Visiting the Homeland

      I was listening to an extended news report about people wanting to go visit the land of their ancestors.  They saved up a lot of money, so they could spend the extra time it would take to look up long lost relatives, and maybe even see the houses their grandparents or great grandparents were born or raised in, and things like that.  Then I smiled.  Being part Native American, if I want to visit the land of my ancestors all I have to do is step out the back door.  
      I would, however like to see the place where my German (or rather Pomorski - a race of Prussian German-Polish half breeds in northwest Germany)  Great-Grandfather was born.  I have seen the place in plenty of pictures in encyclopedias, history books, and on the internet, but I would like to see the building in person someday.  
      I've also read plenty of the history from that side of the family, especially in German history books and German encyclopedias.  I also heard tales from my German professor about that branch of the family.  For instance, I heard that during his terms of office, President Hindenburg had people searching all through America looking for us.  When my family came here though, they did such a good job of hiding and blending in, that Hindenburg's people never found us. 
      I am descended of warriors, it turns out.  On my white side, from people who had been soldiers and were recorded as such as far back as the early middle ages.  On my Ojibwe side I am descended of the warriors (ogichidaag) who chased the Iroquois all the way back to New York after the battle of Ashland and Bayfield in the late 1680's.  They ended up settling in the western side of the Ottawa River region and took Ottawa wives.  The Ojibwe branch of my family also has a very thin strain of Scottish running through it (from one Dr. Samuel Adams [not the brewer-revolutionary, but a loyalist relative of his who went to Canada and took an Ojibwe wife] whose line can be traced all the way back to knight named Adam of Gordon).  

      Finally in the 1890's the Ojibwe branch of my family came back "home" to Northern Minnesota, at just about the same time that my Prussian branch came here.  I grew up here in these woods, as did my father (my Prussian descendency), and his father before him.  In fact, even my white family after being here for five generations has become as much a part of the forest as the deer we hunt.  
      Due to the complicated nature of my family's European history, visiting the "Heimatsland/home land" in the way other people do, and looking up relatives would be way too difficult.  We've been gone too long, and we destroyed our "paperwork," so our relatives there wouldn't really welcome us with open arms.  In fact, in many cases security staff would never let us near them.  I think that for the time being anyway, I will be content with visiting the land of my ancestors by going out the back door.