280 years ago, my ancestors came from Switzerland. Here's what I learned by going back.

I slipped out of a hotel room just after dawn last month for a brisk walk to the banks of the Rhine River in Basel, Switzerland. A gentle gray sky slept overhead, the cobblestone streets lay silent.

I took off my sneakers and waded into the river’s clear waters. Treading slowly, I gazed up at centuries-old buildings and studied their gabled roofs and church spires. It was a beautiful moment in a week full of them in the alpine country – “Europe’s playground,” as they call it. I could scarcely believe the moment was real.

Then, my mind drifted somewhere deeper.

Nearly three centuries earlier, in 1743, it was highly likely that Hans Ulrich Baggenstoss, my tenth-generation ancestor, passed through the exact same spot under very different circumstances. He was among a bevy of Swiss and Germans leaving the region for a new life in the British colonies in America.