Your origins

[OldBoring]

I'm not only 100% Chinese, but 100% from the Qingtian county. It means that all my four grandparents could meet each other in their birth place travelling no more than 10 kilometres.

My paternal grandpa is from Youzhu, a countryside village. My maternal grandma is from Yeshan, in the mountain. Then they moved to the city of Wenzhou, where my father (and all his siblings) were born.

My maternal grandpa is from Fangshan, in the mountain. When he was a kid he moved to Youzhu, where he knew my maternal grandma, and where my mom (and siblings) were born.
Later in life my maternal grandparents moved to the core town of Qingtian county: Hechengzhen.

My two grandpas were classmates in Youzhu, and so they combined my parents' marriage.

And then my parents moved to Italy in the 80's. My mom has been to a lot of cities in Italy. My dad has been to Belgium and Spain and before going to Italy. They met and got married in Palermo, Sicily, before moving to Rome until now, where I was born.

We are all immigrants in my family. Someone from mountain to village, someone from village to city, someone to a foreign country. Who knows where I will be later in my life?
I don't know much about my great-grandparents. I only know that my dad's dad's dad was an immigrant in the US as a student and selling the Qingtian stone.

I still maintain my ancestral culture, i.e. speak the language of Qingtian, love the Qingtian food, play the Qingtian card games, etc. I preserved my family's culture better than my uncles and aunts (especially the youngest one) of my father's side, who were born in Wenzhou, but don't speak Qingtianese fluently.

[johnklepac]

My mom's just gotten the results of a DNA test. Most of it, predictably, was Central/Eastern European, but there was also a decent chunk of West Asian/Middle Eastern there. I can't say I'm surprised, as a few people have remarked that I have some Arab-looking facial features, particularly my eyes, eyebrows, and nose, but it's nonetheless interesting.

[Bijlee]

[Removed]

[Iparxi_Zoi]

I really can't trace my family's history back too many generations. Both my parents come from Mexican families, and like the vast majority, they're mestizos. I do, however, seem to have tad more European blood.
According to my dad his paternal grandfather was Basque and his paternal grandmother was French. My maternal grandmother also told me about German, Spanish, and other European bloodlines.
Basically, I'm...the human equivalent of a mutt : the product of centuries of breeding between Europeans and native Mexican people.

[Prowler]

As far as I know, I'm 100% Portuguese. We're a pretty homogeneous ethnic group, so it's not surprising. Although, it can be quite boring at times.

This is something I envy a bit about people from the Americas, Australia and New Zealand. Such interesting and diverse ancestry some of you have

[Lur]

Upon further investigation, on my mother's side I'm basically 100% from the Ribagorza (North-Eastern Aragon, in North-Eastern Spain, for those who don't know). Apparently, my two grandparents from there were second cousins (they had the same surname, which must be Aragonese-Catalan), however, she moved to somewhere in southern France when she was a young child, and considered herself French and spoke French with the southern accent of the time, although she later learnt Castilian and Catalan when she was forced to come back although she (understandably) didn't want to. Later the marriage was a convenience thing typical of the backwards rural Spain of the time.

[johnklepac]

A little ancestral probing, the work of not only my mom but her newly found cousins, shows that I'm part Slovak, Iranian, and Saudi, in addition to the Western/Central European stuff we already knew. That's kinda cool.

As far as I know, I'm 100% Portuguese. We're a pretty homogeneous ethnic group, so it's not surprising. Although, it can be quite boring at times.

I dunno. I think it might be cool to just identify with one or two ethnic groups. Here, having a ton of ethnicities makes them kinda cancel each other out, since if you're English, Irish, German, Scottish, Dutch, Italian, Polish, Armenian, Russian, Senegalese, Icelandic, Filipino, Hopi, Potawotami, etc., you're probably not very well-connected to any of those cultures and you're just "American."

This is something I envy a bit about people from the Americas, Australia and New Zealand. Such interesting and diverse ancestry some of you have

We're above average among countries in such measures, yes, but try Brazil.

[Prowler]

I dunno. I think it might be cool to just identify with one or two ethnic groups. Here, having a ton of ethnicities makes them kinda cancel each other out, since if you're English, Irish, German, Scottish, Dutch, Italian, Polish, Armenian, Russian, Senegalese, Icelandic, Filipino, Hopi, Potawotami, etc., you're probably not very well-connected to any of those cultures and you're just "American."

Well, I wouldn't say I'd want to have roots all over the world, but having a couple of different ethnicties in your family tree sounds fairly interesting. Besides, it could help you learn another language more easily.

We're above average among countries in such measures, yes, but try Brazil.

Or Papua New Guinea

[BlackZ]

We're above average among countries in such measures, yes, but try Brazil.

