What is your Nationality?

[jayne]

All my grandparents were purebreds

and two were from the same country, so I'm 1/2 Czechloslovokian, 1/4 German and 1/4 Danish. It's funny how genes work, though, because by looks I very much favor the Danish side. As for heritage, my Czech family is just a tiny bit less crazy than the Greek family in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I grew up in a Czech neighborhood in the Chicago area, went to Czech school as a child (don't remember anything other than cuss words and body parts now), and know how to cook most traditional Czech dishes. I think I'm the last generation to understand and live with this rich heritage.

Thanks for starting this interesting thread!

 

[REO]

I'm Spanish, Mexican, Italian, Native American(Cherokee American Indian) , and Czechoslovakian!( sorry if these are not politically correct but thats what I consider my self and how I explain it to people!! LOL!)

Do you cook or decorate that reflect your nationality? I do not unless you count a boxed taco dinner kit! LOL! But besides that nothing! LOL!

LOLOL!!!!! You're cute!!

Me, I don't know anything about my father's people except the Indian part.

On my mom's side is German & English (grandpa) and Indian and a little Scottish on my grandma's side. Strongly English & German with Indian. When my Army hubby & I were stationed in Germany, the Germans kept talking to me and I'd stare at them like a deer in headlights LOL. They thought I looked like them

I do know my greatgrandma was a Lee. I *think* she was a cousin to Robert E. Lee.

I don't decorate in any way really. But I am very much American Indian in my heart.

I'm very proud to be an AMERICAN!

 

[anoki]

Very much Canadian here!!!

One of my great-great grandfathers on my father's side came to Canada however many years ago, and bought the farm where I was born and raised, and still live on....both sides of my father's family are Canadian for 2 or 3 generations. On my mother's side, her mother's family came to Canada from Scotland when my grandma was 5 years old, and my grandfather was Canadian for 2 or 3 generations with roots to Scotland as well.

~kathryn

 

[LindaL]

I too am a Heinz 57, however I am mostly German, Austrian, Italian, English, Scottish. My maternal grandparents came from Germany in the 30's (but my grandfather was Austrian) and my paternal grandmother came from Italy early 1900's sometime (not sure on date). My paternal grandfather was the only grandparent born in the USA.

I grew up with strong Italian and German influences...and LOVE all the homemade dishes my grandmas used to make. My mom learned to cook these meals as well, but me....um....I CAN cook, but have not made any of the past down dishes, which is sad, but...I'm just not very "domesticated"

 

[Matt73]

My mom was born in Scotland. My dad was born in Jamaica. My dad was a mix of black, Irish, German, and Native Canadian (and who knows what else).

 

[minisch]

Mostly Irish, Scotish and French Canadians. Both sides came from Nova Scotia to U.S.

 

[Lizzie]

If we go back far enough, we are almost all, a combination of several different backgrounds and nationalities. Hundreds of years ago, many different groups conquered others and interbred. I suppose we are all mutts, if we get right down to it.

Lizzie

 

[HGFarm]

Scottish and Irish on my dad's side and mostly Norwegian and some Irish on my mother's side...........

 

[jacks'thunder]

Again, this is sooo interesting and fun to read! Thank you all for your replies!

 

[jacks'thunder]

I always thought I was Welsh x Cornish, until I started studying genealogy, about 15 years ago. Thanks to the LDS, who have kept incredible and only true reliable records for generations and to the Welsh, who also kept incredible records, I have discovered many surprises. Elinore of Aquitane appears twice in one line of my background. Adalbert II d' IVREA (King) of ITALY born 936 appears once in another and Annun "Ddu" Brenin, King of Greece. born 210 in another line. This was the furthest I was ever able to trace any line.

Just a note to anyone considering tracing their ancestry. Remember, Ancestry dot com, does a huge amount of advertising, but do no research. Everything on their site - which you pay for, is written by individuals who add their own research or even copied from others. This research is not always reliable and sometimes completely incorrect. LDS is the ONLY reliable way to trace one's ancestors. It is free to all.

Here is an example of the LDS report of my 5 x ggrandfather. It was just going back from his information and actually via some of the female lines, that I came to my oldest line (the year 210)

http://histfam.famil...9905&tree=Welsh

You won't find this kind of information on Ancestry, very often.

I'm afraid I'm a pretty straightforward cook. Meat and two veg - just like many of the English. I do sometimes cook Italian thingies and a few Mexican dishes. Know nothing about Greek cooking, even though several ancestors seem to have come from there. Even though my hubby was a chef, he (thank goodness) is ok with my cooking.

Lizzie

Lizzie, I tried LDS and could not find any info on my family!

