz, Germany, for a wife — his former neighbor, Elizabeth Christ.

Elizabeth immigrated here in 1901, as census data shows. Her second child, Frederick Christ Trump, was born in Woodhaven, Queens, in 1905.Brooklyn Manor in Newhaven Queens, NYTrump’s father, Frederick Christ Trump, was born in Newhaven, Queens, NY in 1905

The elder Trump died in the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918, when young Frederick was just 13 years old.

By the age of 15, Frederick famously started his own business, with the help of his mother, building garages. They were helped by the small fortune of $31,642.54 (about $504,000 today) left by Fred Trump in his will.Fred Trump's willFred Trump left his wife Elizabeth and son Fred a small fortune in his will in 1918

Due to the political climate of the time, and the many Jewish immigrants who lived in the apartment buildings he went on to own, Trump would claim to be of Swedish, not German, descent until the ’80s.

Small-Village Scotland to the Big Apple

Donald Trump’s mother was born Mary Anne MacLeod on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, in 1912. Passenger lists show that she came to New York on the SS Transylvania in 1930 and wrote down her occupation as “domestic.”Trump's mother immigrated to America from Scotland aboard the SS TransylvaniaTrump’s mother immigrated to America from Scotland aboard the SS Transylvania

She was from a small village of fishermen and crofters (tenant farmers). According to naturalization records, she became a citizen in 1942, four years before Donald, her third of four children, was born.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Politics/Elections
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1 posted on 09/22/2016 6:13:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

My grandfather left home at 16 and crossed an ocean—but a much longer voyage (Europe to New Zealand).


2 posted on 09/22/2016 6:18:44 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Kaslin

Mary Ann MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod gave birth to Donald Trump MacLeod

Highlander

There can be only one!


3 posted on 09/22/2016 6:18:46 AM PDT by xzins ( Free Republic Gives YOU a voice heard around the globe. Support the Freepathon!)
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To: Kaslin

They got that wrong.

Donald is one of FIVE, not four.
He has a living brother and two sisters....
....and another brother who died in his 40’s


4 posted on 09/22/2016 6:22:27 AM PDT by Guenevere (If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do....)
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To: Kaslin
Hillary's family were immigrants too.


5 posted on 09/22/2016 6:23:12 AM PDT by billorites (freepo ergo sum)
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To: Kaslin

Wow, the story of the year.

Both of his parents came here LEGALLY and did the paperwork to become citizens LEGALLY and he can run for president LEGALLY.


6 posted on 09/22/2016 6:24:13 AM PDT by wbarmy (I chose to be a sheepdog once I saw what happens to the sheep.)
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To: Kaslin

Notice what Trump’s immigrant family did NOT do:

- Get on welfare
- Demand Americans adjust their culture to accommodate them
- Refuse to learn English

That’s why immigration post-1965 is a world of difference from that pre-1965.


7 posted on 09/22/2016 6:37:52 AM PDT by Yashcheritsiy (You can't have a constitution without a country to go with it)
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To: wbarmy

Not to mention his ancestors made something of themselves and passed their fortune along to the following generations. There’s nothing in there about Old Friedrich standing in a welfare line or bootlegging food stamps.

Or attending overpriced elitist colleges and prep schools.

In many ways, it would seem Clan Trump is the embodiment of the (old) American Dream.


8 posted on 09/22/2016 6:39:00 AM PDT by IronJack
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To: Verginius Rufus

so one of your parents was born in New Zealand ???

My 2nd great grandfather left out of New York at about age 16 and went to Australia and New Zealand following the gold strikes...

He never did find any gold but he did find great great grandma...


9 posted on 09/22/2016 6:46:21 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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To: Kaslin

The media never opens up stories of Hillary with the phrase, Whatever you think of Hillary Clinton’s politics....


10 posted on 09/22/2016 6:55:25 AM PDT by Ciexyz (The Democratic ticket will continue to be bad for me and America.)
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To: Kaslin

The Spanish Flu Pandemic got my grandpappy too.


11 posted on 09/22/2016 7:17:23 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel and NRA Life Member)
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To: billorites
Now that's a HALLOWEEN-table centerpiece!
12 posted on 09/22/2016 7:18:46 AM PDT by SandRat (Duty - Honor - Country! What else needs said?)
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To: Kaslin

So what. I came to Amerika with absolutely nothing. Who gives a crap about what our ancestors did. Selling dead horse meat? Hey we eat dead cow meat. besides, the dead horse was probably frozen. Did it kill off the prospectors? I’m sure many of them had dead horse meat in the countries they came from. Then they make it sound like he changed his nationality because he was in a Jewish neighborhood? Why? Most there left because of the Russians, not the Nazis, they weren’t around in 1918. If he said he was Swedish then it wasn’t because of the Jews, it was because of the Anglo and American propaganda against the Kaiser and the Germans. The next report will show that Trump had a relative who married someone who was married to someone, who had a daughter who married a man who’s second cousin was related to Hitler. Thus, Trump is part of the Hitler family. OMG, elections sometimes provide the funniest moments if they weren’t so F’n serious.


13 posted on 09/22/2016 7:20:18 AM PDT by Bringbackthedraft (Hillary 2016? BAD CHOICE! Deplorable are We? Wait til Nov 8th!)
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To: Bringbackthedraft

Oh don’t be a sour puss! ;-) It is fun to know the 131 generations that take you back to Adam and Eve! ;-) Knowing your are descended from Mark Antony, Claudius the Stutterer, Old King Cole, Robert the Bruce, is fun!


14 posted on 09/22/2016 7:31:18 AM PDT by SubMareener (Save us from Quarterly Freepathons! Become a MONTHLY DONOR!e)
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To: SubMareener

Oh don’t be a sour puss! ;-) It is fun to know the 131 generations ...................................... Ah yes, all the way back to the Great Ice Ship of my ancestors.


15 posted on 09/22/2016 7:38:11 AM PDT by Bringbackthedraft (Hillary 2016? BAD CHOICE! Deplorable are We? Wait til Nov 8th!)
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To: IronJack

“There’s nothing in there about Old Friedrich standing in a welfare line or bootlegging food stamps.”

Or bootlegging illegal liquor as the Kennedy ancestors did.


16 posted on 09/22/2016 7:43:48 AM PDT by MayflowerMadam
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To: xzins
Trump is the son of MacLeod

Trump's business partner was Levin

Trump married Christ

interesting

17 posted on 09/22/2016 8:26:03 AM PDT by conservativeimage (The primary weapon in guerrilla warfare is the organization.)
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To: Kaslin

My grandfather on my mom’s side came to America from Scotland, with just a steamer trunk with his clothes and plumbing tools.

He started a plumbing business in the Midwest & then California on just that.


18 posted on 09/22/2016 8:45:50 AM PDT by WildHighlander57 ((WildHighlander57, returning after lurking since 2000)
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To: Tennessee Nana

No, my grandfather returned home, married my grandmother, and then came to the USA. All of their children were born in America. If my grandfather had returned to New Zealand he would have been put in a concentration camp in WWI.


19 posted on 09/22/2016 8:46:55 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Tennessee Nana

No, my grandfather returned home, married my grandmother, and then came to the USA. All of their children were born in America. If my grandfather had returned to New Zealand he would have been put in a concentration camp in WWI.


20 posted on 09/22/2016 8:46:55 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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