Ethnicity / background

[gyb13]

Figured this would be an interesting way to learn a little bit more about everybody else.

As most of you know, I am from Brasil, but (as in the US) very few people from Brasil are native to the land.

Ethnically, I am half-Japanese, half-Italian.

On my mother's side, both my grandparents were born in Japan and emigrated to Brasil in the intra-war period. My grandfather was from outside Kyoto, I believe, but spent much of his youth in Manchuko (the japanese-occupied province of Manchuria, China) as his dad worked on the railroads. My grandmother is from Sakhalin Island, which has been under Russian rule since WWII.

On my father's side, my last Italian-born relative was my great-grandfather, though my dad is 100% Italian by blood. The family comes from Rovigo (Veneto province), in the northeast, and there is speculation that some ancestors may have come across the border from Austria.

How about you?

[Max Power]

I was born in the U.S.
Both of my parents were born in the U.S.
I am an American.

Now, if you want to know about my grandparents, that's a mix. My mother's parents are from Italy. My father's parents are from NYC. My father's parent's parents were from Italy and Germany.

When asked "What's your nationality?" I always answer "American."

Why would I say anything else? ;)

[Skip]

Yes Max, I am an Amuriken too. My lineage is primarily English/Welsh and German, mostly the former. I have been doing a family genealogy project off and on for the past 2 years and have various branches going back to 12th century England and 17th century Germany.

[satchel]

Originally posted by Max Power

When asked "What's your nationality?" I always answer "American."

Why would I say anything else? ;)

I am American too, Max, but that wasn't the question.

To answer gyb's question: most of my ancestors came from Poland, or the part of what was then Austria-Hungary that is now Poland.

Both sides of my mother's family emigrated to New York in the 1850s. That's fairly early for eastern European Jews - the really big waves of eastern European Jews didn't start until the 1880s. So I have a relatively venerable Brooklyn pedigree.

On my father's side, his mother's family came to Brooklyn from Poland in the 1880s immigration wave. His father's family is a little more interesting. My father's grandfather emigrated from eastern Europe not the US but to Morocco, where there was a burgeoning francophone middle-class Jewish community. He settled there and married a Moroccan Jew. My paternal grandfather, Jacques, spoke French as his first language and considered himself Moroccan. He moved to the New York as a young man in the 1920s.

Thus, in the poll I selected Eastern European and North African. But I suppose my ethnicity (as well as my religion) is Jewish.

gyb knew this would be a complicated question for some! ;)

[cubfan33]

Since I could only answer one, my answer was middle east. I'm a Jew.

Granted, my dad's background is Irish. I like a good Guinness every now and again, right Smed?

[SmedIndy]

Originally posted by cubfan33
Since I could only answer one, my answer was middle east. I'm a Jew.

Granted, my dad's background is Irish. I like a good Guinness every now and again, right Smed?

Thissshhh guy here.....he'ssssshhh the guyyyyyy!


I'm a mutt...Swedish, English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, and a tiny bit of American Indian. (My grandmother was a Van Cleave that was born in Big Cabin, Oklahoma in 1899).

[Max Power]

Originally posted by satchel
I am American too, Max, but that wasn't the question.


Well, the question was:

Where do your ancestors come from?

So, my answer would then be "From a pool of primordial goo." ;)

[Gosfgiants]

I am three quarters German Jew with one quarter Italian thrown in there for a little varietty.

[tortured angel]

My mom is a blue eyed blonde WASP from Mississippi. My dad is a Dutch-Indonesian who was born on Java and moved to Holland when the Indonesians expelled all the Dutch after WW II. His maternal grandmother is Indonesian but the rest are pure Dutch despite nearly 300 years living in the islands.

My wife is from Leyte, one of the Visayan islands of the Philippines. My son just calls himself a citizen of the world.

[TGwynn19]

I have no idea what my ethnicity/background is. I have never bothered to ask my parents or grandparents. It never seemed important to me.

