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As the revolutions of 1848 spread across Europe, a young Prussian man named August Schuckman boarded a ship in Hamburg called the Perseverance. He landed in New York and made his way west, reaching Sacramento in 1852 and eventually settling at the Mountain House, as his Colusa County ranch came to be known.

A century later, August Schuckman’s great-grandson Jerry Brown spent time visiting the Mountain House with his family — his three sisters, his mother and his father, Gov. Pat Brown. Now governor himself, Jerry Brown discovered details of his own past through the research of the journalist and historian Miriam Pawel, whose “The Browns of California: The Family Dynasty That Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation” traces California history via the Browns’ experience.

Ms. Pawel and Mr. Brown discussed his life and family history at the City University of New York in Manhattan on Tuesday. Mr. Brown stressed the importance of understanding the past — of knowing one’s background, being rooted in time and place, and drawing on history as an anchor in times of disruption.

“This idea of roots, of being grounded, becomes more salient the older I get and the more change I perceive,” he said. “As I got older, I noticed the rootedness I actually had in California.”