https://www.reddit.com/r/Montana/comments/1ifa5yz/generational_montanans/
created by dsiduous on 01/02/2025 at 16:35 UTC*
63 upvotes, 50 top-level comments (showing 25)
When people share that they are “x number generation Montanan”, what are they, you (?), trying to communicate? I regularly hear people state, “I’m a x generation Montanan” as a qualifier for comments they make after. I’ve lived in a number of states and moved here ~3 years ago for work. Montana has the most people I’ve ever heard give this qualifier.
When I hear this comment, it seems like people are trying to communicate that 1) their opinion matters more, 2) they are entitled to something that is not actually theirs, or 3) they don’t like the direction of the community. Is there something else I’m missing? At the end of the day, we all come from somewhere else… any thoughts here?
Comment by montwhisky at 02/02/2025 at 00:58 UTC
286 upvotes, 13 direct replies
I feel like you’re getting a lot of responses from people who also moved here. So, I’ll respond as someone born here (won’t give my generation). Montanans feel right now that the culture and Montana they grew up with is being overrun by out of staters. That the things we value are getting crushed by a wave of people moving here to live their Yellowstone dreams. We grew up in a libertarian state, which is historically what Montana has been, and now it’s become unrecognizable. I think that the generational peacocking comes from an attempt to explain that they’ve been here and their families have been here for a long time and that their experience is legitimate. That their opinions are legitimate. And they’re desperately trying to convince people who move here not to trample the things that make Montana great. Now, tbf, I also think it’s fine to call them out about pretending like a fifth generation Montanan means anything next to the natives here.
Comment by bucketofnope42 at 02/02/2025 at 04:08 UTC
21 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It also gets invoked in response to all the people who seem to think our state politics started in the mid eighties. Sorry. We have not "always" been an evangelical republican state, brush up on your history.
Comment by ThatDefiningMoment at 02/02/2025 at 00:47 UTC
37 upvotes, 2 direct replies
It’s pride & values - that’s just one of the things they take to heart. They’re simply stating their history here which I always took it as how things were/are for them. It’s not meant to be taken offensively. I love hearing old-timer stories of the way things were then comparing them to how they are now. Most of it is pretty valuable stuff to hear to help put things into perspective, only if anyone is willing to hear it.
Comment by RosieHarbor406 at 02/02/2025 at 13:59 UTC
6 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I often use it in conversation when people are spewing something about how Montana is known for being only conservative, republican, far right something or other. I say actually I'm a 6th generation Montanan and none of those apply to me. I totally get why it's annoying to people but I get annoyed when someone who just moves here wants to bash on something about our state.
Comment by TieDye_Raptor at 02/02/2025 at 18:40 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I'm originally from out of state, though I've lived here since 2011. This didn't seem to be a big thing in other places I've lived, and it's always baffled me, too. I get that some of the rich out-of-staters are problematic, but those of us who grew up in another state aren't all rich, believe me.
I've always thought this behavior was strange, since those of us who aren't Native American are all technically transplants.
Comment by Hmmmmmm2023 at 02/02/2025 at 02:43 UTC
9 upvotes, 2 direct replies
This is not just a Montana thing. There are a lot of places that do the same. People like to gatekeep and giving it any attention is insane. 95% of us came from somewhere else. Do what’s right now and you are fine. Being from Montana does not mean you are doing what’s best for Montana.
Comment by 33NorthTX at 02/02/2025 at 03:39 UTC
18 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Read some books … WAR OF THE COPPER KINGS , FIRE & BRIMSTONE. MT has a deep history with Wall Street, National politics and outside influence. The generational Montanas whose families have lived through 4-5 generations have an understanding of the people and land that is not tangible for folks that don’t have or know that history. It’s not peacocking or posturing … maybe it’s an ask for new people to seek to understand … my family was in Millcreek in 1860
Comment by Rurumo666 at 02/02/2025 at 12:10 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The irony is, the "generational" Montanans are the ones blindly voting for out of State Trust Fund Baby Carpetbaggers who only moved to Montana to buy the cheapest elections in the Continental USA. They are also the people trying to sell off Public lands and block access to them, pushing policies that hurt Veterans and the working class, and who want to roll back the ACA subsidies and Medicaid-both of which keep rural Montana hospitals solvent. Before Biden's expanded ACA subsidies and the Medicaid expansion, every single rural Montana hospital was in financial distress and danger of closing.
