Nationality and Heritage

[Bear]

Me and Thomas were talking about it being very hard to class yourself as a pure Native of the country you live in. In the UK it would be incredibly rare to define yourself as pure English because of the Saxons (Germans), Romans (Italians), Vikings (Denmark, Sweden etc.), Normans (French) and many more.

Does anyone know their family history and if they are melting pot of Nationalities.

My heritage is very mixed. I have Welsh, Irish, Russian, Italian and Native American blood in me. These can easily be seen in my families looks. My Mum has the Russian Jewish nose, we are all very dark haired and skin.

[Thomas.]

As far as my family history goes back - to the 1500s right now - my family has been living in the UK since then. Although I believe my mum's side of the family is of Pict/Viking origin (Surnames Noble and Brown) and my dad's side is of Saxon origin.

But if you count the last hundred or so years, it is mainly English heritage (dad's side is from London and mum's side is from Edinburgh, Newcastle and York). Apparently 300 years ago my family were farmers but I don't know before or after that.

My own personal nationality, i.e. where I was born is English. My sister and I were born in York, England but moved to Falkirk when I was 4. My dad is from Reading, England and my mum's from Newcastle, England.

[Gerard]

My heritage is very mixed. I am half English/Scottish and half Pakistani, with some Welsh, Norse (Viking) and a few other types of blood in me. I was born in the UK and I've (almost) always lived here.

I also know that both the Pakistani and Scottish lines of me are Royal - the Khans and Lockhearts.

Thomas - that's quite bizaare, I grew up between York and Newcastle, and now live in Reading!

[Thomas.]

My heritage is very mixed. I am half English/Scottish and half Pakistani, with some Welsh, Norse (Viking) and a few other types of blood in me. I was born in the UK and I've (almost) always lived here.

I also know that both the Pakistani and Scottish lines of me are Royal - the Khans and Lockhearts.

Thomas - that's quite bizaare, I grew up between York and Newcastle, and now live in Reading!

It is indeed. Well... it's quite a small country if you think about it. I'm sort of proud to be born as a Yorkshire person, it's quite a nice, yet historical place with loads of nice people, supposedly. It has a weird accent and is slightly incomprehensible to a certain extent to those with London accent.

[Red_91]

To be honest I dont really know that much of my heritage, I am of Pakistani origin but was born in the UK, my grandfather was the first to come to England from my family, My Dad came here in the early 70s, when he was about 10 or 11. All else I know is that my Grandfather (fathers side) used to work for the British Army, other than that I couldn't tell you as much detail as Thomas has.

[Bear]

I was born in New Jersey. My family history is quite interesting on my Mum's side we have a murderer and then on my Dad's side my great great (maybe more greats) grandfather owned Hoboken but then lost it in a card game. How lame.

[Damjan]

I have Ukrainian and Serbian heritage, but still born in Macedonia.

[_Ray]

Well, I'm 100% British, as far as heritage goes.

Roughly 55% English, 35% Irish, 10% Scottish, and I'm related to Mary Queen of Scots.

[Bear]

Off with your head then Raybob!

I do think heritage is a facsinating thing. Sometimes peoples last names are a big indicator, mine is dull though. I'm just a Cole.

[_Ray]

Off with your head then Raybob!

I had a feeling someone would say something like that.

[Thomas.]

My last name is 'Young'. I hate it because my forename is Thomas so I'm at the end of the register in all of my classes.

Also, a true fact:

I used to be called "TFY765", although the 765 part was random, the TFY part is my initials.

[Bear]

Cole is good for the fact I am usually one of the first. My initials are VCC.

[MrLlamaLlama]

Well. For the most part, I'm british. My Grandmother's father was an Englishman, but during some kind of war, he met a French lady and they became my Grandmother's parents. She married my grandfather, and they raised my mother. Somewhere along the line in that side of the family, one of the men (possibly my grandfather (married into the family) 's father) was the royal rat-catcher for King George VI. Very common.

On the other side, I don't know alot. My grandfather on my dad's side never spoke much about his family, but I think he had Scottish descent. He was a hardy git, never parted with his money.

My Aunt (Mother's Brother's wife) has a sister who recently married a Pakistani man, who has like a PHD in psychology or something. I only found out last week. heh.

[Gerard]

I'm Gerard Boyers, so always pretty close to the start. Although at one school there was a time when 50% of the people on the register began with a B.

