Your ancestry

[Ardent15]

What is your ancestry?

On my maternal grandfather's side, I'm English and Irish. My grandfather's parents were from Illinois.

On my maternal grandmother's side, I'm Irish. My grandmother was born in Peabody, MA.

On my paternal grandfather's side, I'm mostly German, with some Belgian in there (I have a Belgian surname). My great-grandfather was from Portland, Oregon.

On my paternal grandmother's side, I'm German. Her parents were from Kansas.

[Odin2005]

1. Norwegian and German.

[Swede]

2. Swedish on dad's side,1/2 Swede and heinz 57 on mom's/

Typical North American,I guess.

[baldguy]

3. German, Irish & English.

[LeftyFingerPop]

4. Paternal grandparents...Rionero in Vulture, Italy...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rionero_in_Vulture

Maternal...somewhere in Southern Italy.

[lazarus]

5. mostly Scottish

with some English.

One of my ancestors way back in the 17th century is supposed to be descended from one of the knights who forced King John to sign the Magna Carta.

[applegrove]

6. I'm three quarters Nova Scotian and one quarter scotch with a little bit of Irish.

Some of my Nova Scotia ancestors were scottish, some german. I'm so proud of being nova scotian. It is such a cool place...people are so nice there.

[Captain Hilts]

14. 'Scottish'!!!!!

NEVER 'Scotch'. That's a drink!

[applegrove]

17. Thanks.

[csziggy]

30. I thought have a good dose of scotch was a good thing! ;-)

[unpossibles]

41. in my family both apply ... nt

[sarge43]

7. As far as I know

Father: German and Irish. German side came to America shortly before the Revolution. Irish got lucky and got out during the Famine.

Mother: English, German. English, think they came over in the first wave of settlement. German, mid 19th century.

[guitar man]

8. Mostly Scottish

Lots of Scots on both sides of the family with a little English and Irish thrown in.

[femmocrat]

9. 100% Slovak.

We still have relatives near Bratislava.

[Kat45]

10. Italian and Sicilian

My mother's side, grandparents from Calabria and Abruzzo. My father's side, grandparents from Sicily.

[pink-o]

65. Sicily is a beautiful place, especially Taromina.

I would rather explore Greek ruins in Sicily than in Greece. At least I can read the street signs

[tango-tee]

81. I lived in Catania for four years.

Yes, Sicily is beautiful. And Taormina in the spring is pure heaven.

[hobbit709]

11. English and Irish on my dad's side

On my mom's side Austrian, Hungarian, Italian(depending on which argument with the old Austro-Hungarian Empire), Czech and who knows.

I was born in Austria.

[Kali]

12. Mur'kin!

most of both side go back quite a ways here, but before that Wales, Scotland, Germany, northern France

[MiddleFingerMom]

26. A merkin?

.

.

[Bucky]

35. And before that...?

Before they were in Europe, your ancestors came from some place, right? Probably the central Asian steppes north of the Black Sea. So really, you're Asian American. You should be honest about that and not hide your ethnicity in shame.

And before that...?

Before they were in Asia, your ancestors were probably in the Middle East, escaping the contraction of the verdant Saharan grasslands. So really, you're Middle Eastern American. You should be honest about that and not hide your ethnicity in shame.

And before that...?

Before they were in the Levant, your ancestors were certainly in Africa, fashioning flint tools. So really, you're African American. You should be honest about that and not hide your ethnicity in shame.

And before that...?

Before they were still in Africa, but they looked more like lemurs or bush babies and they were covered in fur and probably had tails. So really, you're a Quadripedal-proto-lemur-American. You should be honest about that and not hide your ethnicity in shame.

This is why I only identify myself as a Microbial-Martian-American.

[dalaigh lllama]

75. Ha! That's great!

Now I'm all for the Microbial American thing, but where does your Martian ancestry come in?

[Captain Hilts]

13. English/Scottish on Dad's, English/Irish/Welsh on Mum's. I'm first generation.

We have the family tree going all the way back to Robert the Bruce.

[nickinSTL]

15. more than half Norwegian, around 40% or so German

at an estimate - plus a bit of Swedish...and if you keep going back, English, Scottish, Irish, and back far enough you get Breton...

and I suspect some Saami mixed in with the Norwegian.

My great-grandparents were:
on my mom's side - all Norwegian
on my dad's side - both German on his dad's side, German and Swedish on his mom's side

many of my ancestors came over in the 1850s or so, I think - but my direct paternal line came over in 1751.

