In genealogy, we always have receipts.
You complain about chain migration, I reserve the right to do your tree. #youvebeenwarned #resistancegenealogy
— Jennifer Mendelsohn 🇺🇸 (@CleverTitleTK) January 10, 2018
@CleverTitleTK and #resistancegenealogy is literally getting me through right now. Thank you for using history & facts to show OUR shared history as a country, & the family history of these political figures that they are trying to straight up deny their immigrant heritage
— Mary Kelly (@maaaarykelly) January 19, 2018
Local Journalist Uncovers Heritage of Anti-Immigration Conservatives #resistancegenealogy #genealogy https://t.co/6qx1zhlfql
— LifeinthePastLane (@BGWylie) September 26, 2017
I was never interested in genealogy but I am totally here for #resistancegenealogy https://t.co/FCRBKnMVgE
— Kyle (@heydudekyle) December 21, 2018
Oh my good golly gosh, #resistancegenealogy is my new favorite thing. HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS?!?!
— 🌵 (@amalbrig) January 13, 2018
😂🌳✊🏼❤️☮️🌍🗽
This, by @ReformedBroker, is what underpins #resistancegenealogy. The point is not to dismiss these histories as irrelevant because "times are different." It's to show how in many ways nothing has changed.https://t.co/PMJpKtO0hy
— Jennifer Mendelsohn (@CleverTitleTK) January 19, 2018
I'm here for #ResistanceGenealogy 👏
— Rootsdigger (@galelem1) January 12, 2018
Funny how that works. It's kind of the raison d'etre of #resistancegenealogy. https://t.co/ebpB0ECDSu
— Jennifer Mendelsohn 🇺🇸 (@CleverTitleTK) October 31, 2018
This 2018 thread deserved some kind of #Twitter award. #ResistanceGenealogy came with fire and receipts and hasn’t let up since. @CleverTitleTK is a great American. https://t.co/omQniGtQ1x
— Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sifill_LDF) January 12, 2020
Very impressed by this fact-based #resistancegenealogy project from @CleverTitleTK. If you don't own your immigrant ancestors--warts and all--your life in America is a lie. https://t.co/eCq6msTtnh
— Kim Cooper (@kimcooper) January 18, 2018
Coolest hashtag on Twitter ATM: #resistancegenealogy
— Mark Nottingham (@mnot) January 13, 2018
#resistancegenealogy is one of the things getting me through the lightening round of nativism we are enduring. https://t.co/Ojngux6SjL
— Elizabeth F Cohen (@alixabeth) January 13, 2018
So Dan. Let's say Victor Scavino arrives from Canelli, Italy in 1904, then brother Hector in 1905, brother Gildo in 1912, sister Esther in 1913, & sister Clotilde and their father Giuseppe in 1916, and they live together in NY. Do you think that would count as chain migration? https://t.co/m25mrJHjcT
— Jennifer Mendelsohn (@CleverTitleTK) January 11, 2018
Does finding all the Union soldier ancestors of the Ohio Republicans who voted against banning Confederate flags and memorabilia at county fairs count as #resistancegenealogy, @CleverTitleTK? https://t.co/lRN1TlDtsZ
— lah (@laurenaissance) July 7, 2020
Ken Cuccinelli
Aug 30, 2019
As the new public face of the Trump administration’s draconian immigration policies, acting USCIS Director Ken Cuccinelli has wasted no time stirring up collective ire. Most notably, he set off a firestorm of criticism by rewriting the iconic Emma Lazarus poem that has long functioned as a kind of unofficial American immigration mantra. “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge,” he proudly told NPR’s Rachel Martin, who somehow resisted the urge to burst out laughing and/or slap him upside the head...
Ken’s grandmother Josephine Policastro Cuccinelli was also the Jersey-born daughter of Italian immigrants: Gaetano Policastro and Maria Ronga...
