# Where do you come from ? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 17, 2011, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920 "2011-10-17T15:28:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/61 "2011-10-19T00:06:23Z")
Like most Americans, I’m a mutt. I think it’s silly to have pride in genealogy when virtually _everyone_ has such a muddled ancestry. And it’s not just us New-World people cross-breeding; even royal families like the British line have admixtures from other places. The interesting thing is what kind of people your ancestors were. Their _stories_ are important, and where they came from can be an important detail, but it’s only part of the story. Of the ancestry I know: One branch is a mix of most of the British Isles (English, Irish, Scottish) with some Swedish thrown in. More recently is some French. On the other side, I’ve got German, more Irish and English, and Iroquois and Cherokee. I married a Japanese girl and had a kid. My sister got divorced and remarried, and has kids from both husbands, who were themselves different mixes of Hispanic-American-gods-only-know-what-else. I figure a couple more generations and my family will probably be able to trace roots to every continent on earth. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/62 "2011-10-19T00:09:58Z")
> [@studmuffin](#): > > Hill-Billy ? > > The Billy part, I’ve since found out is derived from King William of Orange [King Billy], an English monarch and still a hero of the Protestants of modern Northern Ireland, and the scourge of Irish Catholics. So, maybe your Hillbilly ancestors are from Ulster/Scots stock. > > [William III of England - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_III_of_England) Yeah, after I wrote that I did some quick googlage out of curiosity and it looks like hillbillies are basically UK whites mixed with varying percentages of native americans and blacks. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/63 "2011-10-19T02:30:50Z")
> [@lalenin](#): > > I am Cuban, but every one of my ancestors on both mother’s and father’s side emigrated to Cuba from the Canary Islands. The only detail beyond that is that my father’s side is from Pico de Teide, in Tenerife. How interesting…my father-in-law who was Cuban had ancestors from the Canary Islands, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/64 "2011-10-19T03:08:00Z")
All of my grandparents were from England. One great-grandparent was Jewish, but also English; other than that, it’s English farmers, blacksmiths, and the occasional cricket player as far back as we can tell. Nothing terribly exciting, ancestral-nation-wise. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/65 "2011-10-19T03:20:45Z")
> [@studmuffin](#): > > Hill-Billy ? > > The Billy part, I’ve since found out is derived from King William of Orange [King Billy], an English monarch and still a hero of the Protestants of modern Northern Ireland, and the scourge of Irish Catholics. So, maybe your Hillbilly ancestors are from Ulster/Scots stock. > > [William III of England - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_III_of_England) Hey. We didn’t name ourselves hillbillies, y’all did. And I’m for free Ireland, too. But no matter where I live my blood will always run orange. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/66 "2011-10-19T03:29:51Z")
Identify mostly with my Swiss-German heritage. Have even met the distant relatives in the St. Gallen area who share my ancestors and have my same surname. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Just\_Ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Ed)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/67 "2011-10-19T03:49:03Z")
I’ve always liked the Lincoln quote: “I don’t know who my grandfather was; I’m much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.” But that may be colored by the fact both my grandfathers died before I was born. :shrug: ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/68 "2011-10-19T04:06:48Z")
On my father’s side, I am descended from everyone who ever fled across Europe. On my Mother’s side, from everyone who ever conquered Britain. Hard to whip up much pseudoelitism from that. Tris ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/69 "2011-10-19T07:20:46Z")
> [@lalenin](#): > > I am Cuban, but every one of my ancestors on both mother’s and father’s side emigrated to Cuba from the Canary Islands. The only detail beyond that is that my father’s side is from Pico de Teide, in Tenerife. _scratches her head in confusion_ Wonder whether that means a farm on the mountain or he was a shepherd or some such, I didn’t remember a village by that name and there doesn’t seem to be one. It’s not like you can guess a village by saying “oh well, the one closest to the mountain”, either, since the mountain pretty much is the island and the villages surround its peak. **Sarahfeena** , from my years in Miami it sounded as if Cuba had been settled 50:50 by Catalans and Canaries. There must’a been people there from other parts of “the mother country” (heck, Ramón y Cajal was a doctor there in the late 19th century), but they don’t seem to have left half as big an imprint. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/70 "2011-10-19T07:36:28Z")
I’m from Texas. My mom is of Hispanic (but not Mexican-American. My mom’s family stresses that they’ve been living in America ever since America got out to that part of the world, and thus never immigrated to the place.) My dad is Jewish, from Boston, and until they arrived in America a few generations back, his family had migrated enough times that we don’t really keep track. I don’t really take pride in my heritage, nor do I take not-pride in it. It is a part of me, as simple as that. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/71 "2011-10-19T09:23:26Z")
I feel no affinity to my village, county or nation of birth. Just luck of the draw which is no basis for “pride”. (Apparently my family on one side come from Norwich, UK, and the other from mid-Wales, neither of which are a basis for pride!) ---
**Author:** ![Scubaqueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@Scubaqueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scubaqueen)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/72 "2011-10-19T12:48:49Z")
whole lotta info on my mother’s side, not so much on my father’s. we can trace back five generations on mom’s side, which makes my sis and i eligible for the DAR, but only a couple of generations on dad’s. i’m english, scot, irish, and french, courtesy of mom, and german, courtesy of dad. ---
**Author:** ![BetsQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@BetsQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BetsQ)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/73 "2011-10-19T14:42:11Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > If your last name is Muller, Dmitriev, M’Butu, or Chan, we could make an educated guess. Ha! Well, the name is Northern/Western European (German? English?), but complexion suggests that something else is in there, too. I’d say the hillbilly description above is a pretty good guess. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/74 "2011-10-20T22:18:50Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > Most of my ancestors came from Russia, and I do pride myself on the “depressed intellectual” stereotype, though I know it is complete and total banana oil. Me too, from Cossacks, no less. I disagree, we are at least depressed, if not so much intellectual (though more educated I think than average). We also weep maudlin tears while we drink (a lot) and smoke cigarettes like fiends. … The other side of me is French Canadian, many happy memories of those relatives, all gone now, alas. None of this means anything to me, or anyone else, though we are a definite minority group (the Russian side) insofar as religion (Eastern Orthodox) is concerned. So we don’t get holidays, parades, Italiano-Festas, or famous chefs on TV making blini or maple sugar pies! ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/75 "2011-10-20T23:45:44Z")
I’m interested from a sort of personal history standpoint, but since pretty much the entirety of my family tree came here well over 300 years ago, I really am loathe to describe myself as anything other than American, and exceedingly boringly WASP-y. ---
**Author:** ![put\_down\_the\_sabre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/da6949/32.png) [@put\_down\_the\_sabre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/put_down_the_sabre)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/76 "2011-10-21T00:39:16Z")
Do Americans ever trace their ancestry past the US-1 country? I’d imagine many of your British ancestors had ancestors from elsewhere, for example, but you rarely hear ‘my grandfather was from birmingham but his father was from holland’. pdts ---
**Author:** ![Dereknocue67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6de8d8/32.png) [@Dereknocue67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dereknocue67)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/77 "2011-10-21T07:28:49Z")
I am Scot-Irish German and my ancestry is of no importance to me. ---
**Author:** ![Ibanez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a4c791/32.png) [@Ibanez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibanez)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920/78 "2011-10-21T10:18:50Z")
1/3 Irish, 1/3 French. 1/3 Mi’kmaq. Seeing an old black and white photo of my great grandmother in native head dress blew me away. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-you-come-from/599920.md?page=3)