have you ever been mistaken for a race/ethnicity/ancestry that you are not?

[PunnyBeaker]

I get told I look French even though I am English

When I was in my teens I got asked by someone i knew vaguely (he was Hong Kong Chinese) if I was Chinese. I am white British and have brown eyes and before it went grey my hair was almost black.

I've a few times been mistaken as Jewish. My dad thinks my great-great grandfather may have been a convert from Judaism to Methodism but there's no actual evidence of that and I have never done one of those DNA tests to find out what's in my ancestry. I would be interested to find out but don't really trust the tests.

Jewish

Nothing too exotic or even that different from what I actually am. My kids all have Irish names because DH is Irish. Everyone assumes I’m the Irish one because I have red hair. I’m English/Scottish.

I've frequently been mistaken for Russian. Even in Russia! Then when I said I wasn't, they thought I was Polish. No ancestry of either as far as I know.

Almost every single time I have gone to France people have assumed I am French. I don't think it's looks, it's more that I speak the language passingly well.

I'm mixed race and olive skinned but have 'white' features. I look like my white parent. I am constantly mistaken for some version of Mediterranean (Greek, French, Spanish, Italian etc).

I find it funny… if in Britain they think I am Italian, in Spain they think I am Portuguese, some people think I am from Malta, others from Argentina, in Greece they think I am Turkish, Turkish think the same, Indonesians think I am Indian and yes, some people in the English countryside have asked me if I am Chinese even when I have big round eyes, curly hair, dark skin and I’m almost 6ft tall.

Quite often people claim to think I'm french or Scandinavian (when outside the UK) but I suspect they just know that British people would be flattered by this mistake.

Abroad, I've been asked several times if I'm Scottish or Irish. My answer is both, but way way back! My daughter was at Univ in Scotland and was always assumed to have a Scottish parent because she looks Celtic like me and has a Scottish first name.

Not an ethnicity but when I lived in Berlin lots of people assumed I was American. Apparently my Irish accent sounded like an American accent when I was speaking German.

I’m talk, blonde hair/blue eyes and outdoorsy. I lived in the Netherlands for a while as a child, and work in flood defence. People who know these things often assume I am Dutch, who has lived in the UK most of my life, rather than the other way round.

That’s interesting. DDad grew up in Sunderland with a Scottish mother, then lived in Jamaica and the US for many years. People who didn’t know him thought he was German from the resultant accent mash up.

I sometimes get mistaken for Spanish or Italian, I’m actually half Chinese and half white British. I’ve even had someone come up to me in the UK and start speaking Spanish.

My dd is frequently asked if she’s Spanish, Greek or Italian. She gets the olive skin and brown hair from my mum’s side of the family (no southern European in our genes though). Her sister is blonde, blue eyes and skin so pale it’s almost translucent. Both have the same dad, my DH. Genes are funny things.

I'd also forgotten that when I was younger and on holiday in say Greece or other Mediterranean country, people would often assume I was Scandinavian. Probably the blue eyes and, at the time very blonde hair but a great tan too

Yes. Dutch (whilst on holiday in Holland) German and Scandinavian (whilst on holiday in other European countries).

DH gets this loads, we find it funny. He gets French the most often but can’t speak a word of it.

Flying to Estonia the air hostess assumed I was Estonian.

No, but I'm from an African country, and my blonde, blue-eyed child has often been asked if I'm black (I'm not) including by a friend of his that I'd actually given a lift to a couple of times, so it's not like he hadn't seen me!

My husband’s family have Dutch ancestry but a long way back. However my husband and his sister , one of her kids and both of ours have blond hair. There was a time when I worked at the weekend and all
the blonds would spent the day out together. They must have looked like some weird 1950’s horror film 😂. But yes husband was assumed Dutch when he worked in Germany by his accent. And DD1 got my height so very regularly taken for Dutch

I have been mistaken for Russian ( in an ex Soviet country). Understandable.

I have also been mistaken for Chinese. I do not look Chinese, at all.

I have often been taken for Irish, also curly red hair.

I've been mistaken for French and Spanish.

As an Irish person the stereotype of curly red hair isn’t particularly common. Many people have the Corrs colouring, I don’t!

No, but some people think two of my children looked mixed race as in black/white mix. They aren't and they all share the same father.