A teenaged Maria Ronga (her birth certificate indicates she was 17) arrived at Ellis Island in November of 1903 with her widowed 48-year-old mother... The “Record of Aliens Held For Special Inquiry” list indicates the reason they were held, abbreviated as “L.P.C.;” it stands for “Likely Public Charge.” So yes, the great-grandmother of the man now beating the drums to tighten the public charge rule was…labeled a likely public charge herself...
Joe Arpaio
Apr 9, 2018
Notorious former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, currently running for a Senate seat in Arizona, has made no bones about how he feels about illegal immigrants. Let's say he is a bit — how shall we say? — hard core. But what of Arpaio's own immigrant roots?
Total number in family chain: 13 (14, if you include Donato himself)...
Arpaio routinely punished immigrants for not speaking English — “They are in the United States, and they should start speaking English,” he said in 2006 — given that his own father belonged to a fraternal organization in Massachusetts that was still keeping records entirely in Italian in 1931...
Steve Bannon
Sep 11, 2018
Noah then explained that his team had hired a professional genealogist to dig into the immigration history of Bannon's ancestors. They discovered that "Bannon's great-great grandfather Lawrence Bannon arrived in the U.S. from Ireland by the 1850s, at a time when America's borders were so open that Irishmen could just walk into the country with no passports, no visas, no background checks of any kind."
Tucker Carlson
Aug 15, 2017
Sen. Rafael "Ted" Cruz
Mar 7, 2018
Ted's dad then went to Canada where he became a citizen in 1973. 🇨🇦 Here he is on the 1974 Alberta voter's list. 32 years later in 2005, he decided to become an American citizen – 48 years after his arrival in the U.S. 🇺🇸 #resistancegenealogy pic.twitter.com/wtRNrSZABJ
— Megan Smolenyak🕵️♀️ (@megansmolenyak) March 7, 2018
Ann Coulter
Dec 6, 2017
All eight of her paternal great-great-grandparents (four couples) came to America from Europe. Six of these eight were Famine-era arrivals from Ireland, while the other two were from Germany. Her Irish ancestors wouldn't have been welcomed with open arms as can be seen from these typical 19th century political cartoons...
Rep. Bob Goodlatte
Mar 21, 2018
As soon as I realized that Carl married Kentucky-born Marguerite in 1914, my memory bank sent out a flare. Wasn't this that time period when …? Yes, it was. By marrying a foreigner, Marguerite had lost her American citizenship. Thanks to bad timing, Goodlatte's grandparents had fallen into one of the pitfalls of the Expatriation Act of 1907...
On October 30th of that year, [Goodlatte's grandfather Carl] petitioned for naturalization, but in so doing, lied in his paperwork. One of the requirements for citizenship — dating back to 1795 — is five years of continuous residence in the United States, but as we've just seen, the Mentzendorff family spent a chunk of 1919 in Europe...
Laura Ingraham
Aug 9, 2018
His brother, who is already living in Willamantic, Connecticut. In other words, Laura Ingraham is a product of chain migration. pic.twitter.com/PXsgtKjsIb
— Jen T. (@stuffjenlikes) August 9, 2018
John Kelly
May 11, 2018
On his mother's side, Kelly's great-grandfathers worked as a wagon driver and fruit peddler, according to Mendelsohn's research. These were not skilled positions, obviously. It's not clear that any of Kelly's immigrant ancestors had significant educational backgrounds. From one such record, Mendelsohn learned that John DeMarco, the fruit peddler, still didn't speak English after more than a decade in the country. His wife Crescenza — Kelly's great-grandmother — lived in the United States for more than 30 years without learning the language.
Tomi Lahren
Sep 7, 2017
I ordered the court file, which included Dietrich's grand jury indictment, in all its 14-page glory. Tomi Lahren's great-great-grandfather was indicted on two separate counts, for “willfully, unlawfully and knowingly” making a false affidavit in connection with a naturalization proceeding, and for forging a naturalization document, in violation of the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906.
The grand jurors accused him of swearing falsely to the date of his declaration, and of altering the original papers (“with a knife or steel eraser or other instrument unknown to the Grand Jurors”) to make it look like his declaration of intention to become a citizen had been executed in 1911 rather than 1909, apparently because he'd let too much time elapse before completing the naturalization process.
