Why yes I am Irish, among other things. In a few days you may kiss me, pinch me, buy me a beer frothed with a clover, offer me a sip of your shamrock shake, and do your best jig.
One of the things I loved when I lived in New York was the insanely large and chaotic St. Patrick’s Day parade. While obviously celebrating those with a touch of the Irish, I adored that it was pretty much just a long party train of “celebrate yourself”. That bagpipes play in the parade should be your first hint that nothing is totally about being authentically Ireland Irish. But for a few hours, as the crowds parading down the street outnumber the crowds standing, cheering and drinking on the sidewalks, everyone is Irish. (ahem..well not everyone according to the people that plan the private parade. tsk, tsk)
It makes me wonder about how we celebrate and or embrace other cultures and heritages. And what bit of our friends’ heritage we envy or admire. Recently some friends were getting ready for Purim celebrations and I found myself totally pining to be a part of such a cool holiday. The food! The costumes! The drama! I think I just love the idea that a person could come from a family line so rich in tradition.
I have been watching the NBC series Who Do You Think You Are and looooooving it. Ya’ll know that Grandmother was pretty much our family’s genealogist by trade and our family is incredibly lucky to have charts and records that go way, way back. But not everyone is so lucky and most people need to do a bit of digging to find their story.
The thread of the show that I really groove on is the (not always obvious) notion that the people that are on our family trees are more than just a collection of names. They have their own rich stories just waiting to be discovered. And many of these stories are mind blowing. I won’t even spoil them because if you haven’t seen the two episodes that have aired you absolutely should. (hulu, baby)
And now a question about where you are from. This list of ethnic heritages is from an archive genealogy site so hopefully it covers the world in a non-offensively descriptive way. (you can select up to 4) In the comments I’d love to know what other culture you would love to have been born into and why. Just because.
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{ 41 comments… read them below or add one }
I always wished I had been born and raised Jewish. Not as much anymore, but growing up.
I voted British Isles but I am Irish. My maiden and married names are both English Protestant names but I was raised an Irish Catholic.
I am mostly a general western-european/british isles mutt. anglo-saxon whatever whatever with both my grandmothers, one grandfather was (scandinavian? I think?) and the other is italian. I don’t really identify as anything. I often wish I did.
I’m LOVING Who do you think you are, though. loving it.
No big surprise, it was originally a british show. XD
I’m half Irish (with one stray Englishman about 4 generations back), 1/4 Swedish, and 1/4 Norwegian.
My hubby is Puerto Rican and his family traces back to Spain.
Half Irish and half Polish…but I look Irish, and everyone tells me so. Technically, since one of my grandmothers came into North America via Canada, I guess I can also claim to be Canadian.
One quarter Irish, one quarter Scottish, one quarter German, and one quarter Slovenian.
irish
dutch
german
native american
a mixed up gypsy
Irish and native American maybe a smigon of German if family history is correct
Primarily Irish, English, and Scottish, with a smidge of Native American and German.
Metis (Scots Irish Native Canadian) German English and Other things thrown in
As someone who’s adopted I really don’t know what my heritage is. Sometimes I think it’s a little sad although life as always goes on. It would be nice to know where I came from but it’s never quite turned out that way.
I keep meaning to ask you more about your history. How much information do you have?
I was born in South Africa so I consider myself South African however my heritage is a mix of Scottish & Irish…
xxx
You are actually commanded to get drunk on Purim. It is a pretty awesome holiday (in all seriousness the connections to Mardi Gras are remarkable).
I liked your ethnic heritage list, found it very respectful.
I am generically European Jewish; am fascinated by Canadian and Caribbean cultures.
It’s not so,mething I’ve ever given much thought to, though my grandmother was Dutch and I would like to have had more contact with that part of my family growing up. We Brits seem to show far less interest in heritage that our American cousins.
Oh, and careful what you say about the bagpipes around your Irish brethren – for sure, those pipes were invented by the Irish and the Scots just stole a good idea. No word of a lie!
according to the bagpipe display i found at the met last week (really! i didn’t even know they had musical instruments as such, and come to find there are rooms of them! that place never ceases to surprise.), sardinian bagpipes are older than either.
i don’t believe a word of it, of course.
– a european mutt. in descending order: scottish, irish, scotch irish (different!), danish, german, english, french, dutch, maybe a smidgen portuguese (fell off the armada?)
should say: most of my ancestors came to the new world some time ago — mayflower, and so on. in other words, we were the people you would gladly pay to send away from your country the minute you found out there was some place to send us.
I am Ukrainian on my Canadian father’s side — Irish & Swedish on my American mother’s side. (The Irish side was born in Ireland but spent time in Scotland before coming to North America.) And married to an Italian-Canadian.
I love genealogy, & I love “Who Do You Think You Are?” They had a Canadian version a few years ago, but sadly, it only lasted one season. Henry Louis Gates just had a four-part series on PBS over the past month called “Faces of America.” Same sort of idea, tracing the family trees of half a dozen famous Americans, but organized more thematically. He had them do DNA tests & found that some of them had common ancestors — would you believe Eva Longoria from Desperate Housewives (whose Spanish ancestors actually predated the Mayflower in North America) & Yo-Yo Ma??
I’ve managed to trace one branch of my family tree back to early settlers of the Ottawa Valley after the War of 1812. And someone has traced one branch on the Swedish side back to the 1700s. It’s fascinating stuff. I wish I had more time for it. Maybe when I’m retired…
I really enjoyed Gate’s series on PBS- my only complaint would be that it jumped around from subject to subject a bit too swiftly. Didn’t know about a Canadian version of Who Do You Think You Are! Will have to track down episodes of that & the British version.
