My name ain't my name. I have an Irish surname. I've been Irish decent, all my life. UNTIL ---

[3Hotdogs]

My daughter gets involved with the Ancestry/ 21 stuff. I could care less. Or maybe I couldn't care less about it. She buys me and my ex the kits for Christmas and goes deep into it. Over 200 second and third cousins pop up from grandparents and uncles who couldn't keep it in their pants. Anyway, so what?

THEN ---

Friday night, she calls. My maternal grandfather had a German surname. He died during the Spanish flu epidemic when my father was four years old. Grandma was movie actress beautiful and found a new husband. Stepfather had my father adapt his Irish name but did not legally adapt him or legally change his name. My father was registered for school, under the Irish name and used it until he died, never giving it a second thought.

Funnier thing is, as the saying goes, "the map of Ireland is on my face." How many times in my life have I heard, "Yeah, you look Irish."

[panader0]

1. My daughter bought me the 23 and Me DNA kit. I took it, sent it in and two weeks later

I got a letter saying that they found nothing, and they sent me another kit. I sent it in with the same
result, --nothing found. I can only conclude that I am an alien.

[Marthe48]

4. That is so weird

I wouldn't know what to think!

[3Hotdogs]

7. Where do you live.

I wanna keep far away from the likes of you.

[PJMcK]

12. Or maybe you're the next evolutionary step for humanity!

I like to be optimistic.

My wife got the 23 & Me kit and was thrilled that I had a lot of Neanderthal dna.

[Takket]

35. Haha. Don't be silly. You aren't an alien. You're an android!

[ARPad95]

49. Do you mean your tube of spit was empty (spilled or leaked) by the time it got to the lab?

[Thomas Hurt]

2. Meh, if you are a white person in America, likely you have Irish in your family tree back....

somewhere. According to my previous genetic estimate I was around 20 percent Irish, now I am 2% Irish and 28 percent Scottish. It is kind of a moving target, changes as they gain more data.

[getagrip_already]

9. My greek-american mother used to joke...

She was fond of getting family members goat by saying "There is no such thing as a pure greek, or italian, or turk" (spitting when she said the word). Meaning that with all the wars and slavery since the beginning of time, there was so much interbreeding that the dna pool was mre like a stew than different pots of biology.

[róisín_dubh]

13. I had mine done and my Italian-American family was fuming...

because I'm only 40% Italian (the rest on my maternal side being a hodgepodge of Balkan, Spanish, Greek and Arab/Levantine/Egyptian). I think they were mostly pissed that I'm more than half Irish (from my dad's side).

I look Italian for half the year and then Irish the rest, though funnily enough now that I live in England, most people guess I'm from Ireland.

[Bucky]

21. What's really weird is that two siblings with the same parents...

...could end up with different percentages of Italian or Syrian or Greek or Polish or Xhosa or Korean. Theoretically you can't have a relative closer than a sibling, since you both got a 50% mix of your two parents' DNA. But even that can produce radically different genetic outcomes.

We have all sorts of preconceptions about race and ethnicity and genetics that just don't stand up to scientific analysis.

[róisín_dubh]

16. And then there are those of us..

born just a wee bit too late to get an Irish passport (I'm 3rd generation and it would be eminently helpful at the moment).
I was surprised to find nearly no Scottish in my ancestry, though we know that some on my dad's paternal line went over to the northern part of Ireland back in the day.

[sarisataka]

25. Unless your great-grandparents

Didn't come to the US from eastern Europe until the 1890s. Any Irish DNA would have had to take a circuitous route through vikings to reach my ancestors.

[csziggy]

40. Of my two family branches that immigrated from Northern Ireland, one was probably German

The two surnames are Hollingsworth and Fike. Both were Quakers who bought land in Pennsylvania from representatives of William Penn - the Hollingsworths arrived before Penn did. There is an affidavit in the Pennsylvania Archives from one of the sons stating he was on the Dock when Penn arrived ion Pennsylvania for the first time.

