With more than a touch of peasant wench about me.

My mom is half Portuguese (her dad) and half Nigerian (her mom). My dad is Ghanaian but his dad was half Dutch. Me? I was born in England, went to school in England/Ghana/US and I'm a naturalized USian. Verdict: Who knows?
If we ever have kids they'll be worse off - mr. ramix is Ghanaian/Canadian!

All four of my grandparents were born in Ireland, County Donegal.

Verdict: Jameson-soaked Catholic :)

Father from Dublin IRL, Mother from Essex, GBR. I was born in Mile End, London so I'm 1/2 Irish and 1/2 Cockney, raised in Canada.

Mom is English/Swiss, Dad was adopted (by an Irish/German family - or, for you fans of The Godfather, Mick/Kraut), is most likely some sort of northern European/Irish mix.

bmarkey: file under Trash, White.

Three-fourths Italian, born and bred, one-fourth Croatian, on my mother's mother's side. I am pretty much Italian Roman Catholic by heritage and upbringing. I am swarthy and hairy, God help me. I can say the RC Lord's prayer in four languages. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Still don't know.

Mom is 100% German. Dad is Russian-Lithuanian via Cleveland (with a milkman thrown in there somewhere to account for my olive skin).

My mother was born in in the Northern Italian region of Lombardy and emigrated to the States with here family at the age of 6 in 1953. her father had been here for three years working as a gravestone carver, the trade he would practice his whole life. My father is the New York outer-borough bred descendant of potato-famine era Irish Catholic immigrants. His grandfather was a sailor who helped build the Erie Canal upstate, then came down to NYC and with his partner, My dad's Uncle Jack Whalen (a professional gambler by trade) opened a supply shop for the dockworkers in Lower Manhattan. His maternal grandfather worked for American Tobacco as a buyer and died in Panama at age 23 of yellow fever, so his mother was raised by neighbors who adopted her. They were from Alsace-Lorraine, so she could speak German, French and Italian as well as English. So I can be filed under East Coast Catholic Mutt. My wife is of Lithuianian-Jewish/Irish-Catholic/French-Canadian extraction. Our kids will be totally mongrelized.

My sister married a guy of Lebanese descent. Her kids are Lebanese and irish. they'll be great at blowing things up.

Mostly: Lithuanian Catholic and Polish Catholic on my Dad's side, Lithuanian Catholic and Greek Catholic? Orthodox? on my Mom's.

Additionally: Some bits of American Indian, French-Canadian, and German mixed in there.

I think I'm fourth-generation? It was my great-grandparents' generation (on both sides) that came to the US from Europe; I always get the "Nth-generation" thing confused.

Scottish, Irish, and Scandinavian on my father's side. German and a touch of Cherokee on my mother's. My siblings were a fun mix of blonde-with-blue-eyes and dark-brunette-blue-eyes, and there's always a red-head in every other generation (my dad's brother, and my brother's daughter).

My siblings were a fun mix of blonde-with-blue-eyes and dark-brunette-blue-eyes

Somehow, even though both my parents have green eyes, I have eyes so dark that my pupils are barely visible. makes me wonder ifwe have something else in the woodpile.

Polish with a touch of Polish with some Polish mixed in for good measure. My family name was cited as a prince's name in a letter written by King Jan Sobieski in the 1600s (I think), although it is reported that the prince in question had no descendents.

Father's side - bunch of pale redheads.

Mum's - Italian/New Zealand/English.

And the kid I'm about to pop out gets to add Japanese to that as well...

Scotch/Irish here.

75% German + 25% Bat-shit insane = 100% Bat-shit insane.

I'm half laser beam, half crocodile, all man, quarter party machine, big tipper, bastard, bitter, long drink of water, half Swedish all the way back to mists of time and Northern and Southern Irish with possible English/Jewish people in the mix.

Mostly German, a bit of English, and I'm told a bit of "Indian," which I believe is code for "one of your ancestors got down with a black woman."

When my wife asked her father what they were, he thought for a minute and replied, "Well, I guess you're half hillbilly and half swamp." I have never been more jealous.

I wish I were part Irish, especially right now. Especially since our wedding anniversary is the 17th. Even my sister-in-law's anniversary is the 17th as well. She is Italian-Croatian is well (strange enough). Her husband is Portuguese-Brazilian, so we have ABSOLUTELY no Irish in us at all, but we all desperately wish we had even a drop o' the green at this time o' the year. We all love each other just the same, pretending we are Irish at this time of year, despite our mutually-olive colored/hair-covered skin.

At least we are Catholic. God help us all. Jaysus.

