What is your ethnic makeup?

[earllogjam]

As my Earth Science teacher many years ago said: "I'm a Heinz-57." I liked the phrase and pilfered it. Here's why-- I have a little of this and a little of that and there were some adopted folks in there of unknown origin to really skew the percentages. There's some Polish, some Scottish, a great great great uncle who was Welsh (as were his parents) and a Belgian Great great grandmother among other mixings including a couple of Native Americans (back then known as Indians) not to mention that strange interlude that great grampa had with a Maltese woman which netted us another drop of blood from another lineage. I look like a mutt--it's near impossible to tell what my heritage is and add to this a weird hair texture--sort of like wire and multi-color (brown, red, black and these days with lots of white) Facial hair does the same run. Jewish people flock towards me, so I am figuring I must look like them (unless I drop the trousers--the mohel guy missed me).

At the end of the day it doesn't matter all that much, I still have to go to bed as whoever I am with whatever heritage is coursing through my veins.

Mutts like us are supposed to be the healthiest of dogs. :smile:

 

[Onslow]

Mutts like us are supposed to be the healthiest of dogs. :smile:

And for the most part we are--and we outlive and outsmart everybody else (after all mutts learn early to get what they want in whatever way possible since we don't get all that prissy snooty nose hoity toity country club socailizing on watercress sandwiches)

 

[naughty]

3/4 Italian, 1/4 French, German, Irish, Swiss and who knows what else.

add some fine and some sexy in there too! LOL!


Now for mine... for the ?th time... allegedly some African (Perhaps more specifics after a DNA test) allegedly Scottish , possibly some irish, a chance of some greek, and may haps some Mohawk, Blackfoot and dare i say it CHEROKEE!

 

[naughty]

Rather than multi-quote:

Some Northern Native Amerian tribes did have light-eyed members.

It really annoys me that I have heard black people tell others that every black person says they are part Cherokee, so just stop lying.

Sigh, people.

It is the haters that get you every time....

 

[chico8]

I have no idea what my ethnicity is and I don't really think it matters. Where my great great grandparents came from has little relevance to my life and I think it'd be a much better world if people stopped worrying about their ancestry and tried to get along with everyone else without separating themselves into different ethnicities.

You are so wrong. Our ethnicity plays a huge part in shaping who we are, whether you like it or not. I've been compiling my family history and it's amazing how many little quirks, characteristics, attitudes, manners, etc have been passed down through 4 generations. We are a product of all those who came before us.

Compiling my history is not a way of separating myself from others but embracing who I am.

 

[chico8]

Depends how far you wanna go back - I'm guessing most of the people posting English / Italian / French etc. above are American. Can I ask you all an honest question - how can you be sure that (for example) your Italian mama's mama wasn't of part Scottish, part Swedish, part Whatever extraction and just settled into the Italian way of doing things when she married into Italian grandpapa's family? Are you all geneology enthusiasts? And what's wrong with being a white American - if all the Germans I know can happily and proudly say 'we are German' and 'the Nazi's were a shower of evil fuckers' in the same breath why can't you all just be white Americans? This is something that has always confused me - why the need to connect to an 'old country' when you have a perfectly good country of your own (or at least you will have again, hopefully, come January 2009)

You bring up a good question and although I've been able to trace some of the history back to the early 1600s, I'll never really know what ethnicity they were. I'm pretty sure on some of them based on various factors, but most will remain unknown.

1/2 Finn
3/8 German
1/8 English

I'm pretty certain the Finns were all Finns although there's a good chance there's some Swedish blood there somewhere.

The German part is also pretty firm based on the historical borders of Germany, not the current border though. There looks as though there's some slavic blood and maybe a little swedish there as well. That side of the family is sort of swarthy and dark haired. Not surprising since the northwest of Germany was a melting pot and Rostock was a port and who knows the ethnicity of all the sailors who spent a few nights in town....

The English I'm pretty sure on back to the mid 1700s but I've a suspicion that the lineage is at least part French.


Why are you so down on people tracing their ancestry? We live in a pretty homogenous world these days and it's sort of nice to know where we came from and even more so to know why the people left the country they did.

I don't really care to trace it back to Adam and Eve but it's very fascinating to discover why people do what they do. Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it.

 

[ddazndd]

Born and raised in China for 11years becoming coming to Canada. Go Canada!!

 

[Kassokilleri2ff]

1/2 dominican, and the other half is some combination of german, welsh and some other white people i think.

 

[Mr._dB]

Quite a diverse background:

1/4 English East Midlands
1/4 English West Midlands
1/4 English East
1/4 English North West

 

[Wyldgusechaz]

I think its been established that 7 women represent the ancestral lineage of all europeans. The Basques are likely the oldest tribe in Europe.

