# What are you? (Ethnicity...) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 3, 2008, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152 "2008-07-03T03:59:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2008, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152/141 "2008-07-08T23:59:55Z")
Hmmm. This may be boring (probably). I’m WASP. I had (I think, my mother can roll this data off the top of her head) 7 ancestors who fought against the British on my Dad’s side, 3 on my mother’s side. From both sides, my ancestors hailed from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales–some of them helped settle Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Supposedly there’s a Hugeonot in there somewhere and perhaps a German–one male ancestor on my mother’s side moved from Virginia in the early 1800s to Kentucky, changing his name to Jones in the process, and never told anyone his real name, so anything’s possible. My maiden name is the same as a town in a resorty part of England. My mother’s maiden name is McClure and she used to get together with her American component of that clan and dance and drink etc. You didn’t ask, but I’m telling you anyway: I am Methodist on my mother’s side, and Congregationalist/Episcopalian on my dad’s. Basically, a WASP/Preppy New England boy met and married a Scots-Irish Southern girl and then they had 5 kids, one of which was me… I was good friends with an all German family when I was a kid–“cleaning German” is a high compliment–I bet we could eat off your floor! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152/142 "2008-07-09T00:08:33Z")
Pennsylvania German here; the rest of the family was some German version of the United Church of Christ but my parents were converted to Catholicism. So compulsive, emotionally stunted, pale and white. ---
**Author:** ![Orual](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/779978/32.png) [@Orual](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orual)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152/143 "2008-07-09T00:13:50Z")
Mostly German, Austrian and Polish. Lesser amounts of Czech, Slovenian and Alsatian French. Possible Turkish and Roma. I am the descendant of many, many broke and desolate Eastern European peasants. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152/144 "2008-07-09T00:19:19Z")
Mom always told me I’m Scots Irish & English, but it turns out mom is from a slut family and maybe I’m part German and who the hell knows who my dad really was. That German part could easily be Jewish. Mom made me a bastard, so blame her, not me. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152/145 "2008-07-09T00:27:56Z")
Jaysus but the Irish will screw anyone won’t they? 😃 Cluricaun - 50% Irish (O’Reilly and Mahoney), 50% people who fled Prussia (VonHintz) so prolly German but when I started dating a Polish girl I recognized waaaay too much of my family in hers. Either way, my face is a map of Eire, but my hair is pure thin shitty Eastern Euro dishwater with a tinge of red. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152/146 "2008-07-09T01:25:43Z")
As far as I can tell I am composed of\*: 50% Sicilian 25% Czechoslovakian 12.5% Irish 12.5% German \*This person produced on equipment with nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152/147 "2008-07-09T02:21:17Z")
100% Kiwi / New Zealander. But if we’re talking heritage then about: 3/4 Scots (some by way of Ireland) 1/4 English. Hmmm… if i can trace back relatives who arrived here before it officially became New Zealand can I claim to be native? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152/148 "2008-07-09T07:05:52Z")
I was told when I was a little girl that I was “Italian Spanish Swedish German and French.” Later research (helped along by the SDMB’s own **Walloon** ) determined that the Spanish was an assumption based on the misspelling of a surname - we thought Manzanarez, which is a river in Spain, but the correct name was Mazzanaro (and probably originally Mazzarese) which is Sicilian. The Italian is also more accurately Sicilian. My maternal grandfather’s mother was of Sicilian heritage, but born in France, so that’s where the French comes from. Going back a couple more generations, we discovered that the Sicilian was probably Albanian once upon a time. My paternal line was far straighter: grandfather was born in Germany, grandmother in Sweden, and both families seem to have been in their respective countries as far back as we can find. So, it seems I am Sicilian, German and Swedish. We still haven’t figured out why I look Asian. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152/149 "2008-07-09T10:57:00Z")
**Nava** -It’s not “curly” hair…my auntie has a full-on afro. My grandmothers families on both sides emigrated from their homelands to Southern Africa sometime in the early 1800s. My personal bet is on some good old fashioned racial intermingling on the Cape, rather than genetic throwbacks to the Mongol invasion of Europe! ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152/150 "2008-07-09T15:06:45Z")
[QUOTE=gigi] So compulsive, emotionally stunted, pale and white. [/QUOTE] This made me laugh. I will modify it slightly. For me, it’s repressed, inhibited, stiffly shy, pale and white… 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152/151 "2008-07-09T17:27:22Z")
[QUOTE=eleanorigby] I was good friends with an all German family when I was a kid–“cleaning German” is a high compliment–I bet we could eat off your floor! 🙂 [/QUOTE] That was my Grandma’s house to a T, my father got a lot of the cleaning gene, and sadly it petered out before it got to me. Everything must be in its place, but not necessarily dust-free. ---
**Author:** ![MoodIndigo1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@MoodIndigo1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MoodIndigo1)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2008, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152/152 "2008-07-10T02:47:39Z")
French, Irish, and English. A drop of Portuguese too, a long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![Eggerhaus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@Eggerhaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eggerhaus)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2008, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152/153 "2008-07-10T15:28:42Z")
me: 1/2 Slovenian 1/4 Italian 1/4 Austrian I look like my Italian great-grandpa the mrs: 5/8 Native American (Cherokee, Sac&Fox, Seminole mix) 3/8 Scots Irish, German mix She looks like her Cherokee grandma ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Machine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Ice\_Machine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Machine)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2008, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152/154 "2008-07-10T17:42:43Z")
Since I live in the States I usually say Canadian when asked. All grandparents and some great-grandparents were born in Canada. I believe the remainder of my great-grandparents were all English. Further back, Welsh, Scottish, Irish and some French and German get thrown into the mix. My wife is Taiwanese, probably 75% or so of the 3 or 4 generations back were Chinese. Our children, both Americans, I think of as half Taiwanese-half English Canadian. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2008, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152/155 "2008-07-10T19:53:32Z")
Typical American mongrel here. Ancestors go back to the early 1700s. Probably the most prominent nationalities in my background are Irish and German. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-ethnicity/455152.md?page=7)