To ask your ethnic group?

[bojkaboom]

...in your country of origin or parents' or grandparents' or ancestors' country of origin (if you know)?

Inspired by a thread here and I had to google an ethnic group mentioned. It's led to the interest in different ethnic groups in other countries and I'll like to learn more about other people's.

I'm English (with a Scottish heritage. Mum was part English and Scottish) but from ancestors, I've been told Anglo-Saxons who're Germanic tribes that migrated from Denmark and Germany to the island in the 5th century.

I am Canadian (as are my parents). My ancestors were Irish Catholics and Russian Jews who fled their respective countries from famine and persecution.

@SharonasCorona Aww never say never. What about you or your parents? Any ethnic groups in your or their country?

It doesn't matter if one is aware of their ancestry or not here. It was just to add more interesting cultures where possible but don't feel left out. We all have an ethnic group even if it's as boring as mine (without the ancestor's bit)

British English born (London) white; I have some Scottish Irish and Jewish blood from way back. IC1 female according to The Bill.

Why do you want to know?

I’m white british. My mum’s mum was born and raised in Germany so I’m a quarter German. I’m very dark haired with pale skin and blue eyes and so was she.

My dads side are from Ireland. From what I can tell it must have been his great grand mother who was Irish and then they came over here to Liverpool which is a common story and settled.

White British

My dad once spent a couple of years searching the family tree on his and my mums side. In something like 300 years my entire family lineage has moved about 75 miles from Dundee to where I am today. Not exactly progress!

@calamityjam Very interesting read about Kolkata, thanks for that information. I hope you find your family

White British with French maternal grandmother (I look more Eng / Aus than French tall / blonde / freckles people more surprised at French part than Aus part but French GM was tall anyway )

Born in U.K., grew up in Aus, back to London over 20 years ago so half / half pretty much.

Accent softened most will say yes you sound it, some ‘where are you from’ and many who are not from U.K. can’t hear it and thought me English.

It depends how far back you want to go, ultimately my ancestors would have been from the African continent. But I'm non black do can't go round saying I'm black.
More recently I discovered that my ancestors came to England from Dublin in the 1850s because of the potato famine. But I don't consider myself Irish, we are all a mix of everything tbh.

I’m personally not offended by this thread. I’m Han Chinese most recently 3rd generation out of China Settling in south east Asia. Half Cantonese and Hokkien (different dialect groups).

The dialect groups have different foods, customs and language sounds quite different. The experience of different dialect groups in different countries is also different (eg Hong Kong Cantonese vs Malaysian Cantonese; Taiwan hokkien vs Singapore hokkien). 1 parent is pro-communist China and was affected by anti-communist British actions. The other parent is anti-communist China and ancestors had to run away from revolution.

My parents didn’t teach me their dialect or mandarin. I would like them to teach my kids - but them teaching mandarin is like an English person teaching their child french they learnt from school (plus they understand but don’t speak each others’ dialects).

I can get mistaken for a Japanese person, which I don’t get offended by (I like the food, find the culture interesting), but a few of the older generation that lived through the war do. I’m can see that some of the other ethnic groups in SEA would be offended to be mistakenly called Chinese, but it’s not something I have asked. Some of my relatives object to being called ‘oriental’ as they feel it ‘others’/fetishizes them - prefer East Asian. But I’m quite chill.

@IncorrigibleTitmouse We can only hope that one of these days we’ll evolve enough to stop killing each other

Agreed. It's beyond disgusting.

Was going to ask you about the Greek Cypriots as well but wasn't sure how to phrase it. I've looked up different cultures many times but never gone the full hog with cultural anthropology or anthropology as a whole. A quick search and I can already see this is what I'll be sinking my teeth into for the foreseeable future, along with all the different groups and cultures already mentioned here so far (I can see a 'Rabbit hole' . Thank you for the information.

Welsh as far back as I'm aware.

Well, my Dad and his parents, grandparents and so on hailed from Ireland.

