Your Ancestry!

[Asuras]

Everyone has a past story to tell, no matter your nationality, race, or religion. What was intriguing, important, or amazing about your families past? Any notable ancestors? Was one of them a fighter or a soldier? Important politician? Did they struggle through an incredible hardship?

This thread is dedicated to the discussion of one's past heritage/ancestry.

[Tsuyoshi]

This is interesting. I've always been interested in my own ancestry, what my family was back in the day and how we came to be in the now. I don't have a lot of details but what I do know is that my family was originally Cossack from my father's side, and that part has always interested me the most. I'll definitely post here once I have more info

[DonQuigleone]

Father is Catholic from Northern Ireland, family has been there for as long as we know.

Mother is New York Jew, family originally from Poland/AustriaHungary/Russia (the borders there have shifted a lot).

I grew up in Dublin. I'd like to think my family is pretty complicated, but a lot of Americans have it waaay more complex

[ChainLegacy]

My father is from a small town in county Galway, Ireland. My mother is originally from Maine, US with Irish roots dating back to the famine, and a little bit of English from her grandfather/my great-grandfather.

No idea what lives my ancestors lived. My last name suggests I have an ancestor that was once a slave or servant to an Earl. That's about it.

[Xellos-_^]

- my great grandfather was supposedly a military official in the qing dynasty. my dad said he wield a GuanDao
- my grandfather however was a wastral
- several of my dad's uncles serve in military for the Kuomintang
- local bandits would bring gifts to one of these uncles although no one could actually prove anything.
- one of my dads uncle (still alive) was the last retreating officer across the pearl river bridge and was responsible for blowing it up. He still afraid of going back to China, as he is afraid of getting arrested.

[Ithekro]

13th generation American. While we didn't come over on the Mayflower, it was pretty close to it in Massachusetts Bay Colony around 1692.

[Flinch]

Tracing back the lineage of my father's side, I am related to Gerard de Ridefort; nothing really of note on my mother's side. Though, as the generations passed, more and more Irish blood has come into the family, making me nearly pure Irish as a result.

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by Flinch

Tracing back the lineage of my father's side, I am related to Gerard de Ridefort; nothing really of note on my mother's side. Though, as the generations passed, more and more Irish blood has come into the family, making me nearly pure Irish as a result.

Though Pure Irish isn't really all that pure to begin with, given Ireland's history,

[Flinch]

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

Though Pure Irish isn't really all that pure to begin with, given Ireland's history,

Har Har...

(Just like Sicilian)

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by Flinch

Har Har...

(Just like Sicilian)

Sicilian?

[Flinch]

Originally Posted by Tsuyoshi

Sicilian?

Take into account how many times they've been conquered and ruled over. Is it even possible for someone to still be pure Sicilian?

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by Flinch

Take into account how many times they've been conquered and ruled over. Is it even possible for someone to still be pure Sicilian?

.....No, not really D= I should know v_v

[LeoXiao]

My dad's side is American of various background, a lot of German and some Irish I think. There's also a little Native American in it.
My mom's side is 100% Chinese, with the ancestry there being in the South (my grandmother is Cantonese), though my mother was born in Beijing and lived there for awhile until the Cultural Revolution came and her family had to move to a commune-like thing in Shandong. My great-grandfather (grandmother's father) owned some land and was thus deemed the village landlord. For this (a fact my grandmother only explained in detail a few years ago), even though he was willing to give up all his property, he was "democratically" chosen by the townsfolk to be shot. This was in the early 50s. My grandmother was studying in Moscow at the time (where she met my grandfather) and managed to avoid much criticism until the 60s, when the Cultural Revolution happened.
As for my mother, she still doesn't know my great-grandfather's name because nobody talked about him.

[SaintessHeart]

Paternal side is military heritage. Great-grandfather escaped the Xinhai revolution which overthrew the last dynasty in China and sailed down here with his "gains" (he's supposedly a corrupted military official), then bought some farmland and smoked opium to death. Grand-dad was a resistance fighter/courier during WWII, probably Dalforce. Farmland bought up by government and ended up living in HDB. My dad was a combo-breaker who didn't serve voluntarily in the military or government (and given how inefficient the local government and military is, I don't think I want to serve too).

Maternal side is more murky, some of my more distant relatives are Muslims. Grand-dad on that side was a bomoh (medicine man). Got the Japanese to sign a proof of land ownership on an entire stretch of jungle land, which he turned into a plantation (and supposedly weapon stash for the MPAJA - my family on that side still owns a few no-longer working Lee-Enfields). They still own the plantation.

Both sides probably explained my short-temper and rebellious streak (along with that of every member of my family's), as well as an inclination towards money and self-sufficiency. Also one of my paternal side lineage have commanded the first few rifle divisions in the Chinese army (when guns are still new technologies), and all the way back to the Han Dynasty it is rumoured that certain line of ancestors are to be in-charge of assassinations for the Emperor.

