Who among us is not of mixed heritage? I know I am.

[HereSince1628]

71. My genealogy is old enough to be similar to American diversity...

I've got genes from Loyalists to the Crown and Revolutionaries/Patriots.

One of my ancestors, who ran a tavern...was a supporter of the Whiskey Rebellion no they did NOT fly the stars and bars

But, my genes were shared by Rebels and Blue-bellies.

Mostly those genes aren't shared with the famous or important ... but I've got a US Ambassador in there nominated by a DEMOCRAT!!!! And, it must be admitted, one of Americas most famous mentally ill celebrities...Zelda (Sayre) Fitzgerald, bad luck with those genes... really.

I've got mostly WASPY working class relatives, but DNA says a Jew was in there 5-ish generations ago,
Worse for most of "my people" records show I have a CATHOLIC!!!!!!! as a grandfather. How does one deal with that??????

Those Prussian princes Grandma talked about? No, think poor Serbs and Polish Slavs and one very very angry 48er from Baden Baden

The Montauk we proudly thought we had in the lineage apparently never was anything but a pirate of Portuguese origins. Please don't knock pirates of Long Island, they were centuries ahead of their time...their gift has MADE Wall Street.

My puritan ancestors? Forget religion...they came here pursuing coins. They quickly realized the indigenous people had none of thse. But that guy made a little, spent almost all he had, and died with items of value that didn't even include the home he built (but which was one of the oldest wooden colonial structures in existence in New York in 1925). So passed a few pounds, 40 acres, a pewter pitcher, and a heifer. He gave the pitcher and the heifer to his daughter as dowry...daughters couldn't be given away without a bribe...ya know? She did OK, it was HER great grandson that was an ambassador

It's pretty clear that most of those folks favored the idea of a government established not on bloodlines graced by God, but on an investment of blood they shed at Ticonderoga and Monmouth, on lives lost freezing to death at sea in the war of 1812.
Those were lineages that enshrined struggle, including taking as a surname the placename of a skirmish facing Napolean's army south of Berlin.

They anted up their investment in freedom in coal mines, and in sweat shed in turning reclaimed post-office hardware into the basilica of St Josephats and the Milwaukee Old Soldiers' Home... and in failed dreams of yeomanism in the malaria infested wet farmland of post civil war south central Illinois.. btw .congrats to Peabody Coal...you found the real treasure that was under those fields!

I have held the hands of relatives who RIOTED for rights of workers, and watched a brother abuse his part-time workers. It goes on. I'm pretty white, but I've got black and Hispanic and Hmong in-laws I've got racist rightwing relatives, and some more or less tolerant liberal cousins, and a couple of hair on fire progressive family members.

If I had to guess. I'd say part of my family would suffer to move progressive agendas for tomorrows children, and part of my family is actively fighting against all things progressive.

This is an American life.