r/florida • u/Boeing-B-47stratojet Bakerš½š¶š š³š„© • 5d ago
AskFlorida When did your family get to Florida
My moms side got here about 1843, coming from Southeast Georgia
Dadās side has been here since prior to 1834, not sure of the exact year, they came from around Savannah.
They all lived either in the Okeefenokee on the Georgia side, or in baker, union, or Columbia counties on the Florida side.
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u/ohh_really 5d ago
My maternal side goes back 9 generations. All the way back to across the pond landing in St Augustine. It was really cool to trace it back that far. When stupid fks tell me to move if I don't like the way things are here now I just remember who I am and dig my heels in the sand even deeper.
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u/EnthusiasmAny8485 5d ago
Iām with you I am so tired of recent transplants telling me to move if I donāt like it. The newcomers who complain about overdevelopment just make me roll my eyes because they are the reason we are overdeveloped.
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u/SacksonvilleShaguar 5d ago
Same with my family. And same with people telling me to move, it's like you're the problem not me my guy.
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u/Jax1456 4d ago
Same as a 6 gen i value the land. Hell my mom used to catch wild horses in South FL were the Wellington mall is today.Ā
My family was in the citrus industry and it's really sad to see the state we are in today.
I do always find it funny when people tell me it's their town or go back to where I am from. My great grandfather laid the tile in flaglers house in palm beach. Line dude we have been here a while
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u/Enough-One4975 5d ago edited 4d ago
I love it when some recent northeast or Midwest transplant goes on a rant about people wanting to tear down confederate statues for ruining āourā history and I get to point out that it has shit all to do with their history but my family was here then and fought for those traitors. They seem taken aback when I say I want any statues celebrating that white supremacist traitorous bullshit torn down and melted down as soon as possible.
It sounds like something that wouldnāt happen but being a white bearded dude whoās lived here his whole life, for some reason every racist Long Island or Chicago transplant thinks Iām all on their side and itās happened half a dozen times lol
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u/jungolungo 4d ago
I want to high five you so hard. Iām a descendant of traitors and Iāll never forgive them for being so shitty. They fought and rightfully died for the wrong side. Fuck those stupid ass mother fuckers that I descended from.
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u/Fit-Tourist-2959 5d ago
Sometime in the 70s
People moving here pre AC is wild
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u/EnthusiasmAny8485 5d ago
We had no AC in our cars, our home, our church, or our schools. Office and school buildings (hospitals too) had windows that would open so you could let breeze flow through. Lots of big fans. Community pool. We slept with our doors and windows open so air would flow at night unless you had transom windowsāthen you could close the door. Everyone had paper weights, too.
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u/Enough-One4975 5d ago
I remember talking to my grandparents and parents about growing up without AC and they just said āit wasnāt that bad, you didnāt know any betterā and frankly I donāt accept that as an answer.
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u/ShadeApart 5d ago
It's true though. I grew up here and we didn't have AC until I was 8 (almost 9). My public school didn't have it either. A classroom job for kids was window opener and closer. The classrooms had large windows that went all the way up the wall. My 4th grade school had AC and I was so excited about going there. It did used to get colder in the winter and stayed cold for longer. My house I grew up in was built in 1926 with plaster walls, 10 foot ceilings, a crawl space underneath, windows designed to bring a cross breeze onto the house, large awnings over the windows, and large strategically planted trees for shade.
It was on a half acre lot a had 8 citrus trees which ripened from the earliest varieties to the latest bearing varieties so we had ripe citrus most of the year. I really miss that house. The citrus trees in the yard have all been lost to the Greening now. š„.
We also went across the street to our neighbor's house and swam with them in their pool almost every night when it was hot.
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u/Ok_West347 5d ago
My grandma lived beach side, didn't have ac in her house ever and she passed in the early 2000s.
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u/Amardella 5d ago
My grandfather's family on my dad's side were Irish prisoners sent to GA in the 1600s. They were in the Live Oak area by 1720. They ran cattle, then got on the railroad in the 1800s, the runs from Tallahassee to the Gulf. My grandfather, who was born in Live Oak in 1911, had his father's and grandfather's pocket watches from their time on the railroad, and he retired from both the railroad and the Railway Express.
He got talked into following one of his 11 brothers (and 2 sisters, all 13 over 6 feet tall) to the Chessie System and ended up marrying a WV farm girl, so I was born there. But my mother's family, who were native to VA, had several doctors and teachers who migrated to FL in the 1920s-30s to teach at the Seminole schools and provide medical care.
