In 1876, my great-grandfather Gustav Fryxell and his brother John sailed from Sweden to a new life in America. They left behind a farm so poor that once when they were children the family's only cow starved to death. Though they thought they were going to a land of milk and honey, they found only more hardship. Yet could they ever have dared imagine that their descendants would become college professors, famous geologists, symphony musicians — and a magazine editor?

Two years ago, my third cousin, Eric Fryxell, reversed our ancestors' journey. He and another cousin, Dan Anderson, retraced their path to Goteborg, Sweden, where our ancestors set sail, through the province of Vaster-gotland. They found the ex-barracks where, when John served in the military, the family name became the hard-to-spell "Fryxell."