Jason Chaffetz
Dec 20, 2018
Jason Chaffetz' message for those seeking refuge? "Don't make this journey. It will kill you.”
— Jennifer Mendelsohn 🇺🇸 (@CleverTitleTK) December 20, 2018
Good thing no one told that to 15-year-old Celia Kessel Chaffetz when she came to the US by herself in 1898 from Lithuania.
You'll notice she had no money or job.#resistancegenealogy pic.twitter.com/P1Rk7Ha8OL
Vice President Mike Pence
Jan 25, 2018
Although Mike Pence claims that he “grew up on the front row of the American dream” thanks in part to his Irish immigrant grandfather, he's not keen on migrant workers or chain migration. Other positions he holds on matters as wide-ranging as pregnancy prevention and government-provided safety nets were shared by many in the era of Richard Cawley, the grandfather he's so fond of mentioning, and the consequences for his family were far from trivial...
Turning to the family's Ellis Island saga, his grandfather and four of his siblings came to America (only the eldest remained in Ireland). They were so orderly that they immigrated in age sequence with James starting things off by going to an aunt in Illinois. He then helped Richard who helped Thomas who helped the sisters — one of tidiest set of chain migration links I've ever encountered...
Jacob Wohl
Mar 2, 2018
In 1917, younger brother Maurice joined him in Ohio. And then in 1920, 17-year old brother Jack joined the other two. Jack lists Samuel as his point of contact. Note that Jack's occupation is listed as “none.” He was allowed to come simply because he wanted to join his family. pic.twitter.com/Kwoe676drr
— Jennifer Mendelsohn 🇺🇸 (@CleverTitleTK) March 2, 2018
Dana Loesch
Sep 4, 2018
To summarize, research shows that Loesch's:
This doesn't include Loesch's own account of her aunt who narrowly escaped being shot by her husband. And all of this was essentially friendly fire in the sense that every incident occurred on home turf and involved family members and patrons.
Stephen Miller
Aug 2, 2017
Stephen Miller favors immigrants who speak English. But the 1910 census shows his own great-grandmother couldn't. #oops pic.twitter.com/16GZ6Wtgvf
— Jennifer Mendelsohn 🇺🇸 (@CleverTitleTK) August 2, 2017
Rep. Ron DeSantis
Jul 31, 2018
On February 5th while they were at sea, the U.S. passed the Immigration Act of 1917 which was intended to limit undesirable southern and eastern European immigrants such as Luigia and her family. Fortunately, it wasn't implemented until May 1st. Otherwise, she and her daughters could have been denied entry due to the freshly imposed literacy requirement. They had squeezed in with a margin of ten weeks...
Jesse Watters
Jul 31, 2018
I wonder what semi-literate Irish immigrant laborer Michael Quinn — who in 1862 set down a “family rickerd” for his “dier children” warning them to “shun all bad company,” and in 1865 lost 2 kids to cholera in 10 days — would've thought of his great-great-great grandson Jesse... https://t.co/GooFqByFyG
— Eric Moskowitz (@ELMoskowitz) July 31, 2018
Rep. Devin Nunes
Apr 26, 2018
One of Nunes's grandfathers was born in Tulare in 1919 to Maria, the sister who had arrived with her whole family in 1908. These tight bonds were surely comforting, but likely made it harder for immigrants to assimilate. Here's Maria again in 1930 — 22 years after arriving in America — still unable to speak English...
It also seems that becoming an American citizen was not a priority for Nunes's family. Some of the nine immigrant relatives listed in the initial chart never went through the naturalization process, but here's a summary of those who did. Collectively, they took an average of 30.8 years from their date of arrival to do so...
Dan Scavino, Jr.