[Bear]

When I started secondary school I was constantly asked "Are you related to......?" because my name was so common, that was annoying. In uni there is another Victoria Cole, I was not impressed. My first name is a very English name, not sure where Catherine originated from though.

[Thomas.]

When I started secondary school I was constantly asked "Are you related to......?" because my name was so common, that was annoying. In uni there is another Victoria Cole, I was not impressed. My first name is a very English name, not sure where Catherine originated from though.

My name's a very common English name as well but I am the only one in my year with that surname. There are a lot of odd surnames going around, especially in my school and others I know: Welch, Inglis, Shek (Chinese), Penman, Donoghue, Doyle, Chroston etc. I have a very English surname and a common forename in England, Scotland and Wales.

I'm Gerard Boyers, so always pretty close to the start. Although at one school there was a time when 50% of the people on the register began with a B.

I think now the most common is around M in the alphabet. I noticed that S, P and the vowels are quite uncommon.

[Huckleberry Pie]

I don't really know much about my heritage, other than the fact that I'm born to Filipino parents. My aunt once said that we were distantly related (on my mother's side to be exact) to a former senator, but other than that, I'm quite clueless at where did I come from.

[Kitsune Inferno]

Everyone on my mother's side is from the Philippines. As for my father's side, I don't have much of a clue other than that "Sheets" is a German name.

[Bulletproofboy]

My parents are from Bangladesh(before it was India)

My dad was born in chittagong, bangladesh(before it was india but it turned into bangladesh in 1971 after paki vs beng war)(bengs won)

my mom/mum was born in sylhet, bangladesh(india at time)

however my grandparents were born in a place in india and its still india.. some village i dunno(mum and dads side)

i was born in england same with my brother

my mum came to england in 1969 and is still living here(she came when she was 8 or 9)

my dad came to england in 1976 and is still still living here(he came when he was 26)

all my previous ancestors were born in india.

[Husky]

I'm a Jamaican American.

[_Ray]

I'm a Jamaican American.

Damn, you're Jamaican??

Sweet, you should make friends with Little Jacob.

[Thomas.]

I have an American cousin (3 times removed or something), I met her about 6 years ago, she's sort of cool. I haven't really seen her since, my family really only lost contact with her. Apparently we are related because someone in my dad's side of my family moved over to the Thirteen Colonies of Britain in the 1700s. My family has some sort of history of migrating to the USA, my grandparents live there and my aunt used to live there.

I'm a Jamaican American.

Damn, you're Jamaican??

Sweet, you should make friends with Little Jacob.

*facepalm*

[draftermatt]

It's funny, in the US no one is "American" even if they're heritage goes back 5+ generations of being in the US, people have to identify themselves as whatever ONE of their ancestors was.

I know many people who will say "I'm Irish" because there name is O'Hara. That is probably true, but they've married with so many people of other descents that someone from Ireland would most likely laugh at them.

However, my wife's grandmother was born in Sicily but immigrated to the US, so she really is Italian. Her kids half Italian, and my wife quarter Italian. So I have no issue with my wife saying she's of Italian descent, because mostly she is.

Me? Well my Mother's adopted so I'll never know 100%, that said I consider her adopted parents as my grandparents so in polite company I'll just say what they were (if I know).

My great-great grandfather on my Father's side had a British father and a German mother. When he moved to the US he changed his name to his mother's maiden name because he killed someone and was trying to avoid the law. This was in the late 1800's.

We don't know of what ancestry his wife was.

My father's mother has a German maiden name so we assume somewhere in her heritage there was a German. But, it could have been long ago, or mixed with any other heritage.

My mother's adopted Father? His grandparents came from Ireland (and for some reason settled in Wisconsin).

My mother's adopted Mother? She knew (Alzheimers) but never talked about her heritage much. Been in Southern Virginia long before the Civil War, so most likely British of some variety.

But since the last of my ancestors to hit the shores of America was 4 generations ago, and since we don't know a great deal about many of them, I'm American.

I'm not a "native", but I figure we've been here long enough to be comfortable with that setting.

[Bear]

I'm not sure what tribe my great times 4 grandmother was from but she was Native American, however Native Americans settled into America from Russia when the gap between countries was connected through ice.

[Chris]

I'm fairly certain the only thing I can say is I'm truly 100% English... you'd have to go so far back in my family tree to find any other heritage that the amount of time passed (literally hundreds of years) negates all of it. So yeah... how boring is that