There were I have read 14 women that we can, everyone on the earth, can trace back their ancestry using locale as a reference point.

The is good evidence that the entire earth is descended from one female. Our universal great grandmother

She is called *Mitochodrial Eve* and she lived in Africa about 250000 years ago.

We all, everyone of us, descend from her.

For what it is worth, I am of recent heritage full blooded Italian.

 

[danerain]

I think its been established that 7 women represent the ancestral lineage of all europeans. The Basques are likely the oldest tribe in Europe.

There were I have read 14 women that we can, everyone on the earth, can trace back their ancestry using locale as a reference point.

The is good evidence that the entire earth is descended from one female. Our universal great grandmother

She is called *Mitochodrial Eve* and she lived in Africa about 250000 years ago.

We all, everyone of us, descend from her.

For what it is worth, I am of recent heritage full blooded Italian.

True, but that information doesn't seem to effect the way that most people think. Show someone a pic of an Asian person with naturally curly hair and see all hell break loose :wink:

 

[joyboytoy79]

1/4 German
3/16 Irish
1/8 English
1/16 Dutch
1/16 Danish
1/16 French
1/16 Italian
1/16 Greek
1/16 Russian
1/16 Cherokee

1/1 Beautiful :biggrin1:

 

[leonceswim]

mostly mexican, some: german, french, native american...

 

[losangelestim]

mac

 

[basketbulge]

Wonder bread without the crusts
Kinda like this dude -----> :dance:

 

[B_Rivas_Boricua4Ever]

Full Puerto Rican, though maybe there's some white in there...I dunno...I mean, I sure as hell look it enough.

 

[DaMoose]

Italian/Cuban/Austrian

MOOSE

 

[invisibleman]

African-American and unknown Indian (?).

I don't use ethnic makeup. I don't even wear FUBU. Or RocaWear. ANY ethnic clothing. I am a T-Shirt and comfy jeans type guy. Hehehe.

Back in the day, I wore Manic Panic black lipstick to a goth party at the gay bar I was working for at the time. I looked like Xerxes from the movie 300 except I had no bling or pierced blings. Hehehe.

 

[prepstudinsc]

Depends how far you wanna go back - I'm guessing most of the people posting English / Italian / French etc. above are American. Can I ask you all an honest question - how can you be sure that (for example) your Italian mama's mama wasn't of part Scottish, part Swedish, part Whatever extraction and just settled into the Italian way of doing things when she married into Italian grandpapa's family? Are you all geneology enthusiasts? And what's wrong with being a white American - if all the Germans I know can happily and proudly say 'we are German' and 'the Nazi's were a shower of evil fuckers' in the same breath why can't you all just be white Americans? This is something that has always confused me - why the need to connect to an 'old country' when you have a perfectly good country of your own (or at least you will have again, hopefully, come January 2009)

I have done some research on my family and found interesting things.
My Irish relatives, were originally from Flanders, but somewhere between 1000-1100 AD, they left the continent of Europe and settled in southern Ireland around County Cork.

As to the Italians, my paternal great-great Grandmother was actually from Berne, Switzerland. However, since there is Italian blood on both sides of my family, I can trace family to the area around Genoa and Venice, both major trading ports. Considering that the trade industry made people come into contact with many foreigners, I am pretty sure that there is other blood mixed in on the Italian side, which would make a lot of sense since one of the Italian families on my father's side was actually Sicilian but moved north generations back.

My French and German comes from what is now Alsace, but generations back, the family lived on both sides of what is now the boundry between countries.

I would really like to do one of those geneology DNA tests where they pinpoint areas of the world where there are genetic markers that match what the person taking the test has. I think it would show that I have some other Mediterranean genes mixed in.

 

[aristarchus]

You are so wrong. Our ethnicity plays a huge part in shaping who we are, whether you like it or not. I've been compiling my family history and it's amazing how many little quirks, characteristics, attitudes, manners, etc have been passed down through 4 generations. We are a product of all those who came before us.

Compiling my history is not a way of separating myself from others but embracing who I am.

Very nicely said, Chico8! We are products of history--both general and familial.

Here's my tale: My paternal grandparents came from Southern Italy. My first name is from my father, middle from my grandfather, and last (of course) from the family. A few years ago I was the first member of the family to visit my grandfather's home town in 85 years. It was a breathtakingly beautiful place. In the center there is an ancient and stunning shrine dedicated to a miracle that occurred there in the 5th century. There I was astonished to learn that all three of my names are direct references to that event and the people involved in it, names passed down through the inhabitants of the town for 1500 years. Talk about a sense being part of history--it was awesome. And of course, I met lots of people with one or two of my names, and one with my full name exactly, and I saw people who looked like my aunts and uncles. I still correspond with people I met there, with my last name, who unflinchingly refer to themselves as my family, even if we can't trace the exact connection.