On my Mums side her dad (my grandad) also Irish, with Irish ancestors

My Nan however whilst born in London is the daughter of a Spanish mother who came from a family of travellers in the circus, whilst her dad fled Sicily to London with his Spanish wife, changing his Sicilian surname slightly to fit in more to England.

@bojkaboom the Greek Cypriot thing definitely is fascinating. The island has had so much cultural influence over the years.

@AllNaturalIngredients oh that's fascinating. Don't think I've seen anyone who's fully Irish or English (unless I've missed a few here) but I also haven't seen many people's ancestry result either

Depends on what the form is asking.

I was born in and have lived all my life in England and I have a (very) light-coloured skin, blue eyes and (pre-grey) fair hair. DF was Irish -- a doctor who came here in the 50s to get work. DM was English, originally from Yorkshire. All traceable ancestry (about 200 years worth) came from the British Isles. So depending on the form I am British, English, White, White British, or White Other. I don't claim Irish or White Irish because I never lived in Ireland, even though I hold Irish citizenship by descent.

White English and my ancestors have lived and worked in the same city since the 1800s. My family history isn't very interesting although I am distantly related to a famous writer from the early 1900s.

White British on both sides, going back centuries.

Why do you want to know?

OP clearly wants to perform nefarious eugenics on us all from behind her keyboard.

So much ridiculousness on this thread.

White with an Irish father and half English half Welsh mother.

My dad looks French (slim, tall, sallow complextion). My mum looks Spanish (short, pear shaped, large dark brown eyes, dark eyebrows, almost black hair, looks deeply tanned in December). So probably both celts?
I have been mistaken for Hispanic before despite only ever living in England and Ireland (until I open my mouth) and have been presumed to be a local by locals in Spain and Malta (asked questions in Spanish rather than English and then disbelieved when I tell them I can't speak a word of it) and mistaken for Spanish in Turkey too.

I look a lot like my mum.

Both sides of my family have lived in Britain for generations so we're not entirely sure where the colouring comes from (though my mum looks nothing like the rest of her family who are blonde and blue eyed and a solid foot taller than her).

@polyglot

and recording ancient Nordic music ("the music of my people").

That made me laugh.

Can't believe I've ignored Anthropology till now!

White & born in Ireland, as were all my ancestors going back forever. I hate the 'white Irish' box on ethnicity forms though. I know what its getting at, but I've always thought of Irishness as a citizenship / allegiance thing (there are plenty of non-white Irish people nowadays).

Complete Greek Cypriot here with according to ancestry dna a smattering of Greek, Albanian, Italian & Lebanese ancestry. More than a smattering of Turkish dna & seeing one of grandparents is from the coast (now north Cyprus) hardly surprising. I can pass for a Middle Eastern if wearing a headscarf (which I’ll wear if going to a Turkish funeral). I have a lot of Turkish friends due to where I live as do my dcs. I think it’s better to be tolerant than to say you can’t be friends due to recent atrocities. Some of my family don’t feel the same as we had family killed in the 1974 war. But for me it’s better to move forward with our shared culture & promote our similarities than our differences.

Also how are we meant to learn about other cultures unless we ask questions & are interested?

Re the 1974 war I’ve spoken to my dcs about it & said we need to learn from it & not try & erase it from memory. You need to learn from the past & not make the same mistakes. I understand though for some of my family they can’t move forward. It’s hard to lose family in a war & one in living memory.

I don’t think your question was racist either.

@lemmathelemmin Thank you. The only thing I ever knew about Uganda was Idi Amin but I'll be diving into reading up on the Buganda tribe and the wealth of information I'm sure it will lead to about Uganda. I already have a tab open on it (I have so many tabs open for reference, it's insane Thanks so much for the information.

If I had been asked 5 years ago I would of said white English / Irish. Family have on both done extensive family tree. So mainly Irish with Scottish and various European in the mix. DP and myself have done the DNA test, mine was 70% Irish/ Scottish and a mix of Mainland Europe. DPs was 100% Irish/Scottish he was so upset as he so wanted to be a Viking.