I haven't been to China to dig deeper, but if I did, I would be in the hands of the PLA - I am more inclined to think that there must have been tons of dirty stuff my paternal ancestors did that made me have an interest in espionage and special operations; courtesy of their genes.

[Magin]

All I know is that I'm pretty much of Northwestern European descent- My father's lineage is Scottish (hell, my last name is definitely Scottish... not that I'm going to share that info here), with potentially some Irish as well; my mother descends from the Danish, and I believe that there's some English blood on at least one if not both sides of the family. And I've heard my dad joke on occasion about there being Welch blood somewhere in the mix as well. But overall, those roots go back at least a couple of centuries, since myself and the two generations before me were born and bred on American soil.

[Ithekro]

Basically my family has been here so long that when one of my college courses had use do a "your cultural background" potluck, I had nothing to deliver really. So we made something up involving chocolate.

Got Scottish, Scotch-Irish, English, German, Native American (probably one of the old Eastern tribes near Rhode Island)...probably some other things as well. But it mixed a long, long time ago. So I'm American.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Paternal side is military heritage. Great-grandfather escaped the Xinhai revolution which overthrew the last dynasty in China and sailed down here with his "gains" (he's supposedly a corrupted military official), then bought some farmland and smoked opium to death. Grand-dad was a resistance fighter/courier during WWII, probably Dalforce. Farmland bought up by government and ended up living in HDB. My dad was a combo-breaker who didn't serve voluntarily in the military or government (and given how inefficient the local government and military is, I don't think I want to serve too).

Maternal side is more murky, some of my more distant relatives are Muslims. Grand-dad on that side was a bomoh (medicine man). Got the Japanese to sign a proof of land ownership on an entire stretch of jungle land, which he turned into a plantation (and supposedly weapon stash for the MPAJA - my family on that side still owns a few no-longer working Lee-Enfields). They still own the plantation.

Both sides probably explained my short-temper and rebellious streak (along with that of every member of my family's), as well as an inclination towards money and self-sufficiency. Also one of my paternal side lineage have commanded the first few rifle divisions in the Chinese army (when guns are still new technologies), and all the way back to the Han Dynasty it is rumoured that certain line of ancestors are to be in-charge of assassinations for the Emperor.

I haven't been to China to dig deeper, but if I did, I would be in the hands of the PLA - I am more inclined to think that there must have been tons of dirty stuff my paternal ancestors did that made me have an interest in espionage and special operations; courtesy of their genes.

my great-grandfather might have serve with your great-grandfather which would explain what happen to the qing dynasty.

btw the guns weren't really that new a technology. They had firearms back in the Ming Dynasty but for whatever odd reason firearms never spread much in China.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

Though Pure Irish isn't really all that pure to begin with, given Ireland's history,

The only large group that has immigrated into Ireland in the last 1000 years are English, Scots and maybe some Welsh.

I don't think it's really worth talking about "purity", but Ireland has had very little influx, most of the English were upper class and kept to themselves, and the scots were concentrated in Ulster.

A good way of seeing it is if you look at names. The most significant group of non-Irish names in Ireland is Norman eg Fitz-XXX. Very few English names. almost everyones a Quinn, or O'Brien, or Kelly, or McHugh, or Quigley (me!).

I don't understand Americans that give Quigley as a first name .

We're generally better known for exporting people then importing

[Haladflire65]

100% Korean, with volumes of family trees spanning I don't even know how many generations to prove it. A little boring, if you ask me

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

The only large group that has immigrated into Ireland in the last 1000 years are English, Scots and maybe some Welsh.

I don't think it's really worth talking about "purity", but Ireland has had very little influx, most of the English were upper class and kept to themselves, and the scots were concentrated in Ulster.

A good way of seeing it is if you look at names. The most significant group of non-Irish names in Ireland is Norman eg Fitz-XXX. Very few English names. almost everyones a Quinn, or O'Brien, or Kelly, or McHugh, or Quigley (me!).

I don't understand Americans that give Quigley as a first name .

We're generally better known for exporting people then importing

Yup, but before then you had hundreds of years of Viking raiders (Dublin being a city they established), as well as Celtic Britons and Anglo-Saxons that readily integrated into the Irish population. These 'old English' actually do have a significant impact on modern Irish DNA. It wasn't until the second wave of English settlers that they remained segregated. It was actually an intentional policy by the crown, as the previous waves had long since 'gone native' and integrated into the population. It's actually a common thread in early Christian Ireland that invaders would settle and adopt the local customs. This was especially attractive to some of the early Briton and Saxon nobility as supposedly the Irish kings of the time had more power over their realm than their contemporaries.

And I know all too well about the exports, my father being one of them lol. I was referring to premodern times.