[klm55500]

16. German, mostly

[pscot]

18. French/Canadian and Norwegian on my dad's side

The first paternal ancestor showed up in Quebec in 1654. He was a soldier. German Irish on my mother's. The potato famine set the Cramers and the Connelly's in motion and my maternal great grandmother was a pastry cook from Frankfurt.

[rurallib]

19. Irish on one side, German and Czech on the other

are German and Czech really distinct?
really, white northern European for all practical purposes.

[supernova]

20. Mom's side: Alsatian; Dad's: English/Border Scots

[proteus_lives]

21. Scots, French, Roma.

[tango-tee]

82. You're the only person other than myself

who has mentioned being part Roma! Or is the proper term Romani? I don't really know.

But hey....!

[AsahinaKimi]

22. Japanese~Korean~American

On my fathers side, Both Grandparents came from Osaka Japan. My father was born in Osaka Japan.
On my Mothers side, Grandfather was Japanese from Miyazaki Japan, and Grand Mother was born in
Kongju, South Korea. My mother is Half Japanese, Half Korean born in New York City.

Beautiful Miyazaki (I want to visit there some day)

I was born in San Francisco, California.

[nolabear]

23. English, Irish, Choctaw.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

24. a dash of this and a little of that and throw in the other, for good measure

and now you have a Heinz 57. and that would be me.

[cordelia]

25. Welsh, English, Irish

[Forkboy]

93. "Broadcast on all known frequencies, and in all known languages, including Welsh."

[bif]

27. 100% Polish

[blueamy66]

60. Lucky you!

Unfortunately, I am only half Polish....1/4 Irish....1/4 German.

[Rhiannon12866]

85. Me, too...

My mother is Polish. She was born here, but my grandparents came from Poland, so it's her first language. My Dad's 1/2 Irish, 1/4 English and 1/4 Dutch. :hi:

[LeftyMom]

28. My paternal grandfather was Donauschwaben, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

My paternal grandmother was an American of thoroughly mixed ancestry, from Iowa.
My maternal grandfather was from Rome.
My maternal grandmother was 1/4 Scot and 1/4 Dutch and half English, born in Oakland, CA on pill hill.

[csziggy]

29. English, German, Welsh, Scots-Irish, Dutch

My great grandfather on my father's side was from Wales - he and his wife (Scots-Irish through Canada) were the most recent immigrants in my family. They ended up in Michigan and worked for the mines. My father's mother's line was English and Dutch - came from the first female child born in New Amsterdam. Her family were very early American settlers who moved from Connecticut and Massachusetts to upper state New York, then to Michigan.

My mother's side had a lot of Palatine Germans who left Germany because of persecution of the Protestants. There were some English who stopped over in Ireland for a generation and married into what were probably Scots-Irish - those were the Quaker branch who first went to Pennsylvania and some moved south after the Revolution. They settled in North and South Carolina, then moved to a central Alabama in the 1820s.

There are a few lines we have not tracked down. They are likely English, but they could be other derivations. Some of the surnames could be anglicized rather than the actual English name. Unless we can track down those lines, we will never know. One is the patrilineal line that went straight through to Mom's Dad and her brothers. I am thinking of asking one of my male cousins to get a DNA test to see if that can tie that line to one of the documented ones we suspect we come from. Since they are a direct male line, they could verify the descent.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

31. Mine:

Mom's side: Mostly Swede, some Scottish and maybe English

Dad's side: French Canadian, Irish, English, German

I'm about 25% Swede...

[Kali]

45. and 100% Sweet

well not including the occasional f-bomb:rofl:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

52. Thanks, my dear Kali!

Gotta keep 'em guessing with the occasional f-bomb!:rofl:

[Swede]

49. Skål!

:toast: to a my friend and fellow Swede.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

54. Cheers, my dear Swede!

Back atcha, sweetie!

:toast:

:hug:

[namahage]

32. 100% Japanese. n/t

[velvet]

33. Maltese/English blend, plus

a pinch of Irish on both sides

[Bucky]

34. On my mother's side I'm American and American. On my father's side, I'm American.

I'm a Dixie doodle dandy back as far as the eye can see.

[CBGLuthier]

36. Scot, English, Cherokee, Melungeon

All from the hills and hollers of SE Kentucky and West Virginia.

