The morning was brisk and overcast and we were up very early. We had plans to go fishing on Lake Michigan with friends on a charter boat and had to be there at 6 a.m. As my husband cheerily sang the theme from “Gilligan's Island,” I was feeling a bit nervous. My relationship with boats has never been an easy one, but my friends had assured me that because the boat was always moving, or “trolling,” I wouldn't get seasick.

As I leaned over the side of the boat paying homage to the god of seasickness for those five hours, I had a lot of time to think. My first thought was of course, “If I were to jump off this boat, how long would it take me to swim the six miles to shore?” But since Lake Michigan is still quite cold in May, I decided that I would try to stick out my current predicament but keep that option open for later.

I tried to think of other things to take my mind off the rolling motion of the boat and gave myself a little pep talk. “If my ancestors could cross an entire ocean in the hull of a ship, surely I could stomach a few hours of fishing on a lake, right?” Wrong. The genes that enabled them to survive those ocean voyages apparently didn't get passed down to me.

When I got home, I had an even greater respect for what many of them went through on their trip to the U.S. But you don't have to lose your breakfast in a lake to gain insight in to the traveling conditions of your ancestors.

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