Your Roots

I'm Spanish as far as I can trace my family.

Boring, I know, but that's most of Europe for you :P The people who did the colonising tended to not have quite as much mixed heritage as the colonised until immigration became a thing a few decades ago.
 
My mother's side is Russian and Ukrainian, with the majority my ancestors hailing from Moscow, Russia. I have distant family members on my grandfather's side who reside in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv as well. My father's side is primarily French, although my paternal grandmother is also part German and Dutch, whilst my grandfather has a touch of Irish blood in him.

Generally when asked, I describe myself as French and Russian, as both cultures have heavily influenced me. My maternal grandparents speak Russian fluently, my paternal grandparents speak French, and my paternal grandmother can speak a bit of German as well.
 
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It looks like my heritage is 100% from the general area where I still live, in Italy. One side of my family has lived in what is now basically the house next to mine for well over a century, while the other comes from an area not too far from here anyways. I can still find tons of old memorabilia, pictures, newspaper pages and such (some of them older than 100 years) scattered around and I somehow feel like I have a big responsibility to keep them in good shape, even though such things keep piling up more and more as time goes on.

I don't think I've had any ancestor coming from outside present day northern Italy, or at least never heard about it: going by pure guesses, Slovenia iis probably the foreign country I'm most likely to have ancestry of, but even that dates back many centuries. As for relatives, I know for sure those have spread around slightly more around Italy, South Tyrol, and (though it's just an isolated case) Ohio! But even then, this has happened over the course of decades, and eventually contact was lost 😑
 
As far as I know, everybody in my family is Chinese. There is the possibility that there are other forms of Asian heritage but no one in my family has looked too closely into it. Most of my relatives, my parents included, are from Southern China.
 
My mom's side is all Italian as far as I know. I mean the living were all born in America but my great grandparents were the ones that immigrated. My dad's side...I still don't know to this day. Jewish something? (once again the living were born in America but it was the great grandparents that did the immigrating). What a mystery to have 50% unknown. When my parents married, my mom insisted on raising me and my brother roman catholic so I didn't really experience Judaism growing up. Dad didn't care, he was just happy he could finally have a Christmas tree around the holidays lol (or at least that was my mom's story).
 
I know for certain up to my great-grandparent's generation that I'm 5/8 Croatian, 1/4 Slovenian and 1/8 Czech. My mother's surname is of Italian origin, but we have no idea how and when it ended up here. Speaking of my Czech ancestry, I pride myself for being a distant relative of the Czech composer Leoš Janáček - my Czech great-grandmother was his niece.
 
My uncle from dad's side made our heritage tree few years ago. If I remember correctly, that side is all Czech except for my great-great-great-grandparents (I think that should be enough greats) were from the Austria. My mom's side is all Czech as far as I know. But what is interesting is that my great-grandparents from both sides are the first generation that lived in the South Bohemia, where my parents and I live, so I have a lot of distant relatives scattered all around Czechia.
 
I have enjoyed reading these comments, and hearing interesting stories about where your parents and grandparents came from. So many different countries are represented here. I am impressed by how much detail has been shared, and really glad to have this cultural exchange with all of y'all.

Both sides of my family have been in the United States for several hundreds of years. I'm African-American, and I live in the south. I am descended specifically from the Southern Bantu people of Cameroon and the Congo. While most American DOS have ancestry from West and Central African countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon particularly associated with those born in South Carolina. This is where my father tells me his father was from. I also have roots in the country of Mali, and the Benin, Togo region. Taking an ancestry DNA test was really informative, and illuminated some pages on my family tree that had been dim.

I have some European ancestry too. My mother always told me that her father's side of the family was French, English and Scottish. She translated the root of her surname as an anglization of certain French words, and she has some records of their migration from Europe. This was all confirmed when I took a DNA test, and it showed a strong presence of The United Kingdom and Northwestern Europe. While I was not surprised to see the English ancestry, there was also Welsh blood that I didn't previously know about. So again these tests usually have an interesting plot twist or two in store for those who have the curiosity to undergo it. After putting in some more research through genealogy websites, I have been able to find my maternal great, great, great grandfather, who did indeed have a Welsh first name.

I have since become aware that many who immigrated to Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina have origins in Scotland, Ireland, Britain and Northwestern Europe, and that just so happens to be the part of the country where my mother's side of the family live. I have continued to dig, and have been able to go all the way back 10 generations to the 1700s hundreds when my mother's maternal side of the family first arrived from Europe--they were German, but Americanized their name.

My roots go deep, and there were DNA markers for 16 different countries in my test results, so it was a long and complex journey to get to me. I love my history, and love my family. It's part of who I am.
 
my paternal grandfather's side came from france in the early 1900's and their french name got americanized, but that's like. the most detailed information i have. my paternal great great grandmother was apparently full cherokee. and i don't know much about my mom's side other than that they're irish and english, but i don't know when they came here or anything. but this is all just stuff i have been told and not tested for, but quite frankly, i don't really care to. idk i'm so far removed from whatever my ancestry is that it just doesn't matter all that much to me. i guess if anything, the french is cool considering i took french in school and would like to visit but i'm not like. obsessed with my roots or anything.

tl;dr i'm a white american, it's pretty boring lol
 
My ancestry is mixed, My mother is purely Indonesian, but from my father's side it's Chinese, Indonesian, and Dutch. I never traced my Chinese roots, and no one suspect that I have Chinese ancestry either, my father's siblings and their children all have small eyes, it didn't pass on to my father though, so I have big eyes. For the Dutch roots, the part of my family that came from Dutch usually visit here once or twice a year, they're really friendly and nice. Although I did hate my dutch heritage because people used to bully me for my auburn hair and pale skin during junior high school, my hair also almost landed me in detention because my school forbid their students from dyeing their hair (which until now I don't understand why they had to call me considering my skin was really pale, which I think is already a huge sign that my ancestry is mixed)
 
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