What is your ancestry?

[Phoenix87x]

In my 30's now and I finally felt the urge to ask my Grandfather what our history was.

I'm mostly German and Italian, with some Irish and Ukrainian.

How about you guys, what ancestry are you? And do you still follow some of the customs or mostly just do your own thing?

[Kotowboy]

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[pg1067]

I'm a Euromutt:

1/4 Danish (my maternal grandfather was 100% Danish and emigrated from Denmark sometime in the late 1800s or early 1900s)
1/4 Irish (three great-great-grandparents came to the U.S. from Ireland, and a fourth was the child of Irish immigrants)
3/16 German (one great-grandfather and a great-great-grandfather from Germany)
1/16 Italian (the great-great-grandfather  who is the source of my last name was born in Italy and came to Massachusetts (via Belgium) in the early/mid-1800s)
1/16 French (the French-born wife of the aforementioned Italian)

The other 3/16 is a mystery - American-born as far back as we know.

I have both a Civil War and a Revolutionary War veteran in my family tree, and my wife is descended two Mayflower passengers.

[King Postwhore]

1/2 Lebanese
1/4 Irish
1/4 French Canadian

[T-ski]

Polish and Norwegian.

[lonestar]

Father's family came over from Ireland four generback during the potato famine. Mothers cane in the early 1800s from Spain, and somewhere in the time that passed had some heavy native American in there (I'm 20%)

[Chino]

According to DNA ancestry, I'm an American mut with a bit of a bunch of stuff.


My grandmother always used to tell me as a kid that her family came over a few trips after the Mayflower. They bred with every wave of immigrants since. Seems to be confirmed by the historical view/timeline below.

[Chino]

My mother has a box of letters from the civil war and the years leading up to it. They talk about what will happen if Lincoln gets elected and stuff. It's really cool.

[pg1067]

My mother has a box of letters from the civil war and the years leading up to it. They talk about what will happen if Lincoln gets elected and stuff. It's really cool.

Very cool!

[Stadler]

I tihnk I wrote this in another thread, but on my dad's side, Polish and Slovakian (the families are about 50 km away from each other, near as I can tell, separated by what is now the Polish-Slovakian border).

My mom's side is a little more... I don't know.  One half we think is Ukranian, one half Hungarian (though my grandmother used to always say she was a gypsy; I said that to a real Hungarian - one who lives, today, in Hungary - and he looked at me like I said "pedophile" instead.  .  I still haven't found out what that's all about. 

It's really interesting; I can take Dad's fam all the way back to the 1700's, and I can probably go further if I can ever get over there to look at the church records.   Mom's family basically drops off the map around 1900 or so (when my great grandparents came to America).  Fascinating to see, really.    They just lived... not off the grid, so much, but they weren't terribly literate or involved in the typical societal things like church and what not. 

[Adami]

Did a 23&Me thing a year or so ago.

I always knew my mom's family was pretty traditional Ashkenazi Jew from Europe, probably Russian/Polish mix. But I never knew my dad.

Turns out I'm around 51% Ashkenazi Jew, 4% or so random stuff, and 45% or something Turkish. I did not know or expect the huge Turkish part.

[ReaperKK]

I've wanted to do a DNA test to figure this out for myself but as far as I know I'm 80% Lithuanian.

[hunnus2000]

It's funny, all three of us kids are adopted and all three of us are American Indian, at least that's what it says on our birth certificates. Many years ago my brother went to find his biological parents because he planned on having lots of children and wanted know his family medical history. He found out he was indeed of Ponca Indian and French descent and he looks least like an American Indian than both myself and my sister.

Fast forward to about 5 years ago and my sister goes and does the same thing. My niece and nephew celebrated their Indian heritage by reading books about the AI and even buying Indian artwork only to find out their mom is actually - Mexican. You see back in the day, there was a stigma attached to adopting Mexican children and it was easier if the priests lied about the ethnicity of the child to get that child adopted.

Fast forward again and my wife gets me a DNA test for Xmas and it shows I am from the New Mexico, Nevada on down to Mexico area so now I need contact Catholic Charities to find my biological parents.

Bottom line, I really don't know what I am but it's probably Mexican.     

[XJDenton]

British.

[SwedishGoose]

Im a 100% swedish goose

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

I'm mostly German and Mexican, with tiny bits of Native American, Danish, and Scottish.

[MirrorMask]

Born in Italy, I'm italian.

Yeah, the european answers are gonna be pretty boring 

This is always one of the things I've considered the biggest difference between the two sides of the pond, beside the weird stubborness to not adopt the metric system and tipping in restaurants: the interest for ancestry and therefore the labels about being 1/8 irish or whatever. The way I see it, you're born in the USA, you're an (US) american citizen and that's it.