[PassingFair]

37. Pure Scot on my Dad's side ( Aberdonian).

Scottish/English on my mother's, via Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

[CBR]

38. Mine...

Paternal Grandfather: German -- came to Philly in 1700s
Paternal Grandmother: Scottish -- she came to the US in the 1940s

Maternal Grandfather: Welsh -- came to the US in 1700s
Maternal Grandmother: Bajan (Barbados) -- she came to the US in 1964

[charlie and algernon]

39. Mom's side - 100% Italian, Dad's side - German and Irish

[unpossibles]

40. a mutt like many Americans

My maternal grandmother was Irish chiefly
My maternal grandfather was English, Irish, and some French
My paternal grandmother was Scottish, English, Irish
My paternal grandfather was German, Scottish, French, English, and a bit of Spanish

My paternal grandfather's side I know more about than the others, so it would not surprise me to discover they have more mixtures than I know about too. My "joke" is that the only thing my family has in common is we're drunks who hate each other. :)

[JohnnyBoots]

42. Irish/Sicillian/Polish

[Maine-ah]

43. Portuguese & Irish - paternal side Fall River, MA

Scot & Dutch on my maternal side. Descendant of Anneke Jans Bogardus :)

[One_Life_To_Give]

44. Southern France w/few Centuries layover in England

Supposedly goes back to the south of France on both sides of the family. With periods of layover in England before one side came to New England early 1600's and other came via NovaScotia. So does that make me French, what about 5 centuries in England? And what about almost 5 centuries in North America?

[Roon]

46. Half german and half basque

my buddy calls me a "halfie".I kind of like it, people will mistake me for mexican and start talking spanish to me.

[bikebloke]

47. Scottish and Irish

I just found out there's some English blended in. It can be scrubbed out with a good cleaner though. ;)

Finally, I gave in and sent in my cheek swabs for the YDNA test to see where the paternal side goes back to. I'm skipping the mitDNA, because I don't like the people on the maternal side. The results should come out in another month.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

48. Belarus

Well, half anyway.

The other half is washing down sauerbraten with Guinness.

:hi:

[smirkymonkey]

50. Italian, Dutch and English

Father is 100% Italian
Mother was 50% English on her Father's side and 50% Dutch on her Mother's side.

Most people tell me I look Scandinavian.

[Richard Steele]

51. Uncertain. We suspect grandma is a Native American pretending to be caucasian since the 1940's.

Seriously.

Other than that, I'm mostly Scots/Irish with a bit of German
and (likely) a dash of whatever travelling salesmen
passed through since the first Steele brothers got here in the 1730's.

Not that I -KNOW- that anyone ever got it on
with any travelling salesmen, but let's be realistic:
My family are generally large, robust, HEALTHY folk,
and odds are that a few of us got LONELY sometime between
1735 and 2010.

[deutsey]

53. Irish and German that I know of for certain

Maybe English or Scottish on one side, but I'm not in contact with that side of the family.

Also, my grandmother tells me there's Native American mixed in it somewhere, but I've never been able to confirm that.

[hunter]

55. My ancestors came to America so they could lie about their ancestry.

Nope, nope, never heard of the guy, don't know nothing about that place.

Bunch of ship jumpers without proper documents the entire lot of 'em. If anybody asked they made stuff up.

[Dramarama]

79. Wonder how many people

changed their surnames here

[Rambis]

56. Mom side Scott Dad side English

Mostly I am conflicted but both sides enjoy a pint:)

[Kingofalldems]

57. I like the way they pronounce Peabody in Massachusetts

[KamaAina]

58. Irish, Scottish, Austrian, German, Dutch

in descending order.

[Blue_In_AK]

59. I'm not familiar with my mother's ancestry

because she died when I was young and I lost track of that side of the family. But my dad's side came from England with William Penn's folks, being Quakers, and ultimately settled in southern Ohio. Later, before and during the Civil War, my relatives were active with the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad.

This Benjamin Lundy here is an ancestor.

http://www2.gol.com/users/quakers/Benjamin_Lundy.htm


I'm very proud of this heritage.

[WilliamPitt]

61. Irish, English and German

Some pretty craaaaaazy shit down the English line. Hence the name.

Irish: Boston

German: Pennsylvania

English: Alabama

Go figure.

[NV Whino]

62. Scottish

with a little Russian and German thrown in for good measure.

[Skittles]

63. half English, half Norwegian

mother and maternal grandparents from England, dad from Minnesota, paternal grandparents from Norway

[Throd]

64. Rednecks

[Starbucks Anarchist]

66. Indian.

East Indian, not Native American. :P

[Sisaruus]

67. Finnish

[pink-o]

68. No African Americans have chimed in here. Nor Ashkenazi Jews. Let me be the first for the latter.

My father's side of the family is Fiddler on the Roof, settling in America after one Pogrom too many. On my mother's side, it reads like a Dickens' novel. Granddad was poor in Yorkshire in the early 1900s, destined for the coal mines till he ran away to Canada. His father had been an apothecary and ended up in debtor's prison due to sucking up his own profits by being continually high on Absinthe, Belladonna and Opium. After my crazy youth in the 70s and 80s, I wonder if it's a genetic predisposition.