Hollingsworth is most likely an English name, probably moved to Northern Ireland to help hold the land for the British. Fike is probably a German name, maybe left Germany because they were Protestant and moved to Northern Ireland for the same reason. As Quakers, they were persecuted by the Church of England and were likely to be very happy to have a chance of living in an all Quaker community in the New World.

One of the Hollingsworth sons had a lot of contact with the natives and became a translator for the colony. They ended up buying land from the Indians in a loop of the Brandywine River which they held for generations.

I need to check my Ancestry DNA results - I haven't for a while so I'm sure the interpretation has shifted. WHOA! It HAS changed!
62% England and Northwestern Europe; a WHOOPING 18% Ireland; 9% Wales (my great grandfather was from Wales); 6% Norway (more than I expect, only one ancestor was from Norway and he lived in New Amsterdam); 3% Scotland; 1% Indigenous Americas - North (possibly from my Canadian ancestors); 1% Finland (no clue where that is from). The parental breakdown shows that the Indigenous trace comes from my father's side, and all the Irish and Finland from my mother's.

[Freddie]

3. My Ancestry DNA was a disappointment I guess

You keep hearing stories like yours, or finding out your dad isn’t really your dad, or long-lost siblings. Mine was exactly how I thought it would be (English, Irish, German) and people listed as distant cousins had familiar surnames. Oh well.

[TxGuitar]

6. Hah, same here.

I pretty much knew exactly what Ancestry would find and I wasn't wrong.

[RobinA]

46. Mine Was Like That

But then, we knew most of my family lines going back to the boats. And if any of them did jump the fence at some point, the livestock in the next field had the same DNA. English, German, Alsatian, with a smattering of Scots which I suspect came in through the Cornwall branch.

[Irish_Dem]

5. I do quite a bit of genealogy and DNA genetic work as a hobby.

It is fairly common for people to get surprises when they do DNA testing.

DNA support groups are popping up now because of it.

[DFW]

8. My elder daughter married a guy who was born in Russia, grew up in Israel.

My dad had his name Anglicized during the McCarthy era, and then only because his brother did it to get a job in his field. He wouldn't have bothered otherwise. My son-in-law decided to hell with it, and took my daughter's (i.e. our) name instead. So, our grandson has an American passport (and now a German one, too) with a name that is very Waspy even though his ancestry stretches from Germany to the Urals, with many points in-between. Our granddaughters have German given names and our (i.e. my) family's Anglicized surname. Their native language is German, although they are at English-langauge pre-school. We expect them to be fully bi-lingual, as our daughters are. Our grandson in the USA is growing up with German, English, Russian and Spanish. My son-in-law is fluent in Hebrew, but he doesn't speak it to his kid (as far as I know). No one knows WHAT this kid will consider his native language to be.

We considered my wife's family name, since she has a family genealogy stretching back to the year 1473. But it has that German "ch" that English-speakers have such problems with, so we abandoned that idea.

Like Popeye sang, "I yam what I yam, and that's all that I yam." We tend to leave the labels to those who think they matter. At least one of my great-grandfathers was born in what is now Slovakia (just Hapsburg Empire then). His daughter married the son of a poor tailor from South Carolina. With us, it's just too complicated to worry about.

[Croney]

10. Yeah, they can take my surprise half-brother and funnel him back into the spit pool.

If I'm going to start a whole new familial relationship this late in life, it's not going to be with a humper of the orange turd.

[Zambero]

11. I have non-surprise family members who are devoid of critical thinking

Known entities, although I would have preferred otherwise. Kneejerk idiots. Gaslighting magnets, as I prefer to call them.

[The Jungle 1]

14. I thought for years that I was Irish. Blue eyes, black hair, love beer.

I'm 60% Scottish.
So it turns out I like beer but I don't want to pay for it.

[3Hotdogs]

23. .

[appalachiablue]

27. +1

[Celerity]

32. Do you crave Irn-Bru? How about a wee dram of single malt Whisky or some haggis, neeps and tatties?

Donald Trump's hotel in Scotland bans Irn-Bru

https://news.sky.com/story/donald-trumps-hotel-in-scotland-bans-irn-bru-11366168



Donald Trump's luxury golf course in Scotland has banned the sale of Irn-Bru. The ban was revealed after guests asked for the drink to be supplied at an event but were refused because of concerns it stains the carpet when spilt.

