Family discovery!

Zurah

New member
I was born and raised in Venezuela, and I have a rather unusual Italian last name - on my dad’s side my grandfather was Italian, and my grandmother was Venezuelan of black and French Antilles descent. On my mom’s side they are all from the Canaries Islands, which as you know it’s closer to the North African coast than to Spain, so I don’t rule out the possibility of having at least a few drops of North African blood in the mix.

Growing up I don’t think I never really knew anyone who was 100 % of anything – at least most of the kids that went to school with me were descended from immigrants, same as me, and I didn’t even live in that large a town.
 

Mariyam

New member
100% Canadian, of French (Normandy) descendance... Although I heard that I have a long lost great great great grand-mother (or something very old like that!) who was a Native... but even then, that would still make me Canadian :lol:
 

KuteNurse

New member
What a fun post Sara! I am a mix...lol

First off I am American! 100%! But when you break it down....lol

I am German, Scottish and Norwegian. My Grandmother's last name is Jewish, so I am wondering if there is any Jewish blood in my family also.
 

Shanazel

Moderator
I can't recall the Sioux words, but they have a saying that translates as, "We are all related." Glad to have so many interesting relatives on this forum!
 

Kharmine

New member
I'm Spanish, Italian and a bit Basque on my mother's side. Her grandparents immigrated to northern Mexico from Spain, eventually moved up to New Mexico where quite a few people speak with the Castilian lisp. I have a bit of it from growing up with my mother -- otherwise, can't speak Spanish to save my life.

And on my father's side, what they used to call "Pennsylvanian Dutch " (German, really), French and Irish.
 

Kiraze

New member
I think it is always interesting to hear about heritage of Americans as it so mixed - in Europe most of the nations keep within their own borders and do not seem to mix that much...

I am to my knowledge 100% Finnish but from my mother´s side there is quite much Lappish blood (or Sami as they should be called) which can be seen in that most of my maternal family are dark-haired and tiny with little bit Asian features (some people claim that I also have some Asian look in me, but that is quite common even in "pure" Finnish folks)... in fact I myself tend to still beleive in Asian roots of Finnish people even though many geneologist have tried to prove that after all Finns are closer to Swedes and Germans than to Fenno-Ugric nations of Russia.
 

Safran

New member
How interesting is to read about the "medley" of ancestors you all have... I have searched my family tree a bit as well and as far as I know it is all Estonian... But I doubt a bit about one of my grandma's as she has black-black hair and every time she got mad she'd vent it out by throwing dishes around the kitchen (having enough sense to clean the kitchen of other people first though) - not really what you'd consider typically Estonian.

I'd argue a bit with Kiraze here about Europeans staying within their own countries - with all the wars and occupations we've had, I'd say we are pretty well mixed. The only thing is that we've mainly been "mixed" with rather neighbouring nations. Estonians have been attacked and occupied a lot, so our basic gene pool is rather diverse... And we are now finally taking advantage of it - we are putting together a "gene database" of the population for research purposes.
 

sstacy123

New member
Got to see some of the family tree from the other side of the family today and there was Lincolnshire, England and Dublin, Ireland on there...
 

Amulya

Moderator
There's this geneology test thing you can take, cause no ones 100% anything when you go all the way back, and it tells you where your families came from and how much of everything you are.

That test sounds interesting, but how to find out where you can do it? I'm a mix of all sorts of things; Indonesian, Dutch and some east Asian-don't-know-from-where ancestors and it would be interesting to find out where they were from. I have pictures of them, but can't identify where they are from.
 

Sara

New member
Hey Amulya,

Sorry this is a bit late. I'll try and find it. There was a whole program about this test. It was called 100% English.

As an update, I'll explain my upbringing. I've always lived in Yorksha, so I consider mysen Yorksha. All Romany/travellers in my family but from all over...

On one side:- Me great gram is Romanian. My gram I aint sure about. Dunno where she was born she dunt. But travelled alot. Met grandad who was Egyptian, got married, had three kids then got divorced. One of them kids is my biological dad. So from them I have a sort of Romanian/Eastern Romany heritage.

On mam's side:- (after the recent death of great gram we all learnt something completely silly which is why this has changed since I last posted..) Great gram was from Ireland but was a traveller there, her daughter my gram though was born in England and spoke English/Romanes as her first languages, Irish/Gaelic her second. Grandad was Welsh but didn't speak it very much, he preferred English. Moved to England, met me gram. Got married had three kids, one of em's me mam. :D

Lol. We have to keep crossing out our time lines cause it always changes. We hardly know where we come from, our lot.