Jan 11, 2018
So Dan. Let's say Victor Scavino arrives from Canelli, Italy in 1904, then brother Hector in 1905, brother Gildo in 1912, sister Esther in 1913, & sister Clotilde and their father Giuseppe in 1916, and they live together in NY. Do you think that would count as chain migration? https://t.co/m25mrJHjcT
— Jennifer Mendelsohn 🇺🇸 (@CleverTitleTK) January 11, 2018
Rep. Paul Gosar
Jan 30, 2018
...and one more. The 1940 census which shows that both of Paul Gosar's immigrant paternal grandparents only had a 5th grade education. (I can come back and look at his maternal side later.) pic.twitter.com/q3Oq8083Nr
— Libby Stigaard Ilson (@TheAllergicKid) January 31, 2018
Rep. Steve King
Mar 13, 2017
Here's @SteveKingIA's grandmother Freda, age 4, arriving in the US with her 2-year-old brother and baby sister in 1894. #SomeoneElsesBabies pic.twitter.com/B6BCzZfHmQ
— Jennifer Mendelsohn 🇺🇸 (@CleverTitleTK) March 13, 2017
President Donald Trump
Jan 11, 2018
The policy, the Raise Act, would introduce a point-based system for new applicants to enter the United States. In addition to speaking English, points would be awarded based on answers to these other questions that Miller mentioned: “Can they support themselves and their families financially? Do they have a skill that will add to the U.S. economy? Are they being paid a high wage?
Were that policy in place in 1885, Friedrich Trumpf would likely not have gained entry to the United States. The immigration record for his arrival that year indicates that he arrived without an identifiable “calling”: The word “none” sits next to his name in that column.
Kanye West
Jan 11, 2018
Like countless others, I was confounded by your recent comment about slavery being a choice, so I decided to explore your family tree (as a genealogist, that's my instinctive response to many circumstances)...
Whenever your travels should next take you to Louisiana, I hope that you might consider squeezing in a visit to pay tribute to this great-great-great-uncle of yours because he was far more heroic than his modest headstone might suggest. You see, Pvt. Daniel A. West was born free and made a deliberate choice to help those who weren't.
James Woods
May 8, 2018
The Sullivans then took refuge again, in a second country.
— Jennifer Mendelsohn 🇺🇸 (@CleverTitleTK) May 8, 2018
Here's Catherine and kids arriving steerage in New York in 1872. And here they are in the 1880 census in Providence, RI.
Would you call them invaders? I call them your great-great-grandparents. #resistancegenealogy pic.twitter.com/XId5QKSCi5
Kris Kobach
Oct 8, 2018
I'm sure Kris Kobach is just trying to keep out the kind of immigrants whose unruly teenaged kids would join a "club" to commit burglaries.
— Jennifer Mendelsohn 🇺🇸 (@CleverTitleTK) October 8, 2018
Oh, wait. Sorry. That was his own great-grandfather in 1902.
h/t @ricketiki https://t.co/AQGRgQ2YT1 #resistancegenealogy pic.twitter.com/VlujPQKBCl
Kirstjen Nielsen
Jun 15, 2018
Oh, look - here's Kirstjen Nielsen's grandfather's birth record from Sant'Arcangelo, Italy and him arriving at Ellis Island a few months later - and not being torn away from his mother. #resistancegenealogy#DoUntoOthers pic.twitter.com/y21VPIdPZN
— Megan Smolenyak🕵️♀️ (@megansmolenyak) June 15, 2018
And now, the definitive responses to...
Hello, it’s your friendly neighborhood immigration attorney back again to provide you with everything you need the next time someone starts trying to tell you about how their family came “the right way” and anyone who wants to do it like their ancestors did should “get in line.”
For those clamoring for a wall against immigrants, it may come as a surprise to learn that there were no federal laws concerning immigration until well into the history of the United States. When people say “my ancestors came here legally,” they’re probably right. For the first century of the country’s existence, anyone could land here and walk right off the boat with no papers of any kind, just as Gumpertz did. Coming here “illegally” did not even exist as a concept.
Crediting yesteryear's immigrants with following the laws is like calling someone a good driver because they never got caught speeding on the Autobahn.