Scotland's favourite non-alcoholic beverage contains colourants that give it its distinctive luminous orange appearance. A £200m refurbishment at the five-star Turnberry resort, which is on the Ayrshire coast, has included hundreds of thousands of pounds being spent on new carpets.

General manager Ralph Porciani told the Ayrshire Post: "We can't have it staining when to replace the ballroom carpet would be £500,000 alone. "We have villas here with Irn-Bru stains in the carpet which I can't let."

The ban has sparked fury on social media, with one post saying the US President had "declared war on Scotland".

snip



Haggis, neeps & tatties

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/haggis-neeps-tatties

[Ocelot II]

33. You'd think TFG would want to stock an orange beverage.

[Celerity]

36. he hates Irn-Bru because so many of the Scots call him names with it, lolol. Irn-Bru hued c%#t, etc

[The Jungle 1]

45. Well...

I have never had Irn-bru but if trump is against it I will have to get some. It is probably great.
I have tried haggis and will pass on that. Scrapple is more my speed. Although I think they are the same thing. I can't stand cooked turnips. I do like them raw. I like every tater ever cooked.

[rampartc]

15. many surprises in any study of geneology.

i discovered a confederate captain and his father, who wrote pro union articles in "the delta." neuther the captain's mother nor his wife would be considered "white" in jim crow loiusiana.

also a young officer in the queen's musketeers who escaped france in 1789 and founded gallipolis ohio. he eventually moved to new orleans and taught fencing . he fought with col jackson at the famous battle.


https://discover.hubpages.com/education/1790-French-500

[Ocelot II]

17. My Norwegian mother turned out to be part Irish.

No record of where that came from.

[Bucky]

19. If I may be so bold as to hazard a guess...

Ireland maybe?

[Ocelot II]

20. Maybe the question should have been *who* it came from.

Vikings, maybe?

[Bucky]

28. Yarrr

Once you go berserker nothing else will work 'er

[LeftInTX]

29. If it was found on DNA, take it with a grain of salt

Unless, it was a real high percent. There is intermingling of DNA in that region. I'm 1/2 British Isles and my ever-changing DNA shows Scandinavian of sorts

[Ocelot II]

30. Yes, I'm assuming that's the situation.

When we talk about ethnicities and nationalities we have to assume there was always a lot of intermingling over the centuries. The DNA results you get from Ancestry and other companies are just based on comparisons with DNA from people known to have come from a certain region. People moved around all the time in the old days; just because they didn't have easy transportation doesn't mean they didn't get around; the wars and famines and conquests made sure of that. So if your DNA results say you're Irish, for example, all that really means is that your DNA is similar to samples from other people in or originally from Ireland. It doesn't mean you're "pure" Irish because there is no such thing.

[RobinA]

47. We've Had

a lot of amateur genealogists in my family through the years, so we had pretty good information on all the lines going back to the boats. The Ancestry info came out to line up pretty well with what we knew. None of them seemed to move much until they made the BIG move across the ocean, which they mostly did for religious and economic reasons. They might now be less than thrilled with the scant regard the current family gives to the religions the ancesters thought were important enough to risk crossing the ocean for.

[Bucky]

18. Americans are so quick to parcel out their Americanness

The fact is that ethnically you're American. Your mode of speaking English is American. Your ideas, your clothes, your music, even the peculiar mix of the foreign-influenced food you consume is largely American. The religious traditions you inherited all have a distinctly American spin on it, despite the European origin. (Which is not so significant, given that the preponderance of European religions have an Asian origin). All the components that make up our culture are decidedly American.

Of course American cultures of blend of many other cultures. But of what modern nationality is that not true?

[Ocelot II]

22. It's probably because unless we are Native, our ethnic/national origins from elsewhere are so recent

that there is still a connection to "the old country." Many Americans' recent ancestors were immigrants, and many have known relatives in the country of origin, so it's easy (and not unreasonable) to identify as Something-American.