Despite all that though I still think of mysen as being Yorksha which is strange cause when I go visit biological dad's side I speak Romany/English or Romanian (if it's my great gram), but if I go to mum's side I speak Romany/English or the tinsy bit of Irish/Welsh I know. :( I feel kinda gyped though cause me mam dunt like being Romany, and my dad (who brought me up) int, so his side don't even know really. :(

Oh well.. :D

Anyone else? What about Aussies on here? Where are all you lot from? As we had any yet? :think:
 

Reen.Blom

New member
Hey Amulya,

Sorry this is a bit late. I'll try and find it. There was a whole program about this test. It was called 100% English.

I have seen this on TV, they took DNA tests from english ppl in different parts of the coutry- they chose the most 'nativly-looking' and also made sure their ancestors came from the same area- and say they knew that in early middle ages this certain area was under rule of say Danish and then they went to Denmark and took DNA sample of most native ppl there and as a result they manages to build a DNA map of britain with areas of scandinavian blood, french and others. Amazing that they found same genes in ppl from different countries... I find it enchanting!!
 

adiemus

New member
I'm a Kiwi (New Zealander). My ancestry is - on my mother's side 5th generation NZer, but originally from Denmark and Yorkshire.
On my father's side I'm irish, scottish and English from Kent.
But really I'm a kiwi...
My mother's family were original settlers in NZ, but I have no Maori in me at all. Maori settled in NZ about 1000 years ago, so we are all pretty much immigrants to NZ.
 

slinks

New member
this has all been very interesting .. thanks to Sara :) I've had fun reading this thread .. I must have missed it

I am 3rd generation Aust and my hubby is 1st, his mum hails from England ..

My great-grandfather was German and was one of the first of German farmers to settle here, my mother's mother was French .. from there I have no idea what kind of mixes we have ..

My father was orphaned so he has no idea what mix he has but he was born here in Aust and he really thinks that both his parents were born here too ..

I have heard about this Geneo DNA test kit .. My friend in Canada has bought some, I think she says they're $100.00 ???? for some reason I can't remember .. :)
 

Lydia

New member
ok i think i have to do my bit... not getting far with this story ever do LOL....my mom is half dutch half Roma....my dad is Rom 100%....what makes me a three bit Rom and 1 bit Dutch.....i got married 5 years ago and hubby is 10000 % Nubian ...he knows his fathers fathers fathers enz back like 12 generations realy cool !!
 

gisela

Super Moderator
I'm so swedish. Haven't heard of anyone from any other country in our family :( I had to do a family tree in school maaany years ago so read a relatives research and on my mothers side it went back to a swedish man in the 1200th.

Anyway, I got myself the best danish guy ever, so I'm hoping to get some lovely danish/swedish babies someday.:lol::dance:
 

lilya

Member
At some point after arriving somewhere, a Romanian may be likely to look for other Romanians or references to the motherland. It may then suddenly become a mission for the aforementioned (and undersigned) Romanian to reply to a thread that had been dormant for almost as long as she had been away from said country. I'm mostly Romanian, with a bit of Greek (great-grandparent) and possibly a bit of Gypsy ancestry. I wouldn't exclude the chance of Turkish, either, but somewhere several generations back. Partner more interesting: Scot and Iroquis with a few percent Serbian.
 

Shanazel

Moderator
Oh, my, look at all these folks who have disappeared from OD over the years! Makes me quite sad and nostalgic for them. This was a fun thread. Having done another decade of genealogy, I've discovered that my Caddo was actually Choctaw and my French was French Swiss. Found the family members on Dawes rolls for both Cherokee and Choctaw tribes- collateral lines enrolled, my direct line did not.

Gisela got her adorable Danish-Swedish baby, by the way!
 

Ariadne

Well-known member
Oh, this thread was before my time.

My family is primarily descended from the North Sea area (Irish, Scottish, English, Netherlands, and Germany) but we found out a couple of years ago that there is a good reason that one of my aunts looks like a Native American. Turns out we have Arapaho blood through a great some-odd grandmother and the family covered it up (it was the mid-1800's after all). It's kind of sad we didn't find out before my grandfather passed. He was great friends with the local tribe where he lived and wished he could have native blood more then anything. It made him so happy when I married someone with Cherokee blood.
 

Zumarrad

Active member
I'd like to try that DNA testing.

My dad is Irish with a Scottish grandmother and it turns out my mother's paternal great-grandfather was Irish as well. Her maternal great-grandfather was Scottish and I think there's some Cornish ancestry on her side as well. So basically a giant Celt.
 
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