But thanks anyhoo for the LDS site, it's a good one just not for my history. Maybe I was doimg something wrong, but it's pretty straight forward...

 

[Hosscrazy]

French immigrant family, but I am American!

Liz N.

 

[Lizzie]

Lizzie, I tried LDS and could not find any info on my family!

But thanks anyhoo for the LDS site, it's a good one just not for my history. Maybe I was doimg something wrong, but it's pretty straight forward...

I also had some bit of trouble, getting started on LDS, Jacks'thunder. Finally came down to a cousin in Wales, doing it for me, so I could go on from there. Do keep trying though. Try to start with the oldest ancestor you know about. It really is worth it in the end and I believe you can ask for help, if you cannot get started.

You can also look at Genuki. They have wonderful mailing lists studying just the surnames you are trying to trace. Years ago, this is how I discovered several living rellies, who I had not known existed. They helped me piece together much of what I now know about my ancestors. Rootsweb is another good option. Joining mailing lists can often bring in tons of help from others across the world.

If you are studying a very common name, it becomes more difficult to get started on the right track. Sending for birth and marriage certificates, helps. Years ago, when I belonged to Ancestry dot com, I found whom I thought was my own grandfather. Someone had written several generations there. I was excited. I was looking for 4 generations of 'William Martin' fellows. Martin is as common as Smith, in Cornwall. I copied what I had found, thinking it to be true and researched and followed one of them, for almost two years. Only after wasting all that time, did I find that I was following the incorrect line of Martins. This is the problem with Ancestry. They do no research of their own. It is always what people out there like you and me, write down and make public. Ancestry then contacts you and says they have found a match or matches to someone you have written. Professional genealogist s kept telling me to forget Ancestry and I came to realise, they were right. I had actually written several generations of what I thought was my own family at the time and I know many others copied it, thinking it was true, but as I discovered later, much was not. So out there now, and especially in the thousands of Martin families from Cornwall, there is completely untrue information which I had written and still on Ancestry. I am no longer a paid member there, but do keep my family tree there, which is free. This purely for my own benefit to add or discount as I research, but it is no longer public. If I make a mistake, I don't want others copying it and thinking it true. Obviously if one can see printed governament records there, that someone has made public, then it can be believed.

Regardless though of where one searches, it takes patience and years of work, to discover each and every line in one's background. It is fun though and along the way, sometimes we find cousins and second cousins etc., we didn't even know.

Quick story. About ten years ago, a lady in San Diego, purchased a box of old photos at a thrift shop. On the back of these photos, there was the name of the people, where and when it was taken etc. etc. She looked up my name on some genealogy studies on the net and contacted me. She told me she 'thought', she had found many portraits of my ancestors, taken in Cornwall, before they left for America. She very kindly sent them all to me and would take nothing for them. Comparing them to names I already knew and with some photos belonging to some cousins I had met on the net, it turned out, that I now own original pics of several of my ancestors and other relatives. Many in the UK, had professional portraits done, before they left for the US. They have become great treasures to me and to leave for my granddaughters.

Lizzie

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

According to my Dad, I'm a direct descendant of King Kenneth MacAlpin, the first King of Scotland. While my Dad seemingly leaves out the "rest of the story", once dethroned, the family at some point turned to crime, and later descendants were convicted of stealing horses and shipped to the New World. So I like to say that my love of horses has been inherited from way, way back.

Maybe we are distant relatives Wendy. lol. My father was Dutch on his mothers side (she came directly from Holland) and Scottish on his fathers side. The Macleod clan still has a castle in Scotland (Dunvegan I believe is the name of it) and my grandfather came from the Isle of Skye. My father always told me his ancestors were all horse thieves (highlanders you know ) and I too have always asserted that I inherited my love of horse from those genes. .

My mother told us kids she was Irish and Pennsylvania Dutch - as an adult I have discovered that means German, the PD left Germany because of religious persecution and moved to Pennsylvania, after the war no one in North America wanted to be German so 'Dutch" sounded better even tho it should have read Deutch. My mother came to Canada as a 6 month old infant in a covered waggon and we have many pictures of that trip which is really quite remarkable to me. That was in 1920 so how a family without much money managed to get so many photos is beyond me. Later research proved that her father was the first white child to be born on one of the 'Indian' reservations in (my memory fails a bit here) either Washington or Idaho and oddly enough he was born with straight black hair in a family of redheads and blondes. lol. He did have bright blue eyes tho and it was suggested that the black hair was showing his Irish roots ... One of my uncles has researched it further and swears we are related thro him (my grandfather) to Sitting Bull. Its all very interesting but I have no evidence, most of these people were inclined to forget being German or Native just as surely as many people in the past have lost their African American ancestry to fit into the frame that was consider good enough in that day and age. sad but true, I'd love to know for sure.