Comment by hikerjer at 02/02/2025 at 02:28 UTC
13 upvotes, 1 direct replies
This whole discussion pretty much excludes almost all higher elected Montana officials who consistently elect less than first generation people. Yet they always bitch about out state people coming in. Man, I just can’t figure it out.
BTW, I was born out of state and I’m just as good of a Montanan with Montana values, whatever they are, as any of you 5th generation folks.
Comment by progressivecowboy at 02/02/2025 at 00:50 UTC
16 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I just call them all "The 5Gs".... seems it's frequently 5th generation. What I hear is: "I fell outta my mana right here in X county Montana and never tried any other place. I've barely traveled at all. I've simply stayed put. And, now it makes me feel important, even though it's actually required zero effort on my part. BUT, it's all I've got to make me feel better than others who moved here after me."
Comment by MooseMonkeyMT at 02/02/2025 at 00:32 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
TBH over the years I have considered this question. But what it really comes down to is staking the land mentality. The original people taking and settling the lands would be able to make claims like this so their property was accounted for. Which makes sense. But has lost its bearing as more people move into the state.
Comment by WorldDirt at 02/02/2025 at 01:49 UTC
6 upvotes, 1 direct replies
You’ve clearly never lived in Maine. It’s just as bad with the shun the transplants attitude. It’s all bullshit anyways - those same people elected out of staters to run the place and are happy to accept those with the same political views as them. We just create this transplant scapegoat to blame our problems on when the issues we’re having now are as old as the state. We’ve always depending on federal aid. We’ve often been beholden to big business interests. It’s like we forgot the history of places like Butte.
Comment by Outcome005 at 02/02/2025 at 13:12 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Just remember, these out of staters didn’t come in and steal the land like the settlers did, native Montanans sold their land to the out of staters for sometimes many times what it was worth. They didn’t invade, you all gave it away.
Comment by tarjayfan at 02/02/2025 at 16:13 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Perspective. I moved here 30 years ago, got married and moved to the west coast. When I was on my own, that was the qualifying question. Who's your family? I didn't see why it mattered and then they were blown away by why I was here at all. We got married. (Weddings here go in the paper and are a public event) i didn't know half the people there.
Fast forward to a year ago when we moved back to care for family. We were newcomers again, and that culture had not changed. Even though we came 3-4 times a year, no one remembered ever seeing us. We start showing up around town and a) we were treated like posers, or b) they came out of the wood works and seemingly knew all about us.
If i go somewhere alone, I've been harassed to the point until they find out who I am and then tell me they were at my wedding. I feel like they're messing with me. They territorial behavior of these folks is pure audacious. Plus, they don't like money. Don't care if they make it, don't want it, don't have and never did so it does not matter to them in the slightest.
Montana is where audacity is bred.
Comment by showmenemelda at 02/02/2025 at 20:53 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Generations of people who lived in Montana and had children here. One side of my family homesteaded, and the other mainly with the railroad. One branch of the tree in particular i counted back 35 generations—not to montana/USA obviously, but my great grandfather came to MT working for the Milwaukee RR. His lineage makes me a Mayflower descendent but it goes back to like 1200 or earlier. It's incomprehensible to my brain.
If you're fortune enough to have traceable lineage, the familysearch.org website and app is FASCINATING. I wish I'd been able to do all this when both my grandpas were alive.
But I am the 5th generation of our family's ranch and my sister's kids are now the 6th. My dad was the 4th,y grandpa the third, his dad the 1st (my great grandpa), and his father (my great great grandpa) was 1st generation for the homestead and coming to MT (from NY where he was born and so on)
But once I started tracing back to freaking shields of royalty and names that sounded like bodily functions, it occurred to me it's not necessarily a "good" thing to trace that far back—the implications are grim (people "owning" people, exploitation, etc). It is really special to be able to understand the lore i heard as a kid. And to be able to see documentation, photos, etc. Not everyone is as lucky as I am and I recognize it's the epitome of privilege in a lot of ways.
