I think it’s because among ourselves the main fact of being American is automatically understood, so the conversation automatically moves to heritage and ancestry. “What kind of a name is that?” is often how these conversations start.
In Europe you don’t have that as much, or didn’t use to. If you lived in France, say, you were French and so were all your ancestors back to early Middle Ages. Of course that’s a gross generalization but I think it’s safe to say that this was the default situation one encountered. The butcher down the block was French and he had a French name that was absolutely non-exotic and instantly understandable to any other French person. Given the easy internal migration policies of the EU, I would expect that this isn’t so true anymore, and now the butcher might be a Spaniard or a German or an Italian. Given a few more generations I wonder if some of the children and grandchildren of these internal migrants might talk about ancestry as in the way that Americans do.
Dad’s side is probably mostly German based on the surname. They’re mostly of the opinion that, well, they came to the states in the early 20th century. Nothing before then is important.
Mom’s - well who knows. At least part Irish, based on one native Irish great-grandmother (who died shortly after I was born) Probably some other mixed English and European. Mom severed ties with her dad long before I was born and her mom changed her name so many times I’m not even sure what her original name was.
In Australia, most people would still find it odd to call themselves “German” or “French” if they were born here, but we have a similar tradition of being immigrants as the U.S. does. That said, if you’re living in an ethnic enclave (such as the Volga Germans in Russia) it’s got some legitimacy, IMHO.
Anyway, here’s my answer to the thread:
Mother: Australian with a British/German background that is several generations back.
Father: Australian with (literally) a Russian father and Ukrainian mother, with the Russian side largely tracing back to Germany.
FWIW, my surname is German despite having an Australian/Russian/Ukrainian ethnic background.
And, in fact, I haven’t known many Americans who who say point blank, “I am (fill in toponym of any other country but the United States)”. Instead, it’s more like "this is where my parents told me they or their ancestors immigrated from. Statements like “I am Dutch” or “My family is French” normally only come about in contexts where it’s clear that the topic is ancestry and heritage, and not actual nationality, language used, culture, etc.
Mostly Kraut-American, which I guess makes my kids Kraut-Vikings?
Breaking it down a bit more:[ul][li]My paternal grandfather immigrated to the US from Austria as a young adult, in the early 1920s.[]My paternal grandmother was born in the United States to parents who were recent immigrants from Germany. At least one of her siblings was born in Germany before the move (and would be stuck with the name Elfrieda because of it).[]My maternal grandfather, I unfortunately know nothing about, other than that his family is the branch of my ancestors that has been in the US the longest. He died when my mother was young and she lost touch with his family, because burning bridges is what my family has always done best We think he was of mixed English and Welsh ancestry.[*]My maternal grandmother was also born in the US, to a mother who was born in Germany and a father who was born in the US with a mixed British/German background. I say British because I’m not sure exactly which variety of British; I’ve always heard English, but his surname was rather Celtic.[/ul][/li]
And then I had to go and reverse all this immigration by packing up and moving to Troll Country. Got to shake up the gene pool every now and then
Both parents were born in Canada.
Maternal Grandmother - British
Maternal Grandfather - Scottish
Paternal Grandmother - British/Irish
Paternal Grandfather - French
From my Mother’s side, mainly German, but there’s French, Spanish and Romanian thrown in there too. There’s a little royal blood thrown in there, but it was from way back.
Some religions are more cultural than others. When I say my mom is a Dutch Mennonite, that’s completely different from saying she’s from Dutch heritage. Jewish is another example of religion as culture.
I consider myself entirely American. But my ethnic backround, if you go back a few hundred years, is half British, quarter Scottish, quarter mystery.
Mom’s family has been in America since the 16/1700s, but everyone is of British desent, and we’ve traced our family tree there back to the 1400s in England. I’m related to quite a few English and American historical figures though this side of the family, including Henry Hudson.
Dad’s bio mom had immigrant Scottish parents and we know nothing about his bio dad. I have his adoptive parent’s last name (most common in Norway).
