Ethnic Backgrounds and Ancestral Stories!

A conversation in the Post Yo’ Picture thread has sparked my curiosity, so I’ve decided to make this thread to help ease it.

I’ve always been really curious about others’ nationalities and their ethnic background and heritages. I don’t know why, but it’s just so fascinating. Anyway, I thought I would share mine, and anyone else who wanted may share theirs. It would also be cool if you could share one picture of a close-up of your face, so we can kind of see the mixtures in you and decide what we think is more prominent, but you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to.

All right. Here is a picture of me. The sign is only there because I took it for a contest on another website to prove that I am really me. I have platinum blond hair, medium blue eyes, very fair skin, a more pointed arch to my brows, a bit wider nose that’s slightly upturned. My cheekbones are sort of high, but they aren’t incredibly prominent or anything like that. I get everything from my dad with the exception of my lips which are my mother’s.

Anyway, I was born in the United States, but my ancestral roots come from other places. On my mother’s side, I’m English, French, German, and Irish. On my father’s side, I’m Italian and Scandinavian. It took a couple of years, but I finally got my father to figure out that at least part of our Scandinavian descent is Norwegian. He’s not sure if that’s all because he’s not in contact with his parents because they’re not very good people… I don’t blame him. I’m not family oriented myself.

Anyway, I’m really curious to know what other members of FoG are, so you should share that here!

I also think it’s fun to share stories about your ancestral past, so we should share them here, too.

I have a few.

My grandmother’s father’s side had family involved in the Revolutionary War. Unfortunately, they were with the Red Coats, the losing side, so they had to change their last name to Peterson or else get lynched by people who would recognize their real surnames.

Some of my ancestors were involved in the underground railroad, helping slaves to reach freedom.

My German ancestors were already in the U.S. before WWII started, so I don’t have Nazi’s in my familial line. Anyway, one of my German ancestors who was in his forties married one of my French ancestors who was like… sixteen. Neither spoke the other’s language, and neither spoke a common language, but they loved one another. They’re children became trilingual ((speaking English, French, and German)). The couple only ever had one major fight in the course of their marriage. Her mother called him a pig, and he recognized the word from his dealings with the marketplace. That was about what they fought.


What about the rest of you? Do you have any interesting stories about your ancestors?

Good stuff, Kathryn!

Well, as I mentioned in the other thread, I'm German, Irish, Swedish, English, and Dutch. There's some Czech in there too. Currently, I am showing off the Irish roots in my blood. But, as a child, I looked very Swedish/German. My hair was very blond, skin very fair, and my eyes blue. Skin is still fair, eyes are still blue, but as I've aged my hair became darker and darker until now turning red in the past ... hm .... I guess ten years or so now. I'm the 2nd true red head in the family. My aunt, on my dad's side, is the only other true red head on both sides of the family. I use to speak Swedish & Dutch fluently, but since I haven't spoken either language since I was around ten years old -- I've forgotten most of it.


While tracing my family history, this is what I've come to learn about my ancestry.

My mother's side was Swedish, Irish, and Dutch. I'm a direct blood descent of President Rutherford B. Hayes. His wife was known as "Lemonade Lucy" because she introduced lemonade to the white house. She didn't like everyone drinking alcohol, so she made and served lemonade. What little did she know though, the men drank alcohol anyway

Also, through the direct relation to Rutherford B. Hayes, I am cousins with Donald and Kiefer Sutherland. I think it comes out to being like 3rd & 4th cousins, but that whole twice removed crap still confuses me so I may be off on it being 3rd & 4th. But we are related!

Also, one of my ancestors - named Cornelius Hollenbeck - was a wheelwright by profession and lived in Wisconsin. He volunteered for the civil war and fought many of the battles which took place during the American Civil War. I've received conflicting reports about his death, though. One report states that he died while being held prisoner in Andersonville (Camp Sumpter). The other states that he died within a couple months of being released from the P.O.W camp, Andersonville.

Several distant relatives helped on the Underground Railroad.

My dad's side is German and English and Czech. Some interesting history there. My dad's dad had the opportunity of owning the very first McDonald's in California. However, he was short $200 of the needed capital one had to have. Though he asked for a loan, he didn't get it Bummer! I could have been like a McBillionaire-ess

One of my dad's aunt's ran a Speakeasy during prohibition. 'Nuff said.

My maternal great-grandmother came to America from Ireland during the Potato Famine. She and her parents came over on the 3rd boat that sailed after the Mayflower. I'm still digging up more paperwork on this one. In Ireland, they lived in County Mayo. The trail goes quite cold there, however, but I'm still trying to pick it up again.

My maternal great-grandparents came to America from Sweden. Still trying to find information/paperwork for that side of the family.

My paternal side of the family is very hard to track, but I'm still digging around.

Of the death records I was able to get, every person - on both sides of the family - has died from either heart disease or diabetes. I pretty much know my fate. There was one exception in the familial deaths of the past, though. An infant, who died at the age of 2 months during the plague.

I think that's about all I've got for now. I'd have to rifle through a crap load of papers to find the rest of the information I have.

Thispicture is the best I currently do, though I might try to get a better one in a day or two.