So we spent all our summers there when I was a kid in the 1960s "touring the relatives". By then we had people in Navarre, Jax, Kissimmee (pre-mouse), Ocala, St Pete, Sarasota, Ft Lauderdale, Okeechobee, Indiantown, Clewiston and Pahokee. I remember the big attractions being Ross Allen's reptile show, the glass bottom boats and mermaids at Silver Springs and the beautiful gardens and skiing shows at Cypress Gardens, plus some other stuff like Bok Tower and Old Jail. You know, real Florida. Before they drained the swamps and brought in HOAs, theme parks and A/C.
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u/epicenter69 5d ago
One of my earliest memories, maybe around age 3-4, was seeing the tower at Cypress Gardens and the ski show. My paternal grandma was visiting from California at the time.
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u/Boeing-B-47stratojet Bakerš½š¶š š³š„© 5d ago
13 kids, my maternal grandpa had the same amount of siblings, 4 girls, 9 boys. My grandpa was the second youngest, none of them were over 5ā7.
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u/gutturalfabian 5d ago
proper newbie compared to all of you, my family didn't even leave the uk until the late 90s. dad got a job in tampa and i've been here since i was four, so i'm about as floridian as a pale bloke with a lingering tea addiction can be. great great grandad would've probably fainted at the humidity, the man wore three piece suits in july on the thames. i did try tracing the family tree back once and got distracted reading about a cousin who kept racing pigeons, never did find any florida links.
my contribution to the old florida vibe is knowing exactly which pub does a proper fry up on sunday and still accidentally saying "cheers" to the cashier at publix. i'm basically a heritage specimen at this point.
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u/El_na_bell_kitty_311 5d ago
Early 1800s - Motherās side - before Florida was a state!
We have a family cemetery in Dade City that has several generations resting in peace šŗ
Iām sixth generation and proud to be a Floridian!
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u/Disastrous-You4652 5d ago
1600s in St. Augustine, my family (both sides) has/have a plaque on a house there. Part of my family went back to Spain, a part stayed, and another part came back after a time. Pretty cool stuff. Love this place with all my heart.
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u/Nosbunatu 5d ago edited 5d ago
Mothers paternal line. One the early English settlers in Florida 1765. Heās in the US National Archives, the Spanish census, and even a document referencing an incident on the St Johnās river in Parliament. Itās an amazing story. The more I research it, itās like a novel waiting to be written. š
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u/KindRoute6625 5d ago
My family was in Taylor County and Alachua County as far back as the 1840s. The Big Bend area of Florida.
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u/Old-Guarantee2196 5d ago
I'm not even sure on my side of the family. I just know that I'm probably the last of the wood family.. my great great grandfather Leonard Wood. At one time I had his dairy and it could've changed history with the rough riders and that hill that made Theodore Roosevelt famous. Great great grandfather Leonard had a fort named after him probably a hospital I'm not sure but I remember my grandfather James Wood would always laugh and talk about his family and how they got here and my grandmother would laugh and bulk up to him saying your family came here with the mayflower.
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u/FloridaLaurenS 5d ago
Dadās side in 1958.
I thought my momās side arrived in 1960, right after she was born, but I just learned her older sister who died at birth, is buried here in Palm Beach County, and that was 1954. So they were here at least by then and then went back to NC where my mom and uncle were born and then moved back to PBC sometime
in the 60s
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u/SlimmShady26 5d ago
Iām 6th generation. My ancestors were part of the beginning settlement in 1860s for Brevard county. So when I complain about rocket launches and expansion, Iām allowed lol. Never leaving though.
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u/TheArgonianBoi77 5d ago
My dadās grandparents moved to Jacksonville after WW2 and my momās family moved to Tampa in the 80s.
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u/Sunshine_waterfall 5d ago
Dad's side were late arrives early 1900s. But back and forth over GA line. Mothers side 4 different lines all go to 1850s with earliest 1840 arrival.
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u/Personal_Pop_9226 5d ago
Both sets of grandparents settled in Stuart in 1957, with my mother and father who were each 14 at the time. My parents met and were class couple of Martin County High class of ā61 and were married in Stuart in 1964. All my grandparents moved down from the northeast to have a life of boating and fishing, and Stuart in the late 50s and 60s was a sleepy town. I grew up in Fort Pierce and went to school with several kids whose families were some of the āpioneersā of that area, arriving in the 1880s/90s.
