Whats your ethnic background?

[DanaWhite]

I saw this asked on another message board and though it was an interesting topic.

My Dads German and my moms French.

[Broomstick]

Russian on dad's side, Irish (grandmother) and German (grandfather) on mom's.

[LadyTevar]

Scots-Irish on my Mother's side, a mix of Dutch and English on my Dad's.

[Liberty]

Both sides are pretty much the same: Mostly Scottish with some English, German, and Dutch thrown in.

[fgalkin]

Russian on my mother's side, Ashkenazi Jewish on the father's.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[eion]

On my father's side I am 1/4 Finnish (Eastern Finland if we want to get technical) and 1/4 Northern Italian (That one definitely matters)

It's less clear on my mother's side, but it's mostly Scots/Irish from my grandfather, but my grandmother is a big mystery. There's some German, more Irish, and perhaps some Cherokee in there, though that may have just been a tax dodge by one of my ancestors.

[General Zod]

Fuck all if I know. A mix of German and Irish, but beyond that I've got no clue.

[Losonti Tokash]

Irish and Cherokee.

[Mayabird]

Mom's side, Japanese. Dad's side, English. English English English English English. This is despite the French-Canadian family name, because my grandfather was the result of an affair with the English-descended town drunk.

[Broomstick]

Russian on my mother's side, Ashkenazi Jewish on the father's.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Ah, I keep forgetting that the Russians make a distinction - here in the US you might be considered Russian on both sides.

My dad's family was Ashkenazi, but were absolutely adamant that they were Russians. Even the ones who lived in other Eastern European countries insisted they were ethnic Russians as well as Jews. I don't know - maybe it was a viewpoint altered by decades living in the US.

[Ilya Muromets]

The Philippines being the twisted little melting pot that it is, tracing ethnicity is kinda tricky. That said, there's some definite proof that I've got Spanish ancestors on the paternal side, and some not-so-definite indications of both Chinese and Spanish ancestry from the maternal side. Plus, you know, native the Indo-Malayan lineage of most Filipinos.

[fgalkin]

Russian on my mother's side, Ashkenazi Jewish on the father's.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Ah, I keep forgetting that the Russians make a distinction - here in the US you might be considered Russian on both sides.

My dad's family was Ashkenazi, but were absolutely adamant that they were Russians. Even the ones who lived in other Eastern European countries insisted they were ethnic Russians as well as Jews. I don't know - maybe it was a viewpoint altered by decades living in the US.

English doesn't make a distinction between ethnic Russians (the east Slavic peoples inhabiting what is now European Russia) and other ethnicities that are culturally Russian, but are distinct genetically (much like an African American is different from a descendant of the Irish). Ashkenazi Jews living in Russia may speak the same language and have the same culture, but are a separate ethnic group from ethnic Russians.

Of course, there is another reason why Russian Jews living in the US would be reluctant to admit their heritage, and that's widespread antisemitism that they left behind. If they can pass for Russians, rather than Jews, good.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Russian on my mother's side, Ashkenazi Jewish on the father's.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Ah, I keep forgetting that the Russians make a distinction - here in the US you might be considered Russian on both sides.

My dad's family was Ashkenazi, but were absolutely adamant that they were Russians. Even the ones who lived in other Eastern European countries insisted they were ethnic Russians as well as Jews. I don't know - maybe it was a viewpoint altered by decades living in the US.

English doesn't make a distinction between ethnic Russians (the east Slavic peoples inhabiting what is now European Russia) and other ethnicities that are culturally Russian, but are distinct genetically (much like an African American is different from a descendant of the Irish). Ashkenazi Jews living in Russia may speak the same language and have the same culture, but are a separate ethnic group from ethnic Russians.

Of course, there is another reason why Russian Jews living in the US would be reluctant to admit their heritage, and that's widespread antisemitism that they left behind. If they can pass for Russians, rather than Jews, good.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Fima's exactly right. My family was fairly well assimilated Russian Germans on my dad's side and that distinction (along with a whole lot of class ones) would be made in Russia but not so much at all in the US where they'd be seen as Russian. On my mother's side my family is also genetically German but from stock in the US since the 1860s.

[Ryan Thunder]

Irish/Scottish on my father's side, Portuguese on my mother's.