Unfortunately I can't go into any details about my ancestry at the moment thanks to lack of proper information to do so. Which really, really sucks. However, I do know a decent portion of my ethnicity and to be honest I'm quite positive it is only the tip of the iceberg.

And… here we go: German, Swedish, Irish, Welsh, French, Dutch, Native-American (small bit), and Mexican.

I think the German and Irish probably is the most prominent in me, but couldn’t say for certainty. My great grandparents’ last name, on my mother’s side, is Luemberger though so that speaks for my strong German heritage right there.

Oh, I do know (thanks to a book about the place in Colorado my grandfather, on my father’s side, is from) that one of my ancestors was named Robert (E) Lee _____. Apparently I had a strong among of southern supports in my ancestry on that side of the family. Most likely on the other side as well since my mother’s father was from Missouri.

The Irish shows through in my father really well. His hair is the dark-blond colour that I inherited from him but his mustache and beard (when he used to let it grow) came in a very deep red. And, apparently, if I the light hits my hair properly it looks almost completely red as well. I’ve been told this by a few people.

One of the few actual stories I know is that my great uncle (on my mother’s mother’s side) was a POW during the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes during WWII. We actually have an old photograph that shows him and mentions him by name, as did we also find out that the same picture and mention is in one of the books about the war that my father has (big history buff, my father).

Eventually I hope to delve as deeply as I can into my ancestry… with hopes of finding even the faintest of Finnish descent! Haha. Regardless, I still prefer the name Jani which is the Finnish equivalent to my own real name which I’m not rather fond of for a couple reasons. I’ll probably eventually change my entire name, and I’d like to do so after I did a lot of research and found one in my ancestry that I liked. If I ever find out I have Finnish heritage then I’d definitely change my first name to Jani, though if I don’t I’ll just change it to Jan since I know I’ve the strong German link.

On a side note, because he was mentioned by Mydnyte Syn… if my father were to grow his hair slightly longer than it is and let his beard grow in all the way he’d look very similar to Donald Sutherland in the movie Kelly’s Heroes. And acts a hell of a lot like the character… which is amusing at times.

I posted in the Picture thread and I am honestly interested in hearing before I share what my ancestors were, who you think they were.

What descent do you think I am of based off of the picture?

I'm honestly no good at that, so I'm not going to answer...sorry

I am amazed at how much people know of their ancestry...I know very little of my own and do not care to search further...Mostly because I wouldn't know where to start. It is a normal process to follow the males in the line but I have equal interest in the females (who are 50% of my genetic history, regardless of the political view towards women in the past). Also, there are lots of dead ends considering that I had little relation with my father's side who came from Mexico (and changed their name when crossing the border), and my great grandmother did not know who her blood father was, as well as having little relation with my blood grandfather on "The Allgood side".

What I do know is that I am mexican (not spanish), french, irish, and most likely dutch. Like I said, there is likely much more than that considering all of the things I don't know about my family's heritage. Historically, I know that the french side of my family traveled the oregon trail (and survived, obviously) and some of the Mexican side helped build one of the missions in California (I don't know if it was my direct line or not, but there are very few with my mexican last name so I imagine we were related in some way).

Truthfully though, I'm not bothered by the ignorance. I personally don't find any of the cultural ties to my family worth practicing, and there are many non-blood relations who are just as if not more important to me than the blood relations. I'll just stick to what I do know: I've got an awesome family.

Well, I don't know a lot, but I do know a few things.

I know I've got Russian, a bit of German, possibly Irish... that's about as much as I can remember. Basically a mix of a few European countries, though the Russian in me is the most prominent.

I'm what you'd call a 'White Russian' - blue eyes, blond hair, pale skin and my brother is the exact opposite, a 'Black Russian' - brown eyes, brown/black hair, olive skin. You can see the difference here. Apparently white Russians are the descendants of vikings, but I'm not sure how accurate that is.

Anyway, my pop (grandfather) was born in Russia. When he was just a boy his family fled to Australia during the Russian Revolution. My great, great grandfather (on my father's side) was a member of the Royal Guard, and was stationed at the palace gates.

That's as much as I know, really. My mother's parents died fairly young, so I never hear many stories from her side of the family. I didn't even get to meet them before they died. I was born after.

It is most likely highly accurate. We know through historical records as well as evidence found in the land itself that the Norse, or Vikings, whichever you prefer, did travel a decent way into the western region of Russia. They built settlements and expanded trade even further by doing this. A mixing of the genetics within and around these settlements would explain a lot about the ‘White Russian’ people you have these days. The Norse actually reached into places of the Ottoman Empire, so to be quite honest if you’ve any ounce of European ancestry in you then you most likely can be traced back to the Norse at some point in time, as well as any other nation.

There were many Germanic tribes taking over different areas at different times, not to mention the Huns, for well over a thousand years so if we had the ability to trace back far enough and accurately I’m quite positive everyone has genetic ties to a lot more nationalities than they think. Well, genetic ties to the birth tribes, if you will, of these nationalities at least. Especially in Western Europe, though in the north eastern areas it might not be as diverse and probably isn’t.

Of course most of that is my own speculation based on things I’ve learned from studying those areas in history.