Moharimet Students Research Ancestry

MADBURY — Alec Damsell, 9, tells a story of his great-, great-, great-grandfather and a long trip across the Atlantic Ocean from England.

"He only had money for one ticket on a ship called the Cosmo," he said, pointing to a colorful picture of a ship traveling across waves.

Alec has been tracking his family history since January, searching online resources and talking with family members to learn his genealogy.

"First I asked my dad, but he didn't know much about the Damsell side of the family, so we did some research and then we found many interesting facts," he said.

Alec is one of many third-grade students at Moharimet Elementary creating books about how their family came to America. They are working with Webster Elementary School in Manchester to collaborate on a project called Creating and Sharing Immigration Stories: Now and Then.

Students from both schools have researched their family's country of origin and talk to relatives about their family history. Many Webster Elementary students have recently journeyed to America and have shared their stories with Moharimet students.

Manchester serves as a National Refugee Relocation center, said Moharimet teacher Susan O'Bryne. Webster also houses an English Language Learner Magnet Program to provide educational and support services to refugee and immigrant students.

"This is to show them that we are all immigrants, we are a nation of immigrants," said teacher Susan O'Bryne. "It's just that they are just more recent immigrants. They have a lot to offer us and we have a lot to learn from each other."

The school is one of 25 across the country that was awarded with a $5,000 grant for the project to pay for food, busing and materials for the students to create books to tell their history.

Leah Zamansky, 9, threw in a little historical fiction, saying the seas were stormy when her ancestors traveled from Russia by boat.

Zoe Pavlik, 9, has a more recent story to tell her classmates. Her grandmother, Anne Lebowsky, came over from Poland in the 1940s. Her parents had fought about where to move when they were forced out of Poland.

"Her mother wanted to go to America and her father wanted to go to Russia," she said. "They got into a fight and he threw all of her mother's pots into the river."

Zoe said her great grandfather eventually went to America by himself and later her grandmother and great grandmother followed.

The best part of the project was cutting out colorful shapes and pasting them together to make pictures to go with the stories, she said.

"It was really fun to make the collages," Zoe said.

Moharimet students have learned their ancestors came from places such as Sweden, Poland and Ireland — to name a few. Students brought in pictures, letters and family trees to show classmates and hope to show the Webster students what they learned.

Principal Dennis Harrington said the students will be traveling to Manchester in early May to share their stories and he hopes to bring the Webster students to Madbury shortly after the trip.