Ancestry (split from Hottest Male Player)

[QueenofBlades]

I wish I was part ninja.
I wish my dad was a ninja, that'd be awesome.
Ninjas are so awesome. *SQUEEE!*

[Dust Puppy]

I should clerifiy, its not BLOOD heritage. They are/where NOT a RACE of people!

Oooh, is this about race? Then I´m a Gypsy too! And a ninja. And a pirate. And... okay okay, I´ll shut up.

[Piscator]

I just realized I'm half woman. Half of my ancestors were women.

[Dust Puppy]

You´re not half woman - you´re a genetically incomplete woman. (That´s what our biology teacher said!)

[Mr. Black]

You're a genetically incomplete man. Technically, we're all hermaphrodites.

[Dust Puppy]

The Y chromosome is an X chromosome with a bit missing (yes, we had a female biology teacher... ).

[QueenofBlades]

I'm genetically a ninja.

....in bed.

[Nick]

I am the first person in my family not to live in Newfoundland, in 300 years or so. (and it's only been part of Canada since 1949)

I think before that England, or Wales... a basic British mutt.

[cantrlady]

Irish - County Kerry and Cork

German - Black Forest

[Peanut]

My blood ancestry is mainly half german and half english.
Though I do have a ounce or so of gypsy blood from my mothers side.

My non blood ancestry is 1/3 german, 1/3 english and 1/3 dutch.

What's "non-blood ancestry"?

Nationality I think?

[formerly known as hf]

It never ceases to amaze me how desperate Americans seem to be to trace 'ancestry' to native americans, Europeans and so on. It's like every other person in the US think they're Irish...

Souvenir places here make a fortune selling 'family' coats of arms or tartans to Americans with British surnames (which, surprise - many of them have). Family crests and tartans are largely a Victorian invention for the burgeoning middle classes. A Few of the aristocratic families actually have coats of arms which are older than 150 years, but very very few.

It's all a bit nonsense to say that you're 1/4 this, 1/4 that, 1/8 this. Especially when those are Western European, and doubly especially if they're British. There is actually more genetic variation within those groupings mentioned here than between them. With an ancient history of Roman, Nordic, French and Dutch in British blood, ancestry becomes meaningless in that regards. It's double meaningless in terms of culture - great great grandparents have absolutely no bearing on your cultural identity beyond fantasy.

[/rant]

[QueenofBlades]

It's like every other person in the US think they're Irish...

That's because, for a large part, they are (or were rather). I mean seriously--have you been to new york dude?
And I don't think it was so much that so many Irish families came over here after the Famine, though that's certainly true, but that so many Irish families were Catholic....which encourages breeding, and lots of it.
So in a couple of generations you have 10 times the population you started with.
So you end up with your average New Yorker evening out to have some Irish or some Italian blood dominant in them.
And of course there are no 'pure' bloodlines these days.

[formerly known as hf]

Yes, but - my point being - that great grandparentage Irish does not make.

[QueenofBlades]

[rant]Well, I think it comes when that's the strongest blood ties you have--other than the muddled generic variety that is now floating somewhere in everyone's veins--you kind of HAVE to go with that.
It's a little different for Americans--we're so young, revolutionarily speaking and while we do, technically, have a 'culture' that's not how alot of Americans see it. They see American culture as a big mixed up pile of other nations borrowed ideas and customs, so in looking for culture and/or heritage they tend to divise--you're Cajun, or Irish, or Native American.
They see all these other countries have all this rich heritage and beliefs and customs that they made themselves, and it's kind of like we just bought someone else's old house (or more like stole) and are sitting in it and nothing's ours.
I mean, you can talk all you want about "Oh you're not this and you're not that" but when it comes right down to it, it's grasping for culture, and while you have it steeped into your daily life, alot of Americans see themselves as having no culture at all--because they don't want to see American culture as culture.

Take me, for example--I have no exemplary bloodlines at all--random redneck mixings with california on my mom's side, and kentucky and Lousiana on my dad's.
So yes, technically, I've got "American" culture, but I've got none of my own culture other than what I've borrowed from all of the bits and pieces left floating in the International soup of America's gene pool.
I can literally be called nothing other than American, which in a world view is naught but merde.
So excuse me for wanting to pretend or comfort myself with the idea I've got some heritage from a land with history the way most of the world comforts themselves with faith.[/rant]

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Yes, but - my point being - that great grandparentage Irish does not make.

Hmm, I don't think I'd ever call myself Irish because I have a little bit of Irish bloodline in my lineage. I would just say, I have a little bit of Irish bloodline in my lineage that has been quite diffused by the many other bits of bloodlines in my lineage.

I know I'm a mutt. But it is fun knowing a little bit about what's there.