Do you know your heritage?

On my Dad's side: Irish and English, moving to the Southern U.S. ( Georgia ).
On my Mom's side: Scottish, also moving to the Southern U.S.

My mom's side are direct descendants from one of the owners of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus.
( Probably where I get my fear of Clowns! )
 

The only thing that is real is we are all 100% part of the human race. Sorry to break it to people who think otherwise, your ancestors did a lot of seed sowing with people from other ethnicities and as a result you are a mix of many heritages.

Myself, we trace our history back to the time of Charlemagne. Lyon was invaded by the Romans, and for a while (like Italy) the Moors and maybe Germanic people, so I embrace all those lines. Church records show my family have lived in Lyon for generations as wine growers and in the manufacturing of textile..
 
On my mothers side, areas in and around Northern Ontario Canada back as far as mid-1700s. On my fathers side, Hessians of German descent who fought for the British during the American Revolution in the mid 1700s. They then migrated north to New Brunswick Canada as part of the United Empire Loyalists movement which occurred around 1783.

I have visited the Loyalist graveyard in downtown Saint John N.B. to view some of the grave markers to see if I could recognize any family name but the deterioration of inscriptions on the grave markers make identification almost impossible :( This is one of the better ones I found.
United Empire Loyalists.jpg
 

I am of Ukrainian ancestry. My late wife was a MacKenzie, and a relative traced her lineage back to Robert the Bruce. We have visited her ancestral castle Eilean Donan.
 
I have never done Ancestry.com or 23 and Me, but when I was much younger I sent off for my Coat of Arms and it indicated my ancestry was German. I know it was accurate, since my grandfather and father had first and last names that were clearly Jewish but were altered to become more Gentile. I have seen records of where they were changed.

I think my mother was of Irish decent, since her mother's maiden name was clearly Irish. I'm not really interested in anything beyond that.
 
dseag2 said:
I have never done Ancestry.com or 23 and Me, but when I was much younger I sent off for my Coat of Arms and it indicated my ancestry was German. I know it was accurate, since my grandfather and father had first and last names that were clearly Jewish but were altered to become more Gentile. I have seen records of where they were changed.

I think my mother was of Irish decent, since her mother's maiden name was clearly Irish. I'm not really interested in anything beyond that.
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LOL - "Altered to become more Gentile."
Like many celebrities - Bernard Herschel Schwartz, AKA Tony Curtis
http://jewbellish.com/jewish-celebrities-change-gentile-names/
 
JaniceM said:
Addressing this and other similar approaches- how a person refers to himself or herself is his/her own business I suppose, but it's 'really not ok' when referring to other people.
(please understand I'm not saying you'd do that, I only mean in general.)
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I couldn't agree more, Janice. You are right, on reflection using the term mongrel is probably insensitive in today's society. I shall be be more careful in future. Thank you for pointing it out.
 
My Grandparents came to the U.S. in the early 1900's....from Germany and Italy. When I was stationed in Germany, back in the 1960's, I found a couple of distant relatives in Northern Italy, and near Hamburg, Germany. It appeared that many of the old family lost their lives during WWII.
 
Unfortunately, no I don't know anything about my heritage, ethnicity or medical background. I was 3 years old when I was adopted but my adoptee parents would never tell me anything about my bio parents, even though my adoptee mother worked with my bio mother. I'm 75 now, so what difference does it make?I was born in MI and adoption records are sealed from 1945-1980's (I believe) so I could never find out anything.

I envy those of you that know who you are and where you came from. I've always felt "lost" and felt like I never belonged anywhere.
 
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