[Guardsman Bass]

British on my father's side (he was born in the UK, although he grew up mostly in Canada), mixed British-German on my mother's. The German ancestors on my mother's side hailed from the vicinity of Frankfurt, if I remember right (we may still have relatives in the area - my mother met some of them when she traveled there about 20-30 years ago with my great-grandmother). The British (both on my mother's and father's side) are all from London.

[spaceviking]

.5 English, .25Irish, and .25French Canadian. Though some of the English may actually be Irish, the rest is likely Pikey. For some reasons my father's family always emphasized that we were from the Normandy region of France, I don't really know the relevance.

[The Vortex Empire]

7/8 French Canadian and 1/8 Irish. My Dad's side is completely French Canadian, my Mothers is 3/4 French Canadian, 1/4 Irish.

On my Mom's side, the ancestors can be traced back to one Jean Plante, who went from France to Canada in the late 1600s.

[AniThyng]

Hakka on my father's side and teochew/hainan (i think) on my mother's side.

With less granularity: "Han Chinese".

[ray245]

Chinese. All of my grandparents hailed from the Hainan Province. My Maternal Grandparents migrated to Taiwan after the KMT lost mainland China, while my paternal grandparents left for Singapore during the 1920s or the 1930s.

[Enigma]

I live in Ohio but born in Canada to my parents who are both from Portugal.

[Elfdart]

Mom's side: WASP
Dad's side: Redneck

[Edi]

100% Finnish and 100% Karelian at that. My father's family are Viborg Karelians and my motehr's side is Ladoga Karelians. Those references are to the regions of Karelia and are not separate ethnicities, it's all Karelian.

There may be some German way back in the mid-19th century somewhere along the line, but I'd probably have to ask one of my coworkers who may be distantly related from around that time or from even further back.

[Broomstick]

Ah, I keep forgetting that the Russians make a distinction - here in the US you might be considered Russian on both sides.

My dad's family was Ashkenazi, but were absolutely adamant that they were Russians. Even the ones who lived in other Eastern European countries insisted they were ethnic Russians as well as Jews. I don't know - maybe it was a viewpoint altered by decades living in the US.

English doesn't make a distinction between ethnic Russians (the east Slavic peoples inhabiting what is now European Russia) and other ethnicities that are culturally Russian, but are distinct genetically (much like an African American is different from a descendant of the Irish). Ashkenazi Jews living in Russia may speak the same language and have the same culture, but are a separate ethnic group from ethnic Russians.

Of course, there is another reason why Russian Jews living in the US would be reluctant to admit their heritage, and that's widespread antisemitism that they left behind. If they can pass for Russians, rather than Jews, good.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Fima's exactly right. My family was fairly well assimilated Russian Germans on my dad's side and that distinction (along with a whole lot of class ones) would be made in Russia but not so much at all in the US where they'd be seen as Russian. On my mother's side my family is also genetically German but from stock in the US since the 1860s.

Hmmm... well, up to a point. My father's family never made any attempt to hide that they were Jewish (and still don't) so saying they were "passing" as Russians is sort of ridiculous. They were very much Orthodox Jews in a community of Orthodox Jews in St. Louis. When it was not expedient to be Russian (because the Russians were associated so strongly with communism from 1917 onwards, which was not always a good thing in the US) they would emphasize they were Jewish, and when not expedient to be Jewish would emphasize they were Russian, but never tried to hide either characteristic.

They were not pure Ashkenazi - and made no bones about that, either. I have a sister who, with the recollection of the few living relatives, was able to reconstruct the family tree back to around 1800 or so. There was more than one non-Jew who married into that family, even though at the time that was highly unusual. More than one non-Russian as well (at least one Czech and a couple other slavic ethnicties).

[The Spartan]

1/2 Scottish with the rest a mishmash of close relatives: German, Dutch, English, Irish, Chickasaw and Choctaw.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Boringly Finnish all the way back to the 18th Century. Also no natively Swedish-speaking ancestors as far as I know and whether the Swedish-speaking Finns are a separate ethnicity or not at all is a matter of some debate. They are genetically slightly different from Eastern Finns such as Edi's ancestors but very similar to Finnish-speaking southwestern Finns.