Do you know other parts of your heritage?

[Aeolienne]

I inherited my blond hair from my paternal grandmother, who was said to be a throwback to the Vikings who'd landed in her part of East Yorkshire.

 

[Mary Terry]

My family is primarily Germanic and we look it with light skin, fair hair and usually blue or green eyes. Our ancestors immigrated from Austria to Germany not long after Martin Luther nailing his thesis to the Catholic church door so we surmise our ancestors were Protestants under siege by Austrian Catholics who fled to a safer place. Or we could have been Jewish as our last name could easily be deemed Jewish. At any rate, one of my ancestors was a prominent Lutheran minister in Germany in the 1800s. We donated his huge Bible with beautiful illustrations to a museum. Our ancient family crest is Austrian - with a wild boar and a tree growing out of its back with rampant lions on each side which I've always found amusing.

We know that some ancestors came to America prior to the Revolutionary War with England and some came afterwards. None of us came to the southern US until the 1950s so we weren't slave owners.

I've never done a genetic test for ancestry because it creeps me out that other people would have our names and genetic profiles. I think you waive your right to privacy when you sign up for one of the DNA kits.

 

[Book Reader]

No. Adopted. But now they have DNA tests to find out much more.

 

[thickpeen]

my grandma is, as she calls herself, an "ABC—" aka american born chinese (her parents were both immigrants). so i'm a second(?) generation chinese-american. my grandfather's side is ashkenazi jewish and german. my grandma converted when she married him. i'm the only chinese german-jew i know. i don't know much about my paternal lineage, only that they were very german.

 

[Aeolienne]

I've done some research on two of my great-grandparents, mainly to confirm the true story behind things they were alleged to have achieved.

First was my mother's paternal grandfather, of whom my great-aunt (one of his daughters) said he had invented soluble aspirin. This was c.25 years ago, when the internet wasn't readily available, so I devoted a day to researching my great-grandfather's inventions in the archives of the Patent Office, or rather its London offshoot. The Patent Office (now the Intellectual Property Office (IPO)) has been based in Newport since 1991 but they maintain an office in London's legal district. What I discovered was that my great-grandfather did not invent soluble aspirin (that was a couple of Americans, IIRC - can't be bothered to look it up right now) but he did patent a process for purifying cinchona bark which could well have been a source of aspirin before people worked out how to synthesise it in the lab.

Some years later at a family reunion with our German relatives, my aunt (not the aforementioned great-aunt) announced that she'd discovered that our great-grandfather spent the duration of WWI in an internment camp. He was British, married to a German (albeit I'm told my great-grandmother spoke English better than German) and living in Germany when the war broke out, so as an enemy alien he had to be rounded up. My great-grandmother pleaded with the British Government to do a deal with the Reichstag, as in do some kind of prisoner exchange with a German in a British internment camp, to no avail. However she did manage to get out of Germany with her three children, travelling to England via neutral Holland.

The thought of my great-grandfather, as a research chemist, in a German internment camp is troubling to say the least. I can't help but draw parallels with Primo Levi in WWII, even though an internment camp is not the same as a concentration camp. Did my great-grandfather's scientific knowledge contribute to the killing fields of Flanders? I'm not sure I'd like to know...

More recently I listened to a very interesting Radio 3 documentary about the Ruhleben internment camp, which my mother has confirmed was the very same one her grandfather was held in. It's made me want to revisit my research on his scientific career. What was he working on before the war? I'm assuming that he was working in Germany, not just visiting.

The other relative I researched was my father's paternal grandmother, who according to family legend was the first woman to obtain a PhD from the LSE. Up to a point … The PhD in its current form didn't become standard in the UK until after WWI. What my great-grandmother received was a DSc, awarded for a thesis based on two years of research - the equivalent of an MPhil today. However she appears to have been the first woman to graduate from the LSE in any degree discipline, and her thesis was published and served as a standard textbook on Anglo-Irish economic relations for a time.

 

[Adora]

I have a mixture of Polish,Scottish,German and maybe Irish aswell.

 

[WhoDatLady]

I have a ton of English and Irish and French in me, and a smidgen of Native American as well.

 

[Crossbreed]

Based on family folklore,

1. English (including well-known American figures), 50%
2. German (Pennsylvania Dutch), 25%
3. Irish, 12.5%
4. French, 12.5%

 

[Aspychata]

Predominately German, Norwegian, Italian, with a twist of French, Scottish

 

[Aeolienne]

The thought of my great-grandfather, as a research chemist, in a German internment camp is troubling to say the least. I can't help but draw parallels with Primo Levi in WWII, even though an internment camp is not the same as a concentration camp. Did my great-grandfather's scientific knowledge contribute to the killing fields of Flanders? I'm not sure I'd like to know...

More recently I listened to a very interesting Radio 3 documentary about the Ruhleben internment camp, which my mother has confirmed was the very same one her grandfather was held in. It's made me want to revisit my research on his scientific career. What was he working on before the war? I'm assuming that he was working in Germany, not just visiting.

A search on Google Scholar (pity there isn't an Ecosia equivalent) revealed that my great-grandfather had a paper published in Nature in the 1920s about his Ruhleben experience, available to purchase for $8.99. From what I could see of the abstract (I haven't ordered the paper yet), his time was spent running chemistry lessons for his fellow inmates rather than developing weapons. That's a relief to know. Also found on Google Scholar - or rather Google Patent to which it redirected - were a couple of patents my great-grandfather filed with the US Patent Office in the early 1910s. One was in fact dated late 1914, after the war broke out, but given how long it took to send documents overseas back then it's fair to assume that he had submitted the paperwork prior to his internment.

 

[Aspychata]

My great great grandmother on mothers side came over on a boat from Italy, her daughter said that she wouldn't pay protection money for her small grocery store to the Mafia. My grandmother on father's side said there was German royalty connections, and we belong to The Pioneer Daughters of America, l am thinking l got meself some solid grit to get through just about anything in life. I do know that l need loads of tomato sauce and garlic, and eating cabbagge and red onions raw everyday is probably due to my heritage, of course l could easily follow it up with a great German beer.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

and eating cabbagge and red onions raw everyday

How many onions?
A basket?
Good for vitamin c...