[WiredTiger]

I am part Chinese, part English and part German which seemed odd long ago but doesn't seem that unusual anymore.

[rcartman28]

I'm not sure, either.....I always just tell people "Southern".

[satchel]

Originally posted by TGwynn19
I have no idea what my ethnicity/background is. I have never bothered to ask my parents or grandparents. It never seemed important to me.

This is interesting because it is my impression that most people are curious about who their forbears were. At least, there is a huge genaeology industry that suggests so. In my case, since the family histories (not to mention so many families) of so many Eastern European Jews were lost in the Holocaust, I am glad that my family was out of Europe long before that, so I take an interest.

My family was part of a particular "old New York" cultural scene that I find compelling in its own right, and it's intriguing to me to imagine what life was like for them.

I know that others enjoy thinking about the pioneer spirit of their ancestors who emigrated, or their role in a struggle for freedom in a colonized nation, or the hardships they bore as slaves. Many Americans claim some Native American blood - there has to be some psychological appeal to that, as well, a feeling of birthright perhaps?

I don't know, I'm rambling - but it intrigues me, Trevor, that you don't harbor any curiosity about the courses of life that led up to you.

[sweaver]

My brother has done a lot of geneological research, at least into our mother's side of the family, and found someone that came over on the Mayflower, which is kinda cool to know. Overall, I'm pretty much Scotch-Irish stock.

[JamesI]

Half german half Irish.

[Rajah]

Dag, where do I start. My family history is pretty weird, I am a good old fashioned american mutt.

My mom's family seems to be the simpler place to start. My Mother's father's family is of English stock, coming over some time before the revolution. My mother's mother's family is german, specifically from a tight closed enclave of germans who eventually settled in southern Illinois. Not exactly sure when they came across. I think it was in the 1800's.

My fathers side: My grandmothers family is of irish descent. Not sure of how long. Probably potato famine era. can't say for certain though.

This is where it gets tricky. My grandfather adopted my father and his brother and sister when they were young (my biological grandfather and my grandmother after about five years and when my grandmother remarried shortly thereafter, her new husband adopted her kids. My dad was young enough that he didn't even know that he had "another" father until he was in his early 20's.

Anyway, biologically, I trace back to, judging from the last name, somewhere in eastern Europe.

Adoptively (is that a word?), I know my original family name (since changed and americanized) traces back to Slovakia, and my great great grandfather came over on the boat just before the turn of the century.

[Skip]

Originally posted by sweaver
My brother has done a lot of geneological research, at least into our mother's side of the family, and found someone that came over on the Mayflower, which is kinda cool to know. Oh yeah ... well I am descended from Pocahontas' sister, which is also cool to know.

[NCFella19]

Mom's side: Hungary - my grandparents off the boat

Dad's side: Scotland/England - my great-grandparents off the boat

[Duque]

Half German, Half Scotch/English/Welsh

Funny thing is, my German ancestors came here a lot earlier than my British ones; pre-Revolution. We've traced them back all the way to Baden-Baden Germany during the Reformation. My British ancestors are my maternal grandparents, who arrived here in the 1920s.

Btw, gyb, I can think of some people that my be teed off that 'Irish' and 'UK' are part of the same group. :D

[Ytown Tribe fan]

*other (Roswell '47)

[gyb13]

i know, Duque, same with Germans and Scandinavians, Portuguese and Spanish, Serbs and Croats, Greeks and Turks, Arabs and Israelis, Indians and Pakistanis, Japanese and Chinese, and so on and so on....but I had to draw the line somewhere ;)

Satch and Will, i always had trouble with the idea of Jews as an ethnicity and not a religion, but perhaps you can sway me otherwise...

[satchel]

Originally posted by gyb13

Satch and Will, i always had trouble with the idea of Jews as an ethnicity and not a religion, but perhaps you can sway me otherwise...