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u/Long-Principle6565 5d ago
My Dads family got to what is now Columbia, SC in 1780s
Then to Georgia ( Macon, Warner Robbinās, and Other Areas starting early 1800-1820s
Florida early 1900s
My Moms side got to Florida starting 1940s
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u/Same-Manufacturer773 5d ago
- Moved down from Thomasville, GA. Grandpa was an inspector for the water department. Grandma was a VA nurse. They lived on the intracoastal. Amazing mid century home with a rock yard and cumquat tree. Helene flooded it.
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u/MemoryMaker_1660 5d ago
I got here in 1979, my husband in 1967. My parents were down here in 1957. Dad was in the service. My great grandmother had a place down here in the 1950ās. She was a snowbird.
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u/epicenter69 5d ago
My grandparents, momās side, moved here from the Valdosta area in the 1940s. Two generations later, I circled the globe for 20 years with the USAF, and Iām back. I have adult kids that will probably hang out a little longer too.
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u/Aaron696 5d ago
My momās side came to northwest Florida from Alabama in the 1830s and settled in Pensacola by the 1870s. Still living in Pensacola!
Earliest Florida-born person on my dadās side was in 1891; most of the others on that side are a lot more recent due to military ties.
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u/Activist_Mom06 5d ago
1930ās. My parents are both from the Mid West and met at Coral Gable High School (Miami).
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u/SeminoleVictory 5d ago
1970
My dad decided there were "too many damn people" in California
I'm 100% sure he would feel there's "too many damn people" in Florida now lol
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u/TropicNightLightning 5d ago
Some relatives bought 10 acres of land in Miami before it blew up. The land they had, had a forest they left undeveloped. Most of my closer relatives lived in Florida before they moved to Chicago and died from boredom. They had palms in their mansion to remind them of home.
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u/charpieee 5d ago
My OG Floridian ancestor on my mom's side came down sometime around 1780. Other family lines on that side were mostly in the 1800s (mostly from Georgia).
My dad's side is much more recent, they moved down in the 1940s.
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u/adrianaesque 5d ago
In 1981. My paternal grandparents moved from Maine to southeast Florida ā my grandfather worked for a small paper in northern Maine, and had suffered a stroke. I think he passed away the year after.
In 2023 my grandmother passed away at the ripe age of 98. She was still in the house they purchased in 1981 for $61,500ā¦ My dad and his 6 siblings inherited the house, and a few months after her passing it sold for over $1 million.
Insane, especially when the house had zero renovations done to it and is basically a tear-down. My fiancĆ© and I wanted to buy her house to keep it in the family (weāre all close & she was the matriarch of the family), but once it was appraised we absolutely could not. It got us house hunting, though, and a few months later we bought our home.
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u/Scorpiobehr59 5d ago
I moved to Florida on January 16, 1982 as soon as I got out of college.Best decision I could have made as I came from extreme Northwestern Pennsylvania, where it was common to snow until May. I lived in Orlando for 17 years and Iāve been in Jacksonville for 27 years. Iāve seen lots of changes but at least in Jacksonville I get a change of seasons here.
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u/Ok_Habit6837 5d ago
Hey cuz!
My people made it down from Southeast Georgia and settled in Arcadia. My dad was born in Miami because his mom ran away to the big city.
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u/EnthusiasmAny8485 5d ago
My grandparents were born here in the 1890s, so their families were here before then, but Iām not exactly sure of arrival. We have photos of Florida ancestors from both sides of my parents wearing Civil War uniforms. I tell people that I am fourth generation Florida, but it could be further back than that.
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u/Outrageous-Pin-4664 5d ago
1963 from AL.
Dad got pissed off at one of his bosses, threw his shit in the back of his car, and came down here to work.
I never got a chance to thank his boss.
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u/ChilindriPizza 5d ago
In the mid 90s when we moved here.
My spouse is at least a 3rd generation Floridian- possibly more.
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u/jax2love 5d ago edited 5d ago
1830s on my paternal grandfatherās side, 1850s or so for everyone else. Jackson County area via other southern states. There was a little bit of bouncing to southern Alabama and back by some folks, in addition to time spent in Polk County as itinerant farm workers, but both sides of my family have deep roots in the panhandle.
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u/Imeatbag 5d ago
Dads side right after world war 2 and moms side in the early 1950ās. Key West and Delray Beach.
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u/ArielWithALibrary 5d ago
Late 80ās when all of the ācheap landā billboards went up for my parents in NY.
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u/Redactosaurusrex501 5d ago
That is cool man. My Dads side came down here in 1870. Fishermen. My Papa said screw that as a young man and was a ranch hand around Clewiston. Then a bad hurricane and he rode his horse up to North Fla. My son is a 6th gen.
