Family History Month! Before the Boat

Exploring the Practicalities of Travel

After planning a recent trip to his ancestral villages in Slovakia, Joe Gayetsky began viewing the immigrant journey through a new lens. Armed with a smartphone, GPS, a translator, and a rental car, he wondered how his ancestors made the same trek more than a century ago. Their journey didn’t begin at the dock - it began in a remote village. This presentation explores the networks and infrastructures that made mass emigration possible, from ticket agents and rail lines to ports, emigrant halls, and the rapidly evolving transatlantic shipping industry at the turn of the 20th century.

Adult | Registration is recommended in our Calendar of Events