I guess probably it has to do with the way Europe and the Americas evolved, the history is obviously different and the USA is a very yoiung country, and there's a far greater chance that someone in the USA has immigrant grandparents or grand-grandparents, rather than a french or a german or a swede being anything else that someone born from a french, german or swedish family. With the USA of course this is different and so time and again you hear both common people and celebrities talking about their ancestry, like Lady Gaga who talks about being italian in every other interview (it's not that I find this annoying however, just a peculiar difference between the way of reasonings about one's ancestry on the two sides of the Atlantic).

[Stadler]

So.......  one of my very good friends grew up with his mom. His dad left....I'm guessing, but I'm saying 3, 4 years old, right after his younger brother was born.  I knew his brother (he passed away probably 25 years ago or so); he looked NOTHING like my friend.   My friend is swarthy, good looking, one of those guys you hate - played lead guitar in a band, excellent baseball/softball player, scratch golfer, slept with more women than I've spoken to, lawyer with his own firm, wife who is a bona fide blonde Cindy Crawford - but his brother was skinny, awkward, a nice kid but not necessarily the person you note when you walk in the room. 

We lived together through law school, and I was working in the environmental business, and I did a lot of records searches, and knew how to get information.  So around '96 or so, I helped him find his Dad.  I even went with him to meet him the first time; the guy was a dead ringer for his younger brother, but looked and acted NOTHING like Eric.   He had a relationship for a while, but his dad was a disappointment on every level, and he ended the relationship.  So he calls me a couple years ago, and says he's trying to get his ancestry (I've been doing mine and have about 1,000 people in my family tree at this point); turns out his dad's father was adopted, so the trail sort of ends.  But - and it's a conversation we've had a couple times - he wasn't 100% that everything was adding up. He wasn't sure what was up and didn't want to confront that maybe he was lied to, but he knew that not all the cards were on the table.  I don't hear anything about this for a while.  He calls me a year or so ago (it was before COVID, so it's likely two years ago now) and says he took a DNA test and he logged on Ancestry, and he has a match. A SISTER.  Now... it's not my story, so I'm leaving out some details, but suffice to say, it IS his sister and he finds the "dad" he thought was his dad, wasn't, and he has a new man in his life, a new "dad.  It shouldn't surprise anyone, but as he's describing this new guy, I'm thinking, "Buddy, that's YOU, for better or worse!  You just took a different path!" 

Opened up a whole new world for him.  I can't imagine what that was like for him.

[Cool Chris]

The way I see it, you're born in the USA, you're an (US) american citizen and that's it.

But then how would we know what ethnic/cultural group to identify with? 

My mom's dad immigrated from Poland; I do not know about her mom's history. My dad's family immigrated (his dad, illegally, if the stories are true) from what is now Montenagro. Ancestry has never been an important issue with my family. My dad had a hard time growing up, and when he moved out he tried to put much of his childhood behind, though he still had a reasonable relationship with his parents till they died. My mom's family was small and while she was close with her parents and sister (who have all since passed) she doesn't have any connection with any other blood relatives so far as I know. 

[XJDenton]

Im a 100% swedish goose

Which part?

[Ben_Jamin]

It's funny, all three of us kids are adopted and all three of us are American Indian, at least that's what it says on our birth certificates. Many years ago my brother went to find his biological parents because he planned on having lots of children and wanted know his family medical history. He found out he was indeed of Ponca Indian and French descent and he looks least like an American Indian than both myself and my sister.

Fast forward to about 5 years ago and my sister goes and does the same thing. My niece and nephew celebrated their Indian heritage by reading books about the AI and even buying Indian artwork only to find out their mom is actually - Mexican. You see back in the day, there was a stigma attached to adopting Mexican children and it was easier if the priests lied about the ethnicity of the child to get that child adopted.

Fast forward again and my wife gets me a DNA test for Xmas and it shows I am from the New Mexico, Nevada on down to Mexico area so now I need contact Catholic Charities to find my biological parents.

Bottom line, I really don't know what I am but it's probably Mexican.     

So the Southwest...

You might not be American Indian, but you could still be Native American. Some Mexicans, and Most South Americans, I consider Native Americans. I classify it all as Indigenous Peoples of The Americas. And this includes the Canadian Natives, and the Natives of the Pacific Islands, and also the Caribbean Island Natives.

Hispanic, is it's own and is more of a mix of cultures and languages. A mix of spanish and native traditions, and values. But, Hispanic/Latin is used more to refer to peoples of that area from Mexico to South America.

Most Hispanic people have Native Blood, and don't really know it. A lot of colored people born in North and South America, likely, have Native Blood.

It is also, really hard to trace Native Blood, and what Tribe you specifically would belong too. It's really dependent on lineage, and born within a clan of that Tribe, more so than Blood. But, each Tribe has it's own criteria for what constitutes being considered a Tribal Member.