Well, I wouldn't and didn't say "ethnicity and not a religion" - I said it was both. And I don't really feel compelled to convince you of that. But there is a distinct Jewish culture (as much as there's a distinct anything culture) and shared history, and the fact is that many, many people identify themselves as Jewish (and are identified as such by others, for better or worse) without any connection to religious practice or belief whatsoever.

[satchel]

Originally posted by Ytown Tribe fan
*other (Roswell '47)

:loud:

Are you allowed to tell us that? Or do you have to kill us now?

[hmrsf]

Originally posted by Duque
Half German, Half Scotch/English/Welsh



Btw, gyb, I can think of some people that my be teed off that 'Irish' and 'UK' are part of the same group. :D

Thanks Duque, high five!

I am 1/2 Irish 1/2 French.

On the Irish side (father): My grandfather's father rode with Rosovelt and the Rough Riders. His side goes back to the early settlers and they are multigeneral Americans............back to the Revolution times(?). My grandmother was a first generation American and felt the great depression. My grandfather was attending a private school and owned a car at the time they met. He passed himself as a driver and delivered her packages.

The French side goes back prior to this country being a country. On my mother's side They came from from Canada and settled on Lake Champlain. They were farmers and still are in argraculter in some way today.

I come from good stock. Hard working, patriotic, Americans. I know my families histroy and try to pass it on to my child. Things in some ways are easier. Freedoms are taken too lighly, meals come too cheap. Children need to know the price that their family paid.

[Gosfgiants]

Originally posted by satchel
Well, I wouldn't and didn't say "ethnicity and not a religion" - I said it was both. And I don't really feel compelled to convince you of that. But there is a distinct Jewish culture (as much as there's a distinct anything culture) and shared history, and the fact is that many, many people identify themselves as Jewish (and are identified as such by others, for better or worse) without any connection to religious practice or belief whatsoever.

There are many people who call themselves Ethnicly Jewish. I identify myself that way these days even though I had a Jewish religous education. I dated a girl who identified herself this way despite not having been raised in the religion and her father was Prostestant.

[TimmyB]

On my mother's side: Irish, Irish and for some variety, Irish (late 19th century immigrants as best I can tell -- spotty history there).

On my father's side it gets a little more complicated: his father was Irish/English (even spottier there); his mother was the daughter of Russian parents whose people emigrated to Russia from (father -- so, my great-grandfather) the Alsace-Lorraine region and (mother -- my great grandmother) Poland.

Two fascinating (to me, anyway) stories about my greatgrandparents -- they were in Russia at the turn of the century when Russia was a pretty dangerous place. While the czar was still almost two decades away from losing power, there was still much unrest that would lead to an unsuccessful uprising in 1905. It was a country full of factions and splinter groups of the factions.

So, my great-grandmother told my father a story about when she was a teenager, living in Odessa, and was playing with some friends near the high cliffs at the sea. While at the edge of the cliffs, one of her male friends, while fooling around, grabbed her and "pushed" her as though he was going to knock her into the sea, and then (hahahahahahaha) pulled her back. "But I would have let you go if you were a..." well... fill in the blank with any number of factions. For the sake of the story, let's say he said "orange". So, "I would have let you go if you were an orange. Hahahahahahaha!" My great-grandmother laughed it up -- hahahahhahha -- in the spirit of the moment. But, since it turned out she was an orange (or whatever faction it was that would have had her tossed off the cliff into the sea), she decided that day that she would go to the United States and join that fellow she used to know who had left town a year or two back.

That fellow, my great-grandfather, seemed to have lived a few moments straight out of Dr. Zhivago, as he decided to get out of town after being fired upon in a demonstration. So, he hopped the Trans-Siberian RR with the thought of leaving for the US via the Pacific. While on the train he was playing cards with some other travellers (a tough lot, no doubt), and, being a bit of a hot-head (I'm told), managed to get himself beat up, robbed and tossed off the train somewhere in the middle of Nowhere, Siberia. All he had to do was wait seven days for the train to return to that spot (one train -- back and forth) and get picked up. Tree bark, etc., made for a tasty diet. So, instead, he decided to escape going west.