Regardless, it exists, it's part of my DNA and it's interesting to learn. The census data can tell an entirely different story because a lot can change in 10 years so that's why it's nice to have people you can ask while they're still alive.
The best way to understand this from a Montana perspective is [hate to say it] the Taylor Sheridan franchise. 1883, 1923, Yellowstone. Those are a really good sequence of events to understand your question. It has "easter eggs" too. Specific antiques, accessories, etc are re-used thru the series as they are passed down in my family too.
It's not exactly the "flex" it sounds like though. I fully acknowledge that homesteading was just colonizing stolen land. And there is a whole different level of corruption once the white settlers came. A lot of interesting info to be gleaned from the death records too. The wild west was no exaggeration. I really encourage you to watch the aforementioned series even tho Taylor Sheridan is partially responsible for the downfall of MT (ha!) and some MT municipalities. But it is a good depiction. You can also reference the Yellowstone Wiki [1] because sometimes Sheridan is sloppy and doesn't follow his own plots very well.
1: https://yellowstone.fandom.com/wiki/Yellowstone_Wiki
Probably made that about as clear as mud ha
Comment by TheJBVC at 03/02/2025 at 01:48 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
They're trying to convey that their families stole land from the indigenous people, and somehow, it's a thing to be proud of.
Comment by Icy-Manufacturer278 at 03/02/2025 at 01:50 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Heyo! As someone who will volunteer the information that I’m a fourth generation Montanan, I love this question. Of course, it’s basically absurd to take pride in having a few hard living ancestors in untamed MT of yore when my ancestors displaced Native American tribes and stole the land that their families had stewarded for generations untold. So yea, I know it means nothing much except for context into my family history and informative experiences. I love and connect to the natural beauty in this neck of the woods, but I know it can’t be owned. I don’t own Montana, nor could anyone who is non-Native.
Comment by bucketofnope42 at 02/02/2025 at 04:06 UTC
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I bring it up when folks start whining about "transplants" because the way i see it, unless you're native American, we're all transplants.
And as someone whose family has lived here for generations, it particularly irks me to hear folks who moved here eight years ago bitching about other people moving here.
Comment by Less-Lion-989 at 02/02/2025 at 04:33 UTC
3 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Honest question, do Texans do this? I know they love their state and their state shape.
Comment by osmiumfeather at 02/02/2025 at 00:58 UTC*
6 upvotes, 1 direct replies
How much pickup truck debt they have. It increases by generation until they sell their land to developers for pennies on the dollar.
“I’ve seen more of this state’s poor cowboys, miners, railroaders and Indians go broke buyin’ pickup trucks. The poor people of this state are dope fiends for pickup trucks. As soon’s they get ten cents ahead they trade in on a new pickup truck. The families, homesteads, schools, hospitals and happiness of Montana have been sold down the river to buy pickup trucks!... And there’s a sickness here worse than alcohol and dope. It is the pickup truck debt! And there’s no cure in sight.”
Rancho Deluxe, 1975
Comment by ResponsibleBank1387 at 02/02/2025 at 02:50 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
That they are self important. Always about how they would have this paradise if these newcomers had not messed it up.
The quiet ones have family roots in Bannack or the Mullen Trail, or earlier. They know being here for generations means they stayed, for whatever reason.
Comment by lifeStressOver9000 at 02/02/2025 at 04:42 UTC*
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Frequently, it is used as an excuse to treat others worse and that is a shame.
“Your true character is most accurately measured by how you treat those who can do nothing for you.” - MT
Comment by DamnItLoki at 02/02/2025 at 02:34 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It’s a way to brag that they are “more Montanan” than the person they are speaking with.
Comment by carby187 at 02/02/2025 at 01:34 UTC
3 upvotes, 2 direct replies
It seems alot of the generational Montanans don't realize they wouldn't be "generational Montanans" if it weren't for someone moving here from "out of state." This great state was born from transplants.
Comment by F-dUpSnappleCap at 02/02/2025 at 09:29 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
You’re reading far too much into a simple phrase. And why assume it has a negative connotation? Much like others are proud to be of Italian or Irish ancestry and will tell anyone they meet, some people are proud to be a __th generation Montanan. It tells me they recognize and appreciate the strength and fortitude that their great grandparents had.