But once again, New Immigrants bring old ways with them. I have some awesome, sophisticated maternal cousins but for the most part, mom's relatives are total White Trash. My other cousin lives in a trailer in Arizona, is on disability and gorges on fast food. Her daughter, the daughter's hubby and two teenage kids live in the same trailer. They love to talk about the "illegals" taking their jobs (which none of them have, except the teenagers) and I bet they're in hog heaven now that heinous, evil bill has been signed into law. Annoys me to no end that I'm related to these people!

[Misskittycat]

73. 100% Eastern European Jewish.

[LeftishBrit]

87. Wow Pink-o, we could be related!

I am also a mixture of Ashkenazi Jewish (Polish and Lithuanian), and British-Canadian. The Canadian part is largely of Scottish origin (there is a family legend that we're descended from Rob Roy, but I think that's fairly unlikely) but we do know of one ancestor who emigrated from Yorkshire to Canada in the 17th century.

[pink-o]

95. Well, if your Brit side is related to mine, your relatives probably DRANK Rob Roys!

..But you might be my cousin on either side. My paternal grandfather's village was in Yurberg, Lithuania, and my Great-grandmother's husband was known around his Baltimore neighborhood as "Joe the Pol". My maternal grandfather was related to the Yorkshire Wilsons, as in Harold the old PM in the 70s. I actually lived in London when he and Edward Heath see-sawed back and forth for the job, moving home to California just before Thatcher started her reign of error. I miss the Brit sophistication, the European lifestyle, but I gotta say I don't miss the rain or those cold, dark winters!!

[LeftishBrit]

102. My ancestors hail from Vilna, Lithuania, and Bialystok, Poland...

incidentally my Yorkshire ancestor went to Canada in the 19th not 17th century - quite a typo there!

By the way, I know Harold Wilson's son (a mathematician) slightly, through university, not political, connections.

Thatcher's 'reign of error': an excellent description!

Where in London did you live?

[pink-o]

103. I started off in Earl's Court, before it was a desirable neighbourhood.

I also lived and worked at the St James Hotel down by New Scotland Yard, but my fave was a double-bedsit in Marleybone on Nottingham Place. It was 1976 and my friend and I paid 35 quid a month.

Those days are sooooo long gone!!!

[GreenEyedLefty]

69. Finnish and Italian on my mom's side; English, French and Native American on my dad's

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

70. Scottish, Norwegian and Klingon.

[kwassa]

71. One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer

That's what John Lee Hooker told me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIvka3SSv9Y

[Lady President]

72. English, Irish, Scottish, Swiss, and German

And yes, I can get a sunburn under a 100 watt light bulb.

[tango-tee]

74. Maternal grandfather Serb with a sprinkling of Roma.

He looked really striking. Black hair and green eyes.

Maternal grandmother was of French ancestry. She had a dark olive complexion and black hair which caused lots of problems during the Nazi years for looking so "exotic". And my grandfather for being a Slav anyway.

Paternal grandparents both German.

[proteus_lives]

83. How similar.

You replied to my post about having Roma blood.

My maternal great-grandmother was apparently a full-blooded Roma. According to my mother and grandmother I look like a male version of her. Dark skin, big nose and thick, black hair. (My dago-do as my father puts it.)

I've always found it interesting how genes put in and out like that. I look like this but my sister is blond and blue-eyed. Weird.

[tango-tee]

84. The gene pool....

When I was little, my hair was light blond (paternal side of the family out in full force), but I had really dark brown eyes and always looked tanned (maternal grandparents). By the time I was in first grade, my hair had turned reddish-blond, and once I was a teenager it was nearly black.

When it comes to my son, we're looking at a wild mixture. His father is African-American, but from both maternal and paternal grandparents on his dad's side, there are fairly recent additions of French, Irish and Choctaw to the predominant African-American genes. What's amazing is that my son's features resemble those of my younger sister a great deal. And in turn, my sister looks just like one of our distant cousins in Serbia.

[jotsy]

76. That depends,

One of my parents is a reservation born American Indian from Montana who had a father rumored to be an escaped convict from St. Louis named McCall, which I believe would be Scottish, but the name I was born to is decidedly Irish. My other parent was born in Oklahoma, and may have been a descendant of Irish immigrants who participated in the great land race, but that's just my guess, mostly in consideration of blue eyed red headed, fairish features, family name there is Shoemake?

So I've spent most of my life as what some have described as indi-ish. Which works for me as political description too, so it was kind of convenient.