We’re proud that our collaboration with @CleverTitleTK and #ResistanceGenealogy has raised over $400 for @supportKIND to provide services for migrant and refugee children.
— PhilosopheTee (@Philosophe_Tee) September 5, 2020
Grab a shirt, laptop sticker, or support KIND directly!https://t.co/uRRXxxXwrs pic.twitter.com/UpqW2a1eWV
NEW! #ResistanceGenealogy is raising money for KIND (Kids In Need of Defense) through merchandise on Etsy! Your t-shirt or sticker proceeds will go towards helping migrant children obtain legal counsel at the US border.
On the morning after Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) broke a record for the longest filibuster in the history of the House of Representatives — an eight-hour defense of immigrants — a Baltimore amateur genealogist named Jennifer Mendelsohn sat in her home office and logged onto Ancestry.com to begin her own form of protest.
If you think the ongoing immigration debates don't apply to you, Jennifer Mendelsohn has some news: They probably do. Mendelsohn, a journalist, author and passionate genealogist, has been using people's public family history to beat back some of the uglier claims about immigrants and how they fit into US history. She calls it #resistancegenealogy, and it only takes a few online tools and some instinctive sleuthing for her to call out public figures who oppose common forms of immigration.
Jennifer Mendelsohn, a freelance writer based in Baltimore, has a low tolerance for bad faith. Last summer, after Stephen Miller, the White House senior policy adviser, went on television to support a bill that would penalize immigrants who didn’t speak English, Mendelsohn took to Twitter. “Miller favors immigrants who speak English,” she began. “But the 1910 census shows his own great-grandmother couldn’t.” Her tweet, which included a photograph of a census document indicating that Miller’s ancestor spoke only Yiddish, went viral. “It’s hilarious how easy it is to find hypocrisy,” Mendelsohn said. “And I’m a scary-good sleuth.”
As President Trump and Congress debate what's next for immigration, one journalist is working to trace the immigration roots of lawmakers and other public figures who are in favor of a crackdown on the issue.
If all Americans were to trace their family history back just a few generations, the overwhelming majority would discover that they’re the products of immigration. And that would be a good thing, says the journalist and amateur genealogist Jennifer Mendelsohn.
Genealogist Jennifer Mendelsohn reviews the ancestry of various members of President Donald Trump's administration, including Vice President Mike Pence.
A mix of journalistic mistakes and partisan hackery advanced a pernicious lie about Democrats and the Klan. Now, not only can partisans and malicious actors manufacture fake news, but they can falsify history as well.
Myths and secrets — some benign in the "fruit seller" vein, some far more explosive — can burrow themselves into family narratives with surprising ferocity. But genealogists come along and unpack them. And it's receipts that are sorely missing from the current debate over immigration policy.
To say that the availability of online records has revolutionized genealogy would be an understatement. For new genealogists, going online for the first time can be like visiting a sumptuous buffet table, brimming with tantalizing delicacies. The good news is that there's so. much. good. stuff. The bad news is that it's easy to overfill your plate and end up feeling sick.
There's been nothing short of an explosion in consumer DNA testing of late. How do you decide which test to take and with which company? Before you start, it's important to clarify why you're taking a DNA test. If it's just because you're curious about your ethnicity, you might want to test at whichever company is having the best sale.
When I first got my results, I excitedly reached out to many of those listed as probable “second to third cousins,” certain I would soon be trading kugel recipes with them. Over time, I became increasingly puzzled and frustrated why I couldn’t connect a single one of them to my known family tree. I quickly discovered that Jewish DNA is, well, different from other DNA. If you are expecting that your DNA test will create a clear-cut breadcrumb trail taking your family tree back to the days of King David, think again.
Jennifer Mendelsohn is a seasoned journalist and ghostwriter. A former People magazine special correspondent and Slate columnist, her work has appeared in numerous local and national publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Politico, Washingtonian, Tablet, Medium, McSweeney's, and Jezebel.
A member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, Mendelsohn serves on the board of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Maryland.
For media inquiries, please contact Andrea Barzvi at Empire Literary