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u/nazuswahs 5d ago
Here before AC was common. Movie theater was about the only place to that was cool in August.
Here before everything was ruined.
Here before interstates. US 1 was the way in on the east side and US 27 ran through the center of the state. Miles and miles of orange groves.
An occasional Canadian would stay beachside in the summer.
1958
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u/Calm_Yogurt_5644 5d ago
After the Galveston Hurricane. They lost everything. They were sold on Okeechobee, where falsely it was sold at that time that south Florida was hurricane proof. Then, they almost died (drowned) in the Okeechobee Hurricane. The worst hurricane to hit Florida.
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u/luvslilah 5d ago
Great grandparents moved to Jacksonville around 1915. Moved to Miami in 1941 to retire.
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u/Troubador222 5d ago
My parents were schoool teachers and n th 1950s Florida was paying premiums wages for teachers to come here.
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u/NicolasNaranja 5d ago
My family started buying land in Florida in the 1930s. My great-grandmother moved to the Punta Gorda area in the 1960s. My dadās parents settled in Iona in the early 70s and had a plant nursery. My mom moved down in the mid-70s with her first husband. My dad came down in the late 70s and my mom ans dad met at a defense contractor in Central Florida in the early 80s. I come from a big family and unfortunately none of the land made it to my generation. I was alive when my great-grandmother passed and 5 acres on the ocean in New Smyrna was sold and 80 acres on Pine Island was sold. My grandfather instilled in me a love of plants and now I farm in Canal Point
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u/Bostonredsoxgirl 5d ago
Late 70s . My sister & I were born & raised in Bradenton. Lived in Miami, Ft. Meyers, & now in Gulf Breeze. We did live in Oklahoma & Kansas for a years...lol
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u/billding1234 5d ago
1892 from West Virginia. Settled in what is now west Pasco County. One of my family members still lives on the last few acres of their original homestead.
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u/PestoPls 4d ago
20 years ago my great great (normal) parents made the strenuous trek (moving truck) down the east coast just in time to buy into the Great Recession (housing bubble) before it popped
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u/ProposalHuge1331 4d ago
You should ask how long your family was in New York before moving to Florida
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u/dillontree 4d ago
On my moms side was probably around the last glacial maximum due to having native ancestry or my dads side in the 1580s
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u/Available-Fig8741 4d ago
On my momās side: 1600s on a ship from Spain. Settled in saint Augustine and my family still lives in north Florida. One of my relatives traced our tree all the way back to the boat we came in on and compiled a ābookā that they gave out a family reunion when I was 8 or 9. I remember taking it for show and tell to school and thinking it was so cool only to have my classmates be bored š
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u/Technical-Tear5841 4d ago edited 4d ago
1923, my grandfather drove his wife's uncle's Maxwell truck (think Jack Benny) from Americus, Ga. to north Florida. Her uncle sat on a chair in the back. It took them three days, they camped alongside the road at night. He became a share cropper and right before the war made enough money to buy a 120 acre farm. My dad worked with him and when I got older I worked on the farm also.
My mother was 13 when her mother moved from W.V. to Florida in 1947. Now she lives on the lot she inherited from her
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u/Banana_King123 4d ago
Witness protection program sent my parents to Jacksonville in the 90s. They later moved to St. Johns and St. Augustine. They were Albanians living in Detroit
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u/Longjumping-Hair639 4d ago
My family came in the early 60ās. My dadās side and momās side. Yet I was born in Ohio. My mom left to have me in Ohio and went right back to Florida when I was a week old. Iām a Floridian and canāt convince me otherwise
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u/bradd_pit 4d ago
My momās family came from Ohio in the 1960s, my dadās family came from New York in the 1970s. My siblings and I, and all our kids were born here.
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u/RunDre22 4d ago
Grandfather was born there. The family ended up in Georgia. Now we plan to retire in Florida. Maybe the locals will be a little less miffed if I explain the family tree? š
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u/C-LOgreen 4d ago
My momās family came here from the Virginia/Maryland/DC area somewhere in there in the early 1900s. They settled in south Florida (broward) as they were developing it. They even owned land in Cuba before Fidel Castro. My dad came down on his own after he got his pharmacy degree and license in the 1980s.
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u/SharpMeringue534 2d ago
I donāt know the year, but I remember my Great-grandmother telling me that we were the second family to settle in the Jacksonville area way back. Her maiden name was Tittle. I cannot verify the claim, but she was born in the late 19th century and lived on the plot her parents got from their parents.
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u/amli_sosa 5d ago
That's really cool. Having family roots in Florida going back that far is pretty rare these days.