[Bucky]

26. Of course "recent" is a relative term.

After all, I've been American my whole life.

Given how recently blended we are, it of course makes perfect sense to have terms like African-American or Italian-American. It's the reductio ad absurdum that are being discussed up thread where someone who thought they were Irish turns out not to be. If you anchor identity and only one facet of yourself (and of course identity always involves some form of partial self-selection) it can set you up for unexpected seismic shifts.

I don't go in for some Teddy Roosevelt style tirade against hyphenated Americans. But I do think that one unfortunate side effect of two generations of unrelenting culture wars from the right has oriented us away from valuing our commonalities behind the hyphens. Being culturally American is a good thing and I think we ought to revel in it more.

Of course another reality is that we're all culturally connected to places that we have no genetic affiliation with. Look at the cultural diffusion of American style consumerism (the power of television compels you) around the globe. Look at all the Jazz musicians who are neither Jewish nor black. Look at all the rockabilly bands in Japanese cities. Humans are all in a messy soup of cultures. It's gorgeous.

[ananda]

24. My maternal grandfather had a German name also.

But my grandmother had the Irish name that came
down the line from County Limerick.

Go figure.

[crud]

31. Thru DNA, My brother found out recently that he had grand kids

while in the air force in 1966 his ex-girlfriend had his baby and he didn't know she was pregnant because he transitioned out of the military and moved home. She gave the baby up for adoption, and the grandkids went searching for their mom's birth parents. I was ruled out because I was 11 at the time.

[Chainfire]

34. My results were not surprising except for two details,

We did not have any Native American DNA as was the family legend, and the rest of the DNA was from Northern Europe, except for a tiny percentage of Pacific Islander. (I would like to know that story)

[LAS14]

42. Maybe the Pacific Islander is the source of the Native American legend. nt

[Talitha]

37. My parents said I was 100% Lithuanian.

Both sets of my Grandparents were born there, so I never questioned it. Then out of curiosity I did a DNA test (CRI Genetics), stressing that my only field of interest was in bloodlines, not ancestry.

Here's the results:

32.2% Polish
21.9% Eastern Slavic

EDIT: darn it, more than 1/2 my post was chopped off. I had a lot more details. But you get my drift about not being 100% Lithuanian.

[Emile]

38. Half afraid to do it. Privacy

[Ms. Toad]

39. My daughter, conceived by anonymous donor insemination

Found her bio-dad. And 3 half-siblings.

Bonus family!!!

[LAS14]

41. You, too? (But not about ancestry).

"My daughter gets involved with the Ancestry/ 21 stuff. I could care less. Or maybe I couldn't care less about it."

I've always said "I could care less," but I've been puzzled as to why that's the phrase, since it seems to mean the exact opposite of what is intended.

What do the rest of you say?

[ARPad95]

44. You're right. It should be "could not/couldn't care less" when one wants to convey complete

disinterest.

[ARPad95]

43. Both grandparents on my maternal side were German immigrants so no surprise receiving 41% Germanic

Europe and 9% Western European with Ancestry.com test.

On my paternal side, I received a mix of mostly Scotland (surprise), Ireland (surprised it's not higher percentage), Wales (no surprise) and Sweden/Denmark (no surprise). The unexpected Scotland percentage makes me think one set of my Irish 2nd great grandparents were Ulster Scots. They immigrated from Northern Ireland in 1852 (surprised it was that early). The other set immigrated from County Mayo in 1874.

My husband has a persistent detectable amount of Indigenous Americas--North that confirms family lore. The surprises are his very English (with a bit of Irish) maternal side having a hefty percentage of Germanic Europe and being related to countless descendants of late 1860s Mormon Utah settlers when my husband's great grandparents didn't even leave England for Central New York until 1882.

Also, his Y-DNA test at FamilyTreeDNA resulted in no matching to anyone with his surname. It seems his direct paternal line 2nd great grandfather was either not the father of his great grandfather, changed his surname or there was a name change earlier in the line.