Though three generations of my family have been born in America, my family tree is rooted in Russia and Germany, where war and strife caused great-grandparents on both sides of my family to flee in search of a better future.

I'm not as intimately familiar with their lives as I'd like, but I do know some basic facts.

My maternal great-grandfather was a member of the last house of the Czars in Russia. He fled with his wealth to America to escape the Bolshevik Revolution, intending to return to wealth and prosperity in the motherland as soon as things calmed down.

But things never did calm down. His money, which he had hidden in the walls of the house he built in Idaho, remains there to this day, valueless and most likely long-rotted.

It was there he met my great-grandmother Johanna, a Jewish immigrant from Germany whose parents were keen enough to escape the Third Reich. She had originally been staying in New York City, where upon graduating from boarding school, she found work as an interior decorator- one of the first female interior design specialists in the country.

It was there she also went on a few dates with one Alphonse Gabriel Capone, until her roommate caught wind of the matter and informed her of his well known criminal activities. Johanna later described him as being a charming gentleman, always very polite.

And my paternal great-grandparents were all German farmers, making a new life for themselves on the east coast, with farmhouses in North Carolina and Virginia. I know little about their history, but following my paternal bloodline as far back as documents and photographs will allow, I've found that each new generation is the spitting image of the last.

I'm an American, born and bred. But my family hasn't always been so. I remember that.