# Whats your ethnic background? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 21, 2010, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238 "2010-05-21T11:44:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Pyper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pyper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyper)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/101 "2010-05-22T23:28:30Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > On my dad’s side, Ashkenazi Jew (Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia). > On my mom’s side, Irish. Me too. 😃 Dad’s side: Ashkenazi Jew (Ukraine, Austria) Mom’s side: Irish, with a small amount of African-American from my great-grandfather ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/102 "2010-05-23T00:21:20Z")
Father: Quebecois Mother: Mostly Irish, part English ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/103 "2010-05-23T00:33:06Z")
Both of my parents are Scots-Irish, German, Dutch, English, and French. My mother is also Melungeon and part African (possibly mixed with some variety of Native American as well; they were Mestee). ---
**Author:** ![Doody\_Pants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@Doody\_Pants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doody_Pants)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/104 "2010-05-23T00:50:59Z")
All four of my grandparents were born here in the US (NYC to be exact) to Italian immigrant parents. While most of my relatives look Italian, I am somehow close to albino. But I make a kickass tomato sauce! ---
**Author:** ![hougaswd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@hougaswd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hougaswd)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/105 "2010-05-23T01:55:07Z")
Dad: Norwegian is all he will own to. Mom: Mostly English+Scottish. But she claims we can trace a branch of descent back through Pocahontas. Sounds too weird to not be true somehow. Walt ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/106 "2010-05-23T02:39:09Z")
**Dad’s side** : Pretty much unknown. My dad was adopted. It’s said his actual family name was Gray, and there was a thought they were English, but it’s pretty murky. **Mom’s side:** Her dad came from German stock, her mom Irish. My grandmother traced back the lineage quite a few generations, and the two big family names we seem to come from in Ireland are Friel and Moran. The latter gives me a chance to make a joke whenever the subject comes up. In the states we would pronounce the latter name mor-ANN. But in Ireland it’s commonly pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, with the second syllable unstressed. So I say that my family was descended from morons. ---
**Author:** ![trapezoidal\_jellyfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6f9a4e/32.png) [@trapezoidal\_jellyfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trapezoidal_jellyfish)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/107 "2010-05-23T03:04:37Z")
I’m American by birth, but I’m also an Ashkenazic Jew and an Eastern-European mutt. the countries are Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Lithuania. Maternal grandfather- Polish maternal grandmother- legally Romanian, but from a border town that was once part of Hungary, so her primary language (after Yiddish) was Hungarian. paternal grandfather- born in America but his parents were Lithuanian. based on our name, however, it is likely that the family originated in Germany. paternal grandmother- also born in America but her parents were Ukranian. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/108 "2010-05-23T03:44:42Z")
Scots-Irish, here before the Civil War. Danish and Hungarian from the early 20th century. ---
**Author:** ![umop\_ap\_sdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/dbc845/32.png) [@umop\_ap\_sdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/umop_ap_sdn)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/109 "2010-05-23T17:10:37Z")
Dad’s side: French-Canadian plus his great grandmother was Cree. _high fives **Angel o. t. L.** _ Mother’s side: Pennsylvania Dutch, French, English, and probably a few other origins we don’t even know for sure. ---
**Author:** ![tr0psn4j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@tr0psn4j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tr0psn4j)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2010, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/110 "2010-05-23T23:55:33Z")
Armenian. Both sides. ---
**Author:** ![seanchai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@seanchai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seanchai)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/111 "2010-05-24T00:40:42Z")
Dad and all belongin’ to him were born in Scotland. Mom: paternal side - from Ulster to Canada around 1820. Mom: maternal side - Pennsylvania Dutch, emigrated to Canada around 1800 an seanchai ---
**Author:** ![sunstone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunstone/32/3372_2.png) [@sunstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunstone)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/112 "2010-05-24T01:29:49Z")
Apparently I have representatives of every European nation north of Spain and Italy, and west of Poland/Austria in my background. And my mitichoondrial tRNA confirms that backgound. My sons are married to a Chinese/Japanese woman and a Russian/Scottish jewish woman. We hope to achieve complete heterozygosity within my lifetime. My kids claim that I’m part Neanderthal. Seriously, given how folks have moved around so much, we are all really mixtures. There are no pure races or nations, except in the minds of those who wish to believe. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/113 "2010-05-24T10:05:23Z")
Mostly British Isles (Irish, English, and Scottish, in rough order of percentage), followed by German, and a few other scattered countries (I’m part Chinese, for instance, about 150 years back; and from the photograph of my great-great grandfather, possibly black or melungeon). Interestingly, my great-great grandmother may have been a German Jew (she wasn’t practicing), and she married a man who’d immigrated from Prussia (to avoid a harsh conscription policy), so I figure there’s a better than nothing chance I don’t have any living relatives left in Europe. :eek: I may have some distant cousins on another continent, though. Apparently one of my great+ grandmothers’ only took the boat to New York from Ireland because she missed the one she was going to take to rejoin her mother and sisters in Australia, which they’d already emigrated to. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/114 "2010-05-24T10:13:03Z")
On my dad’s side: Irish and English. My mum’s side is all English. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/115 "2010-05-24T12:34:12Z")
> [@Turk\_February](#): > > Both your mom and dad Mom - American Dad - American ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Onimous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea5d25/32.png) [@Ann\_Onimous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Onimous)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/116 "2010-05-24T12:50:04Z")
Dad’s side: no clue. Mother’s side: my great-great-grandfather was a first generation American, having emigrated from Germany. On my grandpa’s side, I can only trace my line back to Virginia, except for one branch that came through Germany from Canton Bern, Switzerland. They were forced out of Switzerland because of their religious beliefs (Mennonite): two of the sons moved to Pennsylvania from Germany, and one of the daughters ended up in Kentucky. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/117 "2010-05-24T20:05:04Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Mom - American > Dad - American I don’t believe we tend to consider that an ethnicity. I am hoping you didn’t know that and were not coming in to threadshit. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/118 "2010-05-24T22:05:04Z")
Dad’s side– Adopted orphan from England with Scottish last name married a United Empire Loyalist Their son married a first generation Finnish Canadian. Result=Dad Mom’s Side Scots-British fella Married Dutch-English gal Their son married a first Generation Finnish Canadian Result=Mom So I’m English and Scots, tiny bit of Dutch and half Finn. But half Finn on both sides. But it also explains why my brother and I had white blonde hair and blue eyes from two dark haired, dark eyed parents. (at least, my blonde brother looks like a washed out version of my dad, and my dishwater blonde self looks like a slightly darker version of my grandmother) ---
**Author:** ![Beerman1963](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2acd7d/32.png) [@Beerman1963](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beerman1963)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/119 "2010-05-25T00:58:01Z")
Dads side Scots -Irish Native -American(Blackfoot) Moms side white people from Ohio ---
**Author:** ![Trom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Trom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trom)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238/120 "2010-05-25T16:03:56Z")
Mom’s side: Norwegian farmers that settled in Minnesota Dad’s side: Irish that came from Maryland to the Midwest with the cattle industry [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-ethnic-background/540238.md?page=7)