That's one of the things I love the most about my country. I'm ethnically mostly Portuguese, but I also have Galician, Italian, African and Amerindian ancestry. I have cousins who have Syrian, German and Japanese ancestries as well.

That reminds me of a teacher of mine who has Japanese, African, Portuguese and German ancestry. And most people says that he ressembles an Amerindian.

[Marbel]

I'm Maria!! I'm so happy to be here.

I was born in Moldova but grew up in Germany and then moved to the US as a teenager. My mom is Russian and my dad is German/Romanian. My stepdad is American and so that's how I learned English, really. haha.

No matter where I work or do with my life, my passion always brings me back to languages. Helping people learning foreign languages, practicing my own, as well as studying philology.

Please don't hesitate to say hi or ask for help.

Hope we can get to know each other and learn a lot from each other!!

[Lietmotiv]

Maria, Добро пожаловать /Welcome/ willkommen !
Nice to see a Moldavian around!

[skycloud86]

I'm mostly English, although I have some Irish and Welsh ancestry. I don't know some of my mother's ancestry, though, and there may be some Scottish somewhere.

[Saim]

¿Te imaginas que fuera del PP?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxUNZxD5sgw

Tengo una compañera de clase que es del PP, y no para de decir és que jo crec en un país que es diu Espanya (dir-se = llamarse, el resto me imagino que entiendes).

No me he puesto aún Aunque he leído cosas en aragonés, la wikipedia, el periódico aquel, algunos textos que he encontrado, etc.

Ya, simpatizo, porqué estoy intentando aprender occitano, pero en verdad sólo leo el Jornalet i miro 3/24 en aranés. Tengo que empezar a leer la Wikipedia occitana también, porqué no conozco muchas más fuentes de occitano.

El aragonés también me interesa bastante porqué es como un puente entre catalán y castellano (que no una mezcla, eso que la gente no cansa de decir ).

[Spaigelploatje]

Err..
AFAIK
Parents - Both Dutch, Both Gronings They lived about 10km from each other
Grandparents - All Dutch, all from Groningen province - Maximum of 30km from each other
Grand-grandparents - All Dutch, one Frisian, 7 Gronings. Maximum of 40km from each other.


From my mother's side I know that from 1715 on, they were all from the same region within 10km from each other, except one who was Frisian. But that was only 15km or so..

I live only 13km from where my grand grand grand etc grand father from 1715 was born, in a straight line it's less than 10km..

From my father's side I don't know that much, but I know that from the 1800th's on they've lived in and around the village/municipality where I live.

[OldBoring]

Hurray to pure race people

[razlem]

In order from most to least:
German
English
Greek
Scottish
Dutch

I'm literally as Anglo-Saxon as one could possibly be -.-

[Lauren]

Hurray to pure race people

You'd get along well with a certain German dictator with that attitude.

I've probably posted here before, but I'll say again to stay on-topic.

German
Norwegian
British Islander
French**

*My maternal grandmother mentioned that we might be part French on one occasion many years ago, but I have not confirmed this.

Also we could have ancestors from an unknown tribe/nation on my maternal grandfather's side, since the further back you go on his side, they have much darker skin than an Anglo-Saxon or other western European would have.

[OldBoring]

Hurray to pure race people

You'd get along well with a certain German dictator with that attitude.

Except that he didn't like "pure race" immigrants.

[mōdgethanc]

The Nazis liked the Japanese and considered them honorary Aryans. I don't think they had a very high opinion of the Chinese, however. (The cognitive dissonance that must have been at play here is absolutely wonderful.)

[vijayjohn]

Except that he didn't like "pure race" immigrants.

Only if they were German and were "immigrants" from the perspective of non-German peoples.

Anyway. As far as I'm aware, my parents and ancestors are all from either Tiruvalla [t̪ɪɾʊˈʋəlla] or some village very close to that town. Apart from that, my origins are pretty mysterious.

The Mar Thoma Syrian Christian Church kept records of their congregations, and those would have been pretty much the only available resource for finding out who my ancestors were. Unfortunately, in 1599, the Portuguese burned (among other things) all the church records that existed up to that time at the Synod of Udayamperoor.

At this point, I believe that substantial genealogical (and archeological) research would need to be done for me to really learn about my origins, but I don't think I've ever heard of any such thing being done in India. As it stands, who knows where our ancestors ultimately come from? Who really knows how or why they ended up near Tiruvalla?

I do know, however, that my dad's mom's family is basically descended from Brahmins who converted to Christianity relatively recently. (My grandmother was Christian, and so was her dad, but maybe his dad was Hindu. Or maybe his dad's dad was. I dunno).