I’m African from Africa though I now live in Canada. I always find it interesting that a lot of American sites/lists/books etc list African-American as the generic for black. If the goal was tho connect the race to a location, wouldn’t it be more accurate to use African rather than African-American? i.e. what about Caribbeans, Black British, Canadian blacks (many of whom have lived here for 100s of years). Interesting that the archive genealogy site does the same. phew…
I thought it was odd/interesting that the list was African-American instead of African and meant to adjust my own list, but wasn’t sure if the archive genealogy site was listed that way for a reason beyond my knowledge.
I’m generic whitebread British/Scots/Irish with some German. I too love Purim, and got to go to a celebration once… the story behind it is pretty kick-ass too. Enjoy tomorrow!
100% Eastern European Jew here. We caught the first 2 episodes and I’m quite enjoying the show. I look forward to how they are going to deal with the issues that face families such as mine in terms of geneology. We can fairly confidently trace our family back to the original immigrants to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and there remains some oral history about the generation before them that stayed behind in Europe. We can also trace a few that went to Australia and Israel in the early 20th century. But anything beyond that is gone. No one that did not immigrate survived the Holocaust and all of the written records were destroyed.
That show made me cry. While my family too is pretty much 100% Eastern European Jew, and a distance cousin has been diligent about tracing our mutual tree fairly far back, so many records weren’t kept (my grandfather, for instance, moved to the US not knowing his birthday so he chose July 4th!) I wish I knew more.
As a prospective adoptive parent, I’m faced with (1) feeling like I’m letting all of the previous generation down by not being able to carry on the family lines and (2) my fear for my future child who may never be able to show a biological family tree.
I really would be interested on the perspective of these kind of shows from an adoptive parents or child’s point of view.
(& no way are you letting down your family lines- you are intertwining with another tree)
You can’t get more white than me – half scottish, half english. My other half’s side is interesting – Lebanese, Irish and Czech.
Sadly my search back in to my family tree won’t go far. My mother and father passing away and not really knowing much of our background means it’s lost.
Both of my grandmothers were native Canadians from the Micmac tribe. They both died before I was born. The rest of my ancestors were from Scotland and Friesland, a province of the Netherlands.
I’ve been to Scotland and Nova Scotia, where my grandmothers’ were from but I’ve never been to the Netherlands. I’d like go sometime.
Half Irish and half German. I am completely crazy about geneology, although I can’t trace back too far because my Great Grandparents (both sets) arrived in NY by boat in the late 1800′s/early 1900′s. Very difficult to trace and frustrating to say the least.
Ditto Clara’s comment about African heritage. I’m born in Africa, raised in Canada, and it’s very strange how many lists like these default to African-American, as though there aren’t plenty of African people who have no connection to America. And the whole question of the African diaspora is invisible in these lists, too. Many, many people of African heritage living in South American countries, for instance. Maybe the list should say something like African/African diaspora?
Also, being from South Africa, and mixed race, is interesting. Nobody’s willing to talk about what the mix is, although it seems to be (at best guess) English, Portuguese, Zulu, !Kung (Kalahari Bushman).
Growing up, I always coveted some sort of generic European-ness – probably a mix of French and English.
I think that is a great adjustment to the list and I will add it!
I didn’t vote this time… not sure how to LOL I am part German, Irish, Native American Indian ( Cherokee), Polish, Scottish… among a few others LOL I guess I am just a great big mixing pot LOL
I was always the family geneaologist. Once upon a time I did a blog post (in the deleted time period) on why I became disenchanted with the geneaology…dealing with the realization that half my kids family tree is going to be forever blank. But over time I have gotten some of that love back. I will always treasure the stories that have been handed down. As for ethnicity – I am a giant hodge podge…predominantly Scottish, Irish, French, and German, with a smattering of a number of other Western European countries thrown in for good measure, along with Native American and a mysterious ethnicity often termed as Melungeon. I would love to have a bit of Brazilian in me (perhaps that is tan envy – staring down at my pale pale legs!) but alas, can’t claim that.
I wonder about how to fill in the empty spaces of the family tree when it comes to W. I do know that the donor has a very similar ethnic background but nothing beyond that. Maybe when W is 18 and if he opts to know the donor I could ask him to bring a genealogist chart with him
Ooo, you’re Melungeon, Care? I’ve always been intrigued by that group . . .
I’m mostly German-Scottish, and certainly look like the Scots in my family. The line that we can trace furthest back is French, and is the same line of Duvalls related to Obama and Dick Cheney. From what they tell me:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/16/AR2007101602362.html
I take that with a whole shaker of salt, anyway.
As a trained archivist, I love researching historical documents. I’ve watched one episode of “Who Do You Think You Are?,” but I enjoyed the PBS one a bit more.
I always wonder, at what point do people identify as American? Heritage wise? It’s very interesting.
French, English, Swiss-German and Austrian. When I was a kid, I didn’t know that Austria was a country so I told everyone I was part Australian.
I find it interesting how many family historians I’ve met who are childless. Maybe it’s a matter of having more time to spend on the hobby. Or maybe it’s our own way of contributing to the family — if we can’t extend the line forward, we’ll trace it backward. ??
I love geneology and also looooooooovvvvvvve that show. It’s so well done, and I love that these people’s stories could be any American’s story. It matters not that they are celebrities.
Thanks to the really great record keepers in my family, I know quite a bit about where I come from–it’s mostly western European and British Isles. I have a fair amount of Potugese from my dad’s side though, and I’ve always wanted to connect to that culture more.
I just started watching that show, and it was much cooler than I expected! I set the DVR to record the rest of the series.
Love the show!
I’m going to be a total ass here but it looks as if we Irish are lumped in with the British Isles in your survey. Most of us would not appreciate the word “British” in front of anything that defines us – even if it is just geography
Then again, I suppose it depends on where you live and/or your political leanings! I wouldn’t say British Isles but others might!