I’m having some Saturday Night Genealogy Fun (#SNGF), with help from Randy Seaver and his prompts! Feel free to join in.

SNGF: Andrew Driskol: My Farthest-Flung Ancestor

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: July 18, 2026

Prompt: “Our family trees contain historical persons who came from places all over the world.  Each of our ancestral lines came from somewhere. Can you identify your Farthest-Flung Ancestor (FFA)?  Who in your ancestral tree came from the most geographically distant place from where you live now? What brought them (or their descendants) to where your family ended up?”

Discussion

At the risk of sounding rather unadventurous, my farthest-flung known ancestor is Andrew Driskol, my second great-grandfather. He was apparently born in Prussia, in what is now Germany.

Andrew seems to have traveled first to England, where he married and had two children. He later went ahead of his family to New York, and his wife and children followed him in 1875.

Sadly, I have found no records that tell me why Andrew made either part of this journey. I can only speculate. Were the Revolutions of 1848 a factor? Was he avoiding compulsory military service? Did economic hardship encourage him to leave?

Whatever brought him across Europe and then the Atlantic, Andrew eventually settled on Staten Island, New York – the place where I was born. The roots he planted stuck.

AI Disclosure

This post was created by me with the help of AI tools. While AI helps organize research, the storytelling and discoveries are my own.