When Ginny Seccuro and her daughter, Kim, traveled from the United States to Ireland to learn more about her grandfather’s homeland, they felt as if they were coming home to a place they’d never been.
How to plan a genealogy trip to connect with your roots
Ancestry trips are on the rise as consumer DNA test kits and digitized genealogical records have become more accessible
Advice by Sheeka Sanahori
Updated June 20, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT|Published June 20, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
“‘Oh, there’s no doubt you’re Irish with those eyes and that hair,’” Seccuro, 52, remembers a woman saying about her blue eyes and reddish-brown hair. “I laughed, and she said, ‘May the road rise up to meet you.’”
That phrase, part of a longer Irish blessing, was something Seccuro recalled hearing her grandfather say.
“It was an expensive trip, don’t get me wrong, but it was worth every bit of it,” she said. “It’s just magical. It’s so fulfilling to see where you came from.”
The rise of heritage trips
Seccuro is one of countless American travelers who’ve combined a passion for researching their genealogy with visiting the faraway places they uncover in their family tree. Countries have been luring U.S. tourists with heritage trips since the 1950s, but the number of travelers visiting these homelands has increased in recent years as consumer DNA test kits and digitized genealogical records have become available.
“You do all this research, sitting at home behind your computer, but the past and your ancestors only really come alive when you’re there on the ground,” said Jackie Hogan, a sociologist and professor at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill.
Hogan writes in her book “Roots Quest: Inside America’s Genealogy Boom” that ancestry tourism is most popular in settler countries like the United States, Canada and Australia, where many people can trace their ancestry back to countries in Europe, Africa and Asia.
“It gives people this really profound, really moving, even a spiritual sense of connection with those who came before them,” Hogan said.
For some heritage travelers, learning of an ancestor’s home country is reason enough to visit to experience the land, culture and food.
How to start your planning
When genealogy enthusiasts decide to take an ancestry trip, their itinerary may be full of specific places, like a town or even a home where an ancestor lived. It can require hours of genealogical research or hiring a researcher before booking the trip.
The next step is setting expectations with travel companions about the goals of the trip so that they aren’t bored with an itinerary full of visiting gravesites and archival libraries. Kim Seccuro, 28, said it was important to prioritize their itinerary.
“My mom had so many places that she wanted to go,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘Mom, we’re only going for a little over two weeks. We have to narrow this down to be able to enjoy the trip while we’re there, too, and not be in a car all the time.’”
Hogan warns that a trip centered on viewing original documents in another country can lead to disappointment. Rare records may require advance appointments or even credentials to review them. Researchers may need local language fluency and archival skills to find and interpret data. She recommends using digitized records ahead of an ancestry trip as much as possible.
What resources to use
For those beginning research at home, Ellis Island — once the busiest entry point for immigrants — is a well-known source to search for European ancestors. The historic site allows you to search 65 million passenger records and ship manifests for immigrants who entered the Port of New York between 1820 and 1957. Ellis Island opened as the first federal immigration processing center in 1892.
But a corporate genealogist for Ancestry notes that the United States has more than 300 ports of entry, including Boston, San Francisco and Galveston, Tex.
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“Tons of families have the story of ‘My ancestor immigrated through Ellis Island,’” Crista Cowan said. “So they search Ellis Island records and are not successful. Well, it’s because their ancestor came in 1870 or 1880 when Ellis Island didn’t even exist.”
Cowan says that once you know which port your ancestors used to enter the United States, tracking down naturalization records is a great way to confirm countries and even towns of origin. Records from the U.S. census, taken every decade since 1790, may also list countries of origin.
“It becomes a cross between a treasure hunt and a jigsaw puzzle,” Cowan said.
For those who want help putting the puzzle together to take an ancestry trip, companies such as Ancestry are available. Ancestry’s ProGenealogists service offers genealogy help and heritage trips, but the travel offerings start at $3,000 per day.
Black Americans who are descendants of enslaved people face more challenges when researching their ancestors. The earliest census to record all Black Americans by name was in 1870, although the 1850 and 1860 censuses named free Black people.
The descendants of slaveholding families may have records of the names of the people their families enslaved, but these records are often private and not accessible online. This makes tracing each generation more difficult than the last, with near impossible chances of tracing an ancestor back to their country of origin.
Consumer DNA tests remain an option for descendants of enslaved people as well as for adults who were adopted and others who may not be able to access information from genealogy records.
African Ancestry offers package tours for customers who’ve gotten results from their DNA tests.
“I believe that those who came before us wanted to go home,” said Gina Paige, co-founder and president of African Ancestry. “We use science, but at our core, we are an identity company. We help people change the way they view themselves.”
A lasting impact
D’uandre Drain visited Cameroon in March on an African Ancestry group tour after his DNA test revealed Bamileke ethnicity. He took Paige’s advice to journal about his journey so he could later share the details with his family.
Before he left the airport, a Cameroonian man started to talk to him, mistaking him for someone born and raised in Cameroon. He felt a strong sense of coming home to a place he’d never been.
“It was the first time I’d actually been somewhere where I’m like, ‘Yo, this is mine. This is my place,’” he said.
All the ancestry travelers interviewed for this article described a similar homecoming feeling. For some travelers, that feeling of being home brought them to tears.
Hogan says it’s because ancestry travel is a journey into the self.
It’s what makes ancestry trips unforgettable. The old stories held in the land combine with the sensory experience of the present-day tourist. It’s up to the ancestry traveler to make sense of it all.
Sheeka Sanahori is a travel journalist and video producer based in Atlanta. You can find her on Instagram: @sheeka.sanahori.
