Melting pot

dreadnut

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So what is your national heritage? Mine:

Dutch
Jewish
German
French

I'm a melting pot all by myself, LOL!
 

twocorgis

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Dad was from Scotland. Mom's family has been in the country since shortly after Jamestown, but the original Arthur James Barrett was from England. Over the course of time, the Barrett/Cobb/Watkins tribe was primarily English/Irish/Scots, but I heard a little Cherokee snuck in there!
 

davismanLV

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Scottish/Irish on my mom's side (Murdock) with some German thrown in. Then Wales on my dad's side. Like Sandy, since coming to America some Cherokee is rumored to have been thrown in there somewhere. So I guess in order of most to least:
Welch/Scottish/Irish/German/Cherokee
 

Charlie Bernstein

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I'm another American mutt. Depending on whom in my family you want to believe, I have a lot of Jews, Mohawks, French, and Brits back there somewhere.

(But I wouldn't put money on any of it, and I'd rather live with my delusiions than let some lame genogram printout burst the bubble.)
 

Brad Little

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In no particular order, English, Spanish, Austrian, Scottish. One branch goes back to 1600s in MA. I think it was John LIndsay who said we were more of a stew pot than melting pot as many of the ethnic strains retained a lot of their own flavor.
 

Midnight Toker

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Bavaria is like Texas, as in, if you run into an American overseas, if from Texas, they won't ever say they are from the US. They'll say from Texas every time. No other state in the lower 48 is like that. . If from Bavaria, you won't say you're from Germany. You are Bavarian. ;) My heart is definitely pure Bavarian. That much I know. My family ties on my mother's side are just too strong. Been a FC Bayern München supporter since attending several games w/ my uncle in the very early 70's. Sadly, most of my dad's really old family history was lost to carpet bombing.
 

Brad Little

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Bavaria is like Texas, as in, if you run into an American overseas, if from Texas, they won't ever say they are from the US. They'll say from Texas every time. No other state in the lower 48 is like that. . If from Bavaria, you won't say you're from Germany. You are Bavarian. ;) My heart is definitely pure Bavarian. That much I know. My family ties on my mother's side are just too strong. Been a FC Bayern München supporter since attending several games w/ my uncle in the very early 70's. Sadly, most of my dad's really old family history was lost to carpet bombing.
Supposedly when he first had to cross into Toronto to play the Blue Jays, when asked if he was from the US, Roger Clemens replied, "Nos sir, I'm from Texas."
 

JohnW63

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Dad's side Dutch/Scottish
Mom's side "Heinz 57" as they used to say. Lots of everything. My Mom's mother wanted to see if she could join the club " Daughters of the American Revolution ". You had to find a relative that was here doing something in 1776, I guess. That got her into genealogy big time. She kept at it for years. I am one of many with a genealogical link the Charlemagne. In case you're wondering, because I asked too, no, there is now money left to inherit from the guy.

Funny thing, because of grandma, and my wife trying to track down her family history, she started an Ancestry.com account. SHe put in her stuff and I just put in just back to my grand parents. Darned if I didn't find a link from my dad's mom back to Holland to about 1735 that someone else had already filled out. Talk about copying off someone elses test paper! Score!
 

beecee

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Fathers side: Molise, (Guardiaregia & Bojano).

Mothers side: German, Finnish....I've never researched what cities my maternal grand parents emigrated from....in any event.....We ate well!
 

Rayk

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52% England and Northwest Europe
15% Scotland
12% Ireland
10% Germanic Europe
9% Sweden and Denmark
2% Baltics .
Hmmm ….. that explains a lot ! 🤔 🤣
 

Nuuska

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Bavaria is like Texas, as in, if you run into an American overseas, if from Texas, they won't ever say they are from the US. They'll say from Texas every time. No other state in the lower 48 is like that. . If from Bavaria, you won't say you're from Germany. You are Bavarian. ;) My heart is definitely pure Bavarian. That much I know. My family ties on my mother's side are just too strong. Been a FC Bayern München supporter since attending several games w/ my uncle in the very early 70's. Sadly, most of my dad's really old family history was lost to carpet bombing.


I'm finn from both sides - tracked back some 10 generations.

In my youth I lived shorty in Zürich and managed to pick up some of the local dialect. Züridütsch 😍 Then I met this german woman in a bus in Finland - we talked some - then suddenly she asked "Sind Sie schweizer?" - "Nein." - "Österreicher?" - "Auch nicht." - "Ah - jetzt weiss ich - Sie kommen aus Bayern!" - "Nein - ich bin Finne." - "Sie Finne? - unmöglich!" I had to show her my id card to convince her 😂
 

The Guilds of Grot

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Since Rayk has listed percentages, I'm assuming he has had DNA testing done?

Unless you've had your DNA tested you're really just guessing based on family lore.

I always thought I was mostly German with a bit of English. I was quite surprised when I received my first DNA results and found out I am mostly English with German (and quite a bit of Iberian Peninsula!)

Although somehow as more people get tested, the percentages change. At last glance things have changed and now I'm mostly German!

I would have to look up the exact numbers.
 

fronobulax

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DNA testing does not necessarily provide consistent and accurate results.


is one source and it has links to what the companies say about the assumptions and limitations.

It is also known and documented (which I am not looking up to cite) that results for certain groups are less accurate than those for other groups. The statistics behind European ancestry are pretty robust but not so for Africa or various indigenous peoples in areas of European settlement.

If family lore contradicts DNA results it might be the results that are suspect :)
 

Midnight Toker

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Since Rayk has listed percentages, I'm assuming he has had DNA testing done?

Unless you've had your DNA tested you're really just guessing based on family lore.

I always thought I was mostly German with a bit of English. I was quite surprised when I received my first DNA results and found out I am mostly English with German (and quite a bit of Iberian Peninsula!)

Although somehow as more people get tested, the percentages change. At last glance things have changed and now I'm mostly German!

I would have to look up the exact numbers.
That would certainly be the case for countless Americans that came here during the early 1800's to the 1930's/40's...as Ellis Island was one big clerical error after another. Non English speaking immigrants were asked their family name....verbally, and the immigration official just wrote down what they thought they heard. I'd wager millions of American's last names aren't spelled the same as before they came here. Good luck looking up your family history unless you have actual dates and port of entry.

As for myself, there's no question about it. I'm first gen American naturalized in 72, and can show you our family grave site in a small rural town in Bavaria with the oldest legible markers dating back to the early 1600's. I know all their names, professions, birth dates, marriage dates, offspring, and the day they died. We still hold our family reunions in that town where the family farm (where my Mom's family lived in one of the barns during the war) is still owned and operated by descendants of the earliest known relatives. I bet $$ there's not much Henry Louis Gates Jr could tell me that I didn't already know. 😉
 
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