What is your heritage?

People think I'm Spanish for some reason? (Not from Mexico, from Spain.)
I asked why once and it had something to do with my skin and hair, which is dark and curly.

My parental grandmother was extremely interested in genealogy (she even went and gave some guest talks at a local [to her, not me] community college once), and traced our family back to the 8th-9th century. We have these huge, long charts that she made.

That's the Norwegian side of the family, and it's funny the further back you get some of the descriptions... Occupations were noted when known and back far enough they are often listed as "Viking." (She allegedly traced us back to Harald Finehair but I suspect he had a lot of bastards spread over the countryside, so I won't be staking my claim anytime soon.)

I think that is what it is with me, too. I have a friend that is half hispanic and people use to think that we were sisters.

Apparently I don't look "American" enough, because when people see that my name is Andrea they like to try to pronounce it "On-drea" or "On-dre-ah", not "AN-dre-ah". I have no idea why. But it happens enough that I respond to all three names. LOL

Really? Where? I'm from Yorkshire born and bred.

I do think Americans probably have more interest in this stuff because there's such a mashup of people and cultures here. Also, a lot of the records aren't that great so it can be hard to really find out exactly what your ancestry is. For me it's just kind of interesting. I've had a lot of friends who were only a couple generations removed from immigrants so we 100% ____ or 50% ___ and 50% ____. Most sides of my family have been in the americas so long that kind of stuff has just been lost. Texan is a about as cultural as my family gets. :lol-sign:

I don't know exactly, because I've never been there. I know it's dumb, because Yorkshire is really big and I've only fallen in love through photos and others' accounts of being there (and the book "Jame's Harriot's Yorkshire"), but I am determined to find someplace in the country and plop right down there.
Your profile says you live in Wales now, but you lived in Yorkshire a little bit ago, right? Either way when you'd post pics I'd 1) notice the beautiful dogs and 2) look at the amazing scenery.
I know I'm lame for loving a place I've never been. Oh, well.

Well, I don't think anybody has ever looked at my pasty white ass and red hair and thought I was Italian or anything exciting like that.

Our last name is supposed to mean something in German according to my aunt but I can't find anything to actually back that up, we're supposedly from Germany. I've also heard possibly French. The reality is we've all been here so long on both sides of my family I don't think anybody knows.

The more accurate answer is "the south." I've lived in Illinois my entire life and so has my dad, but his dad's family is from the south and my mom lived her early years in various southern states as they made their way up to Illinois. It's why I can say "y'all" effortlessly and a southern drawl ain't that far away either.

Cherokee is not that far back on either side, but diluted enough legally that I can't do the whole Cherokee camp stuff to pursue it as a heritage to get any financial aid or anything.


I've never heard anybody who was born and raised in America tell me they're "from" somewhere else. The answer to "where are you from" is a state, or a city. But discussions of heritage do come up as a point of interest.

I ask people everyday what their ancestry of European decent is and I mostly get blank stares. Many people don't really seem to know or care. (It's required on death certificates)

I'm Danish & German...but I couldn't tell you percentages or anything.

I'm surprised people think I look Spanish because I'm pale as hell with freckles.

I consider myself American without any hyphens attached, although I will occasionally say I'm a Marylander. (Not real common at my workplace where most of the employees and their families have lived in this area of Missouri for generations AND THEY'RE ALL RELATED. It's scary sometimes... )

I like history so researching the family tree is fun, especially if you look up the history/lifestyle/political ideas of time/location for that particular family member. Sometimes it also explains why ancestors sometimes suddenly disappeared from the census rolls - mini-pandemics would hit various communities and wipe out families. A lot of libraries have back issues of newspapers on line, we've found a lot of information by looking at past issues of the Baltimore Sun (circa late 1800s to early 1900s).

I mostly just say half-American and half-Canadian. My father is from Ohio and my mother is from Toronto and I'm a dual citizen. Though my mother's parents are English, so I guess in terms of heritage I'd be 50% English and 50% American.

I don't bother counting anything more than like three generations really, so I just leave it at American, haha. My American family have been there forever anyway.

Cool, thanks

Part of it might be generational. When I was a kid it was super common for people to ask (and know) about ancestry. My great-grandparents were all immigrants, so my grandparents still had a lot of cultural influence, which trickled down a little bit to my brothers and me, but I don't see it really at all in my nieces and nephews.

On my dad's side is just Scottish and Iroquois/Cree. My grandpa is full Scottish and my grandma is full Native American. My great, great grandma on my grandmas side is a pretty famous native woman to our Alberta/Canadian history. On my moms side is French, Russian and Native American. My grandma is Russian and my papa is French and Native American. He is what you call métis, and that is also what I call myself when people ask what nationity I am. My great grandparent where tight with Lois reil which is pretty cool.

For those interested in genealogy, have/would you consider doing the genealogical DNA testing? I'm not sure I understand it correctly with the male and female lines, but the site I was looking at has a database where you can be matched 5 generations back with others who have submitted DNA as well. My cousin did it and was matched with another relative, they're not quite sure who they're related through, but they are.

Sounds interesting, but I'm not quite sure if I want my DNA in a database somewhere.

British- English.

Can't say I've ever met anybody like that!
If someone asks me where I'm from... I say I'm from Minnesota? lol but if they ask me where my ANCESTORS are from, then yeah I'll pull out the random countries.
Probably the only reason I know anything about my family is because I had to do a project in elementary school.

Well, I'm from Yorkshire, I was born there and all my family still live there. But not James Herriot country. That's North Yorkshire you want to google the Yorkshire moors and the Yorkshire dales for that kind of countryside.

I'm from East Yorkshire, which is flat and arable farming rather than sheep farming. We have the wolds, which are nice, but mostly it's just flat and fields.

West Yorkshire is rolling, but also has all the major cities, Leeds and Bradford etc.

I live in wales, and the landscape here is much more rugged than Yorkshire.

Sadly the uk is waaaaaay overpopulated so all the beautiful places get swamped with visitors, so even the rural places can have a lot of weekend and summer traffic... But there's lots of lovely places to live lots of good dog walking in places too!

I'm pretty american through and through. My family tries to pride itself as Irish, but nobody in my family looks irish haha.

When I was studying abroad in Staffordshire I went up to Hull to visit my friend (who goes to uni there). She took me to Scarborough which was awesome, seaside towns are my fave (love the coin-pusher games bahhaha). Also went to Llandudno, though off-season.