 

[Carolyn R]

Mostly polish and Italian (Sicilian to be exact), there is some Russian Ukrainian and Austrian mixed in from my maternal grandfather. My paternal grandmother was born here (was polish) my paternal grandfather came here on a boat at 8 years old, people from where he lived saw to it that he made it safely to Ellis island to meet an uncle, but no family came with him on the trip. My maternal great grandmother was 14 and was married to her 30 some year old husband through a prearranged marriage in sicialy, then moved to the states.

 

[Riverrose28]

Reinmaker minis, I sympathise, it was forbidden way back when to talk of your heritage, either African American or Native American, Seems the Native population absorbed all that wanted to be like them, which IMO was a good thing. There was so much prejudice back in the day, but, times have improved. Actually they are coming full circle and I hope I can live long enough to see all peoples treated in the manner that they deserve what ever their Nationality.

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

I agree, its getting so much better but so many people are like me and their true heritage has been lost to them because if you were black and could 'pass' you might be able to live a better life etc. Still it has improved so much

after all the USA elected a black president in my life time

(this is not a political comment- don't care who you (the generic you) like best, not the point ) I was thrilled by that. Now the day I see Canada with a Native Prime Minister I will know there is really hope for peace for man kind.

 

[Shari]

Mom's side... her father was Penobscot and her mom was Acadian French from Canada... with a mix of Mi'kmaq. Have one line going back to 1599!

Dad's side... they are a mix of Scots, Native American- Cherokee and Timucua(there are no longer pure Timucua Indians), bit of German, even an Englishman or two if you go back far enough.

 

So basically a mutt of of Euro and Native American.

 

And yes, back when I was a kid, it was a big No, No to talk about having Native American in your family, or even having a tiny bit of German in your line... even if they came over in the 1600's.

When I started researching my family, oh so many years ago... made a lot of family members not happy.

But I did not mind, because this mix, helped make me who I am and I am proud of my heritage, feel no reason to hide it! ;O)

Feel close to my Native American heritage and my beliefs are like theirs before the Euros came.

 

For those searching for their linage... the LDS is not the best place to start, neither is Ancestory.com. Back when I started my research, those where not around.

Best way to find your lines,, is going to Census, State, City records, Marriage, death, birth records, Estate records, land records, Newspapers....this means it will be slower finding your lines but you will be sure that those lines are really part of your family. And finding mix lines... can be really tough.To stay on their lands, many Native American women, put down themselves as spanish or white. Took names that go no where... I have been doing this research for 33 years now...

You can use the National Archives.. usually one in each State, to look up Census and many other records.

When I started doing my DH lines.. one line from Denmark... there was no records of them in the US, yet I knew they came over. One of his Aunts went back to Denmark and pulled the info from the Local Church and city records. I have been slowly getting this information to where others in this country can access it.

 

[JennyB]

My mother's mother immigrated from Norway and her husband from Sweden.

My father was a Kellogg and he on his fathers side was English and Welsh. His mother is not really know, but was said to be German, Irish, English decent.

I love genealogy, but have gotten stuck on my grandma Kellogg's history

I have a question:

Why do you think that people from the south and north back east have different accents, even some from the midwest, but all through the west we don't have any, even though we can here as English colonist's? Although some places here have different ways they pronounce words...like here in Wyoming we say, ustafavit for use to it....and we are NOT illiterate!

Blessings, Jenny

 

[Lizzie]

My mother's mother immigrated from Norway and her husband from Sweden.

My father was a Kellogg and he on his fathers side was English and Welsh. His mother is not really know, but was said to be German, Irish, English decent.

I love genealogy, but have gotten stuck on my grandma Kellogg's history

I have a question:

Why do you think that people from the south and north back east have different accents, even some from the midwest, but all through the west we don't have any, even though we can here as English colonist's? Although some places here have different ways they pronounce words...like here in Wyoming we say, ustafavit for use to it....and we are NOT illiterate!

Blessings, Jenny

In England Jenny, which is about as big as California, almost every county has a different accent. Many who came to the US in the early days, settled in different places and brought their accents with them. For example, thousands of miners came to America, from different mining areas of England and Wales. Settling in small mining towns in America, their accents intermingled, forming new accents here. Maybe that's a possibility?

Lizzie

 

[HGFarm]

The middle eastern countries are the same- they speak Arabic but a ton of different dialects, like Mexico has different dialects too, though it's all 'spanish'.