One thing to understand about Jews is that a Jew isn’t just a person who practices a specific religion. (Oooh, I may be stepping in it here, since this is something of a controversial topic.) Jews are actually a tribe that got dispersed throughout the world. DNA tests have shown that there has been relatively little intermarriage between Jews and their neighbors until recent times, so that Jews in Poland and Jews in Morocco were more closely related to each other than to Polish people or Moroccans. Probably the most well-known marker of genetic separation between Ashkenazi Jews and their gentile neighbors is the predisposition to Tay-Sachs.
From a cultural standpoint, Jews were always different from their neighbors, in terms of language, religion, and to a lesser extent, food. For instance, a quarter of my ancestors are from Ukraine. But I doubt they had very much at all in common with the ancestors of a friend of mine who’s Ukrainian-American. To say that I’m one-quarter Ukrainian, one-eighth Estonian and one-eighth Lithuanian would be disingenuous. When I lived in Bulgaria and people asked me where my ancestors were from and I told them, people were absolutely delighted, because I was a Slav, like them! Except, of course, I’m not a Slav at all.
(Bulgarians were just as delighted to learn I was Jewish. They are extremely proud of the fact that not one single Bulgarian Jew was killed in the Holocaust, despite a Nazi occupation, and every time I told people this, someone would remind me of this.)
Father’s side: Serbian, all of his family branches entered the United States from Karlovac and Lika regions of Austro-Hungarian Croatia around 1906-1910. Genetic testing seems to indicate my paternal line has been squatting in the Dinaric Alps since the last Ice Age, long before such a thing as a ‘Serb’ or even a ‘Slav’ existed. Apparently we’re a highly sedentary people :D.
Mother’s side: English, Welsh and German predominantly. 3 out of 4 of my mother’s mother’s grandparents were German immigrants. The rest is a bit speculative. WASPish mutt, basically.
Fave Norwegian joke: Ole & Sven were planning a day at the beach, and Ole suggested to Sven that he put a pair of tube socks in his trunks to impress the ladies. Sven did, but couldn’t understand why all the fair maidens laughed as he walked by. “Oh, Sven,” Ole said. “You’re supposed to put dem in da FRONT.”
I’m a USAmerican mélange of pale European ancestry.
Mom’s family is Scottish, Irish, Welsh, English, Dutch and German. Both of her parents’ surnames were Welsh. Of her 12 siblings, eight had red hair. She has the temper to match, with enough stubbornness to prove her kraut squarehead genes.
Dad’s family is a bit of a mystery. The names are essentially English, although it’s his grandmother who throws a real klinker in the works. She and her siblings were taken from their birth parents when they were all wee tots and raised by an adoptive family. We don’t know if their Germanic-origin surname belonged to the adoptive parents’ or the birth parents. However, one look at her and her siblings and it’s clear there’s probably a good degree of American Indian heritage. She was tall, dark-complected, had coal-black hair until she died at nearly 90, and that nose! That’s the time frame when Indian children were snatched from their families and sent to boarding schools or given to white families to raise. My Dad is quite dark-skinned and looks a lot like his grandmother, and has frequently been asked his tribal affiliation by Indian people. We’d like to know for sure, and I think I’m going to pay to have DNA testing done on him and my Grandma.
I did not inherit the tanning genes, alas. I fry in the sun and I bruise beautifully – it’s really one of my best features. I identify most strongly with the Celtic portions of my ancestry, and my jewelry designs definitely reflect that.
My maternal grandmother’s family is French; one of her ancestors was part of the expedition that planted the French flag on American soul and named it “Louisiane.” They’ve lived in New Orleans since the outset; the city’s history being what it is, I have to assume there are other ethnicities mixed in somewhere.
My maternal grandfather was first generation Italian.
My sisters and I have a running joke that we were bred to cook and drink wine.
We think he was of mixed English and Welsh ancestry.[*]My maternal grandmother was also born in the US, to a mother who was born in Germany and a father who was born in the US with a mixed British/German background. I say British because I’m not sure exactly which variety of British; I’ve always heard English, but his surname was rather Celtic.[/ul][/li]