My interest in genealogy came from wanting to know how my family ended up where it is; what made them decide to go where they did, and how it related to what was going on historically at the time. In the process of finding that information, it’s impossible to ignore where they came from.
And by the way, unless you are 100% Native American, “foreign heritage” is part of who you are, whether or not you acknowledge it.
Well, I suppose it’s sort of a “Who’s your audience?” thing.
To a Japanese guy, I’d say “Hi, I’m an American”.
To a Southern American, “I’d say ‘Hi, I’m a Yankee’” (and they’d just have to deal with it :D)
A Northeasterner would be told I was from New York City.
A fellow city dweller would be told I lived in da Bronx.
And finally, to a fellow Bronxite, I’d say I lived in Woodlawn (or “near Riverdale” if I was showing off).
And like people have said, it’s just shorthand here–when somebody says “I met the cutest guy, he’s this Italian from Yonkers” we understand enough so that she doesn’t have to say “I met the cutest guy, he is of Italian ancestry and has an Italian name but he is an American citizen and not one of the Most Serene Republic of Italy”. And it’s also considered polite and interesting to chat about ancestry here, because it’s all so different and most American stories are successful, relatively happy ones. My grandmother was in immigrant, a Gaelic-speaking farm girl from Nova Scotia, and worked as a maid in several American cities, eventually working her way up to the high rank of Cook, never being able to finish high school, and yet all of her kids went to college. So when somebody asks me about her, it’s a way of honoring her and my parents’ generation when I tell her story.
Also, as was mentioned before with ethnicities that also correspond with a non-white appearance, some people were not allowed to forget their ancestry, being informally forced into ghettos or remote rural areas where they kept their own languages and customs by default because the mainstream society wouldn’t let them in. This would even happen with white Southern Mediterranean folks like Greeks, Italians, Albanians, etc.
Growing up in the Southwest, there really isn’t much in the way of the kind of culture you’d see in less transient places. People here are most likely to be “just American”, unless they are Hispanic or Asian. Actually, the only ethnicity I can spot a mile a way is “Californian” ;). If anything is remarkable about my “heritage”, its that I"m one of small percentage of folks in Vegas that was actually born here.
However, what annoys me is that at least a few times a month, someone looks at my red hair and says “you must be Irish”. Well, actually I’m not quite - there is one branch of the family from County Cork during the Potato Famine- but its a small branch and its not from the side of the family where I got my red hair. The rest of the non- red hair side of my family is English/Norweigan (great grandparents were immigrants from each of those respective countries in the early 20th century) and the “real” McCoys. The red haired side- my dad’s family - has been your basic Arkansas/Alabama, been here for a damn long time, ancestry. Only notables there are not Irish- but rather the Renfroes (Scottish) and a great great grandmother that was full Cherokee. Perhaps some Irish ancestor was strong enough genetically to jump all that Heinz 57 stuff and give my dad four red-haired kids- but that doesn’t make me Irish.
Its not that it bothers me that much, but I just hate to have to contradict people- don’t they know redheads aren’t just from Ireland?
Thank you.
I am a quarter Cherokee. My paternal grandmother was full blooded and her family is listed on the Dawes Rolls. When asked my heritage, I will say French/Cherokee/German. It amuses me when people feel compelled to say that they are tribal name when they have the teeniest drop of tribal blood. When I ask if their family is listed on the Dawes or Guion Miller Rolls and get a blank face in response, I know I have a poser.
I’m still an American though.
Does anybody else just not know?
My mother is from north Florida (the panhandle, where “The South” actually starts) and my father is from Alabama. They got on a big genealogy kick a few years ago, and as far as anyone alive in the family today knows, we’ve been here for a few hundred years. There’s no indication of immigration from Europe at all. Not one single person. Now, I’m a white guy, last name Miller, and I’m obviously descended from someone across the pond. But seeing as how time has obliterated all record of who that person was and where she came from, I simply refer to myself as native Floridian. We’re a rare and dwindling breed ourselves. 
It’s strange. The British Isles have been invaded tens of times militarily, and several times economically (large movements looking for work, such as the Irish, the Indians etc.) yet nobody really cares about the ancestry of other people, unlike in America, it seems. I sometimes get people asking about my [Irish] surname, but that’s very rare, and usually restricted to other people with Irish surnames, too.
Ye gods. Are you telling us you’re the rightful heir to the Scottish throne, sadly done out of your rightful titles, fortune, and position by usurping English knights?
Cool!
If I (a) lose enough weight, and (b) know I’m going to run into you at a Dopefest, I’ll have to remember to wear my court rig-out, just so I can give you a proper courtesy. 
I’m from the south but I’d like to think of myself as a quarter french, quarter english, quarter german, quarter irish and a fifth of scotch!
+MDI so the irish invaded the British Isles eh? I suppose they did, sometime after the last ice age.
What are these “British Isles” of which you speak? 
Why does no-one claim Welsh heritage?
I believe I did earlier in this thread. The ancestor is Francis Colegrove from Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales. Do I win a cookie?
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yojimbo, when were you in Burlington?
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Nothing wrong with family history. I’m quite interested in mine own.
My comments were addressed towards people who claim X percentage of blood plus Y percentage of blood with some boastful pride, like it really means a fucking thing whatsoever wether your forebears were Irish or German or Albanian or whatever. I suppose it’s deserving of a conversation topic, but I don’t see the importance placed upon it.
Then again, I’m prejudiced. I used to know a guy who, at every chance he got, would expound at length on his Native American and Irish blood. He hung out on Indian reservations, and took classes on “how to talk to birds” from Indians. He would also get upset when he talked about how his “people” were so brutally treated by the U.S. government in previous centuries. Then he would switch over and get upset as he related how badly the Irish were treated, so he had twice the amount of silly grief to express.
His true problem was that he had no fucking personality and no self-identity whatsoever, so he had to mold this image of himself based on “heritage” and “blood” and other nonsense.
I’m not trying to lump anyone who has an interest in their genealogy in with this character, but when the subject goes beyond casual mention and conversation and into the realm of “pride” and “tradition”, well, I start getting annoyed.
He’s in my personal Top 10 list of The Lamest Fucking People I Have Ever Known, which is no mean feat.
Who wants to be known as a Welsher?
Oh about 5-6 years ago. I was working for IBM at the time who had opened a big plant over here. A couple of hundred of us were sent over for a few months training so we could train the plant on our return. I spent a month in Burlington and a month just over the border in Bromont. We drank in a small “Irish” sports bar, which was on the road between the Marriott and the IBM plant. The owner Joe and I got on very well. Beautiful place. We were there during the summer so no skiing unfortunately but I really enjoyed the area.
Even ended up at a frat party after hooking up with a guy who turned around in a bar and said “Hey, I’m Irish too” It really was like House Party but without the togas.
Great times, great place, great people.
How’s Champ doing?
Hiya. I’m Junie, and while I have the most Germanic surname you’ve ever heard, the majority of my ancestors came to America from the Land That Vowels Forgot.
I don’t wish to denigrate the feelings you may have for that part of the world, but I’ll bet you a dime or two that you do no think Scottish. You may think differently from other people around you, but that would be Scottish-American, perhaps. Do your Scottish relatives think of you as Scottish?
Not at all. It’s great. But I still don’t think thought-wise that you’d be particularly comparable with Scots-born-and-raised, any more than an American raised in Scotland would “think American”.
No and yes, respectively.
Proud of an identification? Is there some reason successfully identifying with a country was a major personal obstacle for you?
Pretty good. He’s actually spending time right now just across the way from you in Scotland visiting Nessie for the fall.