It would not surprise me though to see some European, African, or Asian/Filipino blood, if some of us were to get a DNA test, and do an Ancestry thing.

[kirksnosehair]

My mother is Cape Verdean (Portuguese) and the sperm donor is, who knows, he fucking lies about everything.  According to Ancestry.com the dominant genes in me are from "the Iberian Peninsula" which means I am mostly of either Portuguese or Hispanic decent.


 

[Chino]

I read was reading a writeup a few months ago talking about how there's a bunch of people doing these DNA test kits and finding cousins overseas. Turns out grandpa did things besides fighting while at war 

[TempusVox]

According to Ancestry.com

Scotland 40%
Native American 24%
England and Northwestern Europe 16%
Ireland 12%
Norway 8%

[Nekov]

Half spanish, half italian on my father's side. Half spanish, 1/4 swiss, 1/4 german on my mother's.

[Zydar]

I don't know, but I'd guess I am 100% Swede. A blonde viking who fights polar bears for a living.

[Stadler]

I read was reading a writeup a few months ago talking about how there's a bunch of people doing these DNA test kits and finding cousins overseas. Turns out grandpa did things besides fighting while at war 

Not just the war, but this is a real thing.  I have things in my tree that just flat out don't make sense, and "there's another player involved" is the easiest explanation.  But - and this is what my friend had to face up to - who wants to look back and acknowledge that perhaps that person you loved, or admired, or who was hailed in the family as a hero, maybe wasn't?

[kirksnosehair]

You mean like my hatchet-murdering great grandmother? 

[lucasembarbosa]

Considering my great-grandparents nationalities:

Portuguese 3/8
Italian 3/8
Spanish 1/8
German 1/8

[MirrorMask]

You mean like my hatchet-murdering great grandmother? 

What, you're named Kirk Borden?

[Ben_Jamin]

I read was reading a writeup a few months ago talking about how there's a bunch of people doing these DNA test kits and finding cousins overseas. Turns out grandpa did things besides fighting while at war 

Not just the war, but this is a real thing.  I have things in my tree that just flat out don't make sense, and "there's another player involved" is the easiest explanation.  But - and this is what my friend had to face up to - who wants to look back and acknowledge that perhaps that person you loved, or admired, or who was hailed in the family as a hero, maybe wasn't?

That's basically discovering that they have flaws like any human does. And you are just now discovering those flaws. Reminds me of Death At A Funeral (the Chris rock one) where they find out their Dad was gay. 

These are what I consider, Hard Truths. Truths that slap you in the face with a brick. Or, the Black Sheep of the family. Or the family secret no one wants to talk about.

These DNA tests are funny for us Natives. Because all it does is tell us, we have Native American blood. Yet, it doesn't tell us which tribe, and that makes a big difference in our Native Ways. There's past Traumas and Stigmas attached to certain Tribes, one against the other. So imagine if one where to find out they were actually also from that Tribe.

With just how Mixed and Scrambled our People were in the Southwest. There are natives here that look Filipino or Pacific Islander like Hawaii and Maori. My auntie got mistaken for a Hawaiian when she went there. And my friend and her man got mistaken for a Maori when they went to New Zealand. We also have some black natives, and now, spanish/white half breed natives.

So as far as I know....I am Native from 3 different Tribes. Clan from Hopi, raised in a different Pueblo, with ties to another Pueblo from my grandfather.

It wouldn't surprise me to find some other Tribe mixed in, and some Spanish, or Filipino blood in my DNA.

[kirksnosehair]

You mean like my hatchet-murdering great grandmother? 

What, you're named Kirk Borden?

ha ha, no I told the story in another thread about how my great grandmother killed her abusive husband (my great grandfather who I never met) back in the early 1900's in Western MA.  They lived in a rural area and my great grandmother -who, at the time, had just had one of her arms amputated just above the elbow due to cancer- buried a hatchet in the chest of my great grandfather after he came home drunk (again) and beat the shit out of her.  She waited until he was asleep then she buried it right in the middle of his chest killing him instantly.  They then sent word to the sheriff who came out and evaluated the situation and helped her bury him out behind the house.  I am sure the story was embellished over the years, but that's pretty much how my mother told it to me. Apparently my great grandfather was a well-known drunkard and abuser of women which is why the sheriff had no interest in arresting my great grandmother who would go on to live until she was over 90

[hefdaddy42]

Mostly German.  Some Scottish.  A little tiny bit of Cherokee.

[King Postwhore]

Im a 100% swedish goose

That's silly.

[Stadler]

You mean like my hatchet-murdering great grandmother? 

Haha, I was thinking more along the lines of someone with multiple kids with multiple partners, but that will do!