[Dramarama]

77. Mexican

[SwampG8r]

78. hard to pin down

when we did the look ups my brother did the work and found of 128 direct ancestor half were cherokee and half were different europeans
this is all in a tiny corner of east tenn /nc

[deoxyribonuclease]

80. Han Chinese

1 out of every 5 people on the planet is of my ethnic group. There are 1.3 billion of us :o

[Elmo39]

86. Welsh/German/English

A week ago I attempted to trace my ancestry on line without having to pay or join any site, just fooling around. Turns out that I hit on a bunch of Forum messages at one of the sites regarding my Great grandfather. Thse messages were from 2006. I found the email addy of the poster and mailed him. MUCH to my surprise, he replied with the news that we were related, we shared a Great, great great Grandfather.
It seems that this fellow has been 'rooting' my family name for years and was able to trace our ancestors back to the 1700's Berks county PA area. He has documented that my GGGG Grandfather David got married in June of 1797. He further explained that he had narrowed down to 3 men who were likely candidates for being David's father...my GGGGG grandfather. All three took the Oath of Allegiance

"During the Revolutionary War, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed an act, dated 13 June 1777, that all men must sign the Oath or Affirmation of Allegiance, renouncing the authority of King George the III. This was passed by a general militia law and made full provision for the enrollment of all persons fit for miliatry duty and established a test and oath of allegiance."

and 2 of the three fought in the Revolutionary War.

Needless to say, I was amazed.
This man, my cousin, sent me all the information about my line up to my birth and baptism records. I now have proof that I have a direct blood liniage to the Revolutionary War era.

[Paper Roses]

88. Dad's family, Irish, came over to Nova Scotia, then to the US.

Mother's family, Italian. Came through Ellis Island very early 1900's.

[spinbaby]

89. German, French, Polish, Russian Jews

Also Dutch.

[Dappleganger]

90. Irish-Welsh-Cherokee

Mother's side--Irish/Welsh from both her parents
Father's side--Irish from his mother, Irish/Cherokee from his father (my great-grandmother was full-Cherokee).

[Old Troop]

91. Irish, English and French

Family legend has it that mom's side of the family arrived in NH in the 1590s in a shipwreck (or jumping ship; kinda obscure). Lived with native tribes and founded a village. Dad's side came from Ireland after an unfortunate horse ownership incident.

[IntravenousDemilo]

92. From most to least: English 1/2, Irish 1/4, German 1/8, Polish & Hungarian 1/16th each.

Not much chance of inbreeding in our family.

[AwakeAtLast]

94. I'm a mixture of German, English and Irish

Dad's side was German and English, Mom's was English and Irish. Needless to say I have to wear a lot of sunblock!

My Mom's mom had the most beautiful long wavy red hair. I have a little bit of it but I'm mostly brunette. I like to make it more on the auburn side because I identify most with her.

[Arugula Latte]

96. 1/4 English/Scottish/Irish, 1/4 German, 1/4 Hungarian, 1/4 Bohemian (Czech)

[fishwax]

97. my dad is half Lithuanian and half Dutch, but even that is more complicated then it sounds

As a fair share of my Lithuanian ancestors were actually Polish (but settled in Lithuania before their descendants came here) and a fair share of my Dutch ancestors were Scottish (but settled in Holland and intermarried before their descendants came here).

On my mother's side, I'm part English, part Irish, and to a lesser extent part Prussian, Ojibwe, and Scottish.

[lizziegrace]

98. Greek and Dutch/mutt

My dad's family is from Crete.

[Bluzmann57]

99. Fat drunk and bald

Oh wait you mean lineage. Ok, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, English and allegedly a trace of Apache. My forefathers got around. My adopted daughter is Filipina. So someday she will have some mixed race kids. That's cool. Hope I'm here to see them and love them.

[Zavulon]

100. Russian mother, German father, British last name.

Believe it or not, I was given the last name of my mother's first husband because, according to my mother, her maiden name and my biological father's last names are "too long and hard to pronounce." Amazingly, my father had no objection. Both of their last names are 12 letters long, my last name is eight letters long. I guess they both figured I wasn't going to be a bright child if the extra four letters were a deal-breaker.

[trackfan]

101. Italian, on both sides n/t

[myrna minx]

104. Norwegian and Irish.

The sun is my sworn enemy. :D

[Rising Phoenix]

105. I"m Irish......back as far as anyone can go

County Cork

[JTG of the PRB]

106. I'm part Welsh, English, Irish, Scottish, French, German, and Greek.

The French, Welsh, English, Scottish, and Greek comes from my Mom's side, I believe. Irish and German come from my Dad's side, but his grandparents had fairly detailed family tree records that somebody has, so there could be more in there. I'm basically a mutt. :)