Until his dying day he refused to tell anyone how he escaped Russia as he feared the people who helped him would come to harm. And, to this day, no one knows how he did it.

[AggieGirl]

Being a newbie - figured I would answer y'all with this information.

I am a Texan - but my heritage is varied. Mainly I am German and American Indian (Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw). Past that, I am Irish, Black Dutch, Jewish, and Scottish. I know - what a mix! I mainly just claim and German and the Indian.

Anything else you guys and/or gals want to know - you will have to ask.

[satchel]

TimmyB, your great-grandparents' stories are fascinating and intense! thanks for sharing those. Tales like that make me marvel at how easy I have it ...

[hmrsf]

TimmyB thanks for the story! You come from great stock!:D

[WiredTiger]

Originally posted by AggieGirl
Being a newbie - figured I would answer y'all with this information.

I am a Texan - but my heritage is varied. Mainly I am German and American Indian (Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw). Past that, I am Irish, Black Dutch, Jewish, and Scottish. I know - what a mix! I mainly just claim and German and the Indian.

Anything else you guys and/or gals want to know - you will have to ask. AggieGirl... welcome to the site. That is quite the interesting background. Interesting that you mentioned that you were a Texan before anything else. I am sure a lot of people from Texas consider themselves Texans first, American second and other ethnicities third.

Introduce yourself with your own thread in the Icebreaker forum if you already haven't.

[WiredTigress]

Very interesting topic! I too consider myself - American.

On my mother's side, her grandparents came from Poland.

My father's side is Ukrainian and Polish - and Canadian. His family tried to enter into the US after leaving the Ukraine, but the suggested "quotas" and allowances for persons from this region entering into the US was high. They weren't allowed to go in. So instead, they went to Canada. Where my Grandfather grew up. Technically, that makes my father 1st generation American -

It is so wonderful to see so many various ethnicities represented with pride.

[AggieGirl]

ok wild tiger - look for my new thread

[pathogan]

The british are not celts, they are a different race...my dad is from Ireland, my mom is Polish. My wife is romani{gypsy} which explains alot...

[Stashie's Dad]

Polish on my mother's side, mostly German on my father's side.

Duque, you're not related to early German-American Conrad Weiser, are you?

[pwdennis]

I identified myself as being of Irish ancestory but it's more complex than that

14/32 German
2/32 Flemish or Walloon
15/32 Irish
1/32 Cherokee

Dad is of Irish descent but his family (both sides) had been in the US for two or three generations. His mother's maiden name was Lynch and her mother's maiden name was Lafferty. My dad was born in the Lebanon Missouri area. Since all of my Dad's family are protestants I presume they originated from Ulster but I haven't found any records to substantiate this and perhaps the first Dennis to reach the US simply converted from Catholicism.

Mom is from Essen-Borbeck Germany (in the western part of the country). Her maiden name is Jetzorg (or Jetzork - it's spelled both ways by the various members of the family). Her mother's maiden name was Steinbach. Mom was raised Catholic but her father was Lutheran.

My parents met during the Berlin Airlift of 1949. Dad spoke no German, Mom spoke no English, but that apparently didn't matter. I am the oldest of three children, born 4/9/52 in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts

[hmrsf]

I work in Chicopee. Let me tell you, from the milarty men to the aging immagrants, you will not find a finer bunch of people. What a proud city!

[LisaG]

well, i'd have to say i'm ethnically American. i really hate having to place myself in any particular category, because i belong to so many, but checking "most of the above" was not an option in your poll. so many of us here in america are heinz 57 and/or multiracial, and frankly, i really identify with other americans, as opposed to any nationality or particular race, cuz i'm descended from lots of them. and i just don't identify with any other culture than American.

[Fatwater Fewl]

As far as I know, both sides of my family came from the Isle of Skye. And I live on an island -- Prince Edward Island, Canada's smallest province.

[rc3000]

Pretty much all English, actually born there but more a fluke that my father was in the service. I think some Irish with a great-grand parent