Mom's side: German, Polish, Dutch, Irish in equal measures
Dad's side: Canadian French (mostly), Scottish, Cree and Chippewa Indian (about 1/8th). Rumors of gypsy wayyyy back on dad's side, but who knows?

Verdict: mutt.

Dad's side: Scotch/Irish back to the 1600's. Been in the US a while.
Mom's side: Portugese, Russian, Polish, Uzbeki

Is it a wonder the marriage didn't last?

My parents are New Yorkers. At a distance, that's an ethnicity all its own.

The very latest immigrants were some of my great-grandparents. The Europeans among them were already fairly peripatetic and mongrelized before they showed up: people of Italian heritage living in France, Scottish heritage living in Germany, and so on. So I don't have a lot of stories about their ethnicity, but heritage is a hell of a lot more than that.

The great-grandfather I got my last name from came over as the mechanic for the Fiat racing team in 1908! His son, my dad's dad, designed some logos we still see every day.

Another great-grandfather ran for office as a Communist. He was also responsible for the plane trees that remain to this day along Skillman Avenue in Sunnyside, Queens.

My dad's parents met when they were both in a local Gilbert & Sullivan show.

On my mom's side, one great-grandmother was a Creek from Alabama. Her husband ran a cotton mill and everyone, including his own wife, called him "Mr. Will". My grandfather, their only son, ran away from home when he was fourteen, rode rails for a while, joined the Army, and eventually ended up in New York.

Another great-grandfather was an ornamental plasterer and a fine musician. He'd left England at fourteen and said he "wouldn't walk to the corner to see the Queen dance an Irish jig."

He married Lucy, the great-grandmother I allegedly look like. She took up Seventh-Day Adventism as an adult, to the confusion and dismay of her family. To this day people wonder what she was thinking; there's no way she believed it. Lucy's mother's was Jacobina Schoenwolf. I love saying that.

Most of them were supposedly zany and argumentative and fun. It'd be nice if we could circumvent time such that I could get to hang out with them.

Lucy's mother's name, for heaven's sake.

Oddly, no one in that lineup was Catholic. Even the Italians were basically secular types.

Mom and pops are both from Virgina, with further back bits of the family being from Scotland, Ukraine, and England. Nothing too exciting here.

Scotch, Irish, English, Welsh = gets sunburned reaaaaaaal easy.

I'm a Heinz 57!

My mom was adopted, but we know she had a Scottish name. My last name can be found in England and Ireland, oddly enough. I think it's more English, though that's just a guess. (It's also only one letter different from mathowie's last name... I emailed him once about the origins of his name, but he must have been busy.) My dad has cousins with a Hebrew last name who were not Jewish- I know Jewishness is passed maternally, not paternally, but I still feel a connection there.

I don't know when anybody in my family immigrated to this country, but all the relatives I know of (barring my mom's birth family, in other words) were already here and my dad's family has traced their family tree way back before the Civil War. My favorite ancestor name was a guy named "Montezuma." If I'd ever had a kid, that would have been his/her middle name for sure.

Mum's from the outskirts of London, though I keep forgetting what part of England Gran was from. Some Welsh in there, and rumours of some Italian, though that was apparently too embarrassing to be officially admitted (which sucks--I'd love to know about the Italian beauty who stole my ancestor's heart over the protests of his family). Dad's father's family was originally from Scotland, until they were kicked out. They then lived in Ireland for a generation or two, until they were kicked out. Hence to Canada in the mid-1800s.* My dad's mum's family were Scottish via the States--some United Empire Loyalists, and allegedly one man who was on the run from the law for shooting a man in the Wild West. My uncle has his six-gun, so I guess the story's true. My forebears include many musicians, doctors, teachers, horse ranchers, one Postmaster General, a book binder (or, as he preferred it, a bookmaker, but that was just for the laughs. No, really.), and someone who owned some coal mines until they were all flooded. None of my grandparents were religious, and neither is my dad, but my mum makes up for them all in the sheer number of religions she has belonged to. She is currently (sort of) Orthodox Jewish, and appears to be sticking with it.

Needless to say, I embrace the Scottish renegade/Wild West/prairie doctor/horserancher side with enthusiasm, and am not at all bitter that I didn't inherit musical aptitude beyond the ability to appreciate it. Not in the least. I swear. I also share Specklet's susceptibility to sunburn; my skin has two possible colours: blue-white and purplish red, with melanin applied by Jackson Pollock.

*My great-uncle went back to Scotland to trace the family tree several decades ago (why do we still say 'go back' to a place we ourselves have never been? But that's a question for another comment). He sent back regular reports for a while, then nothing for several months. When he got back to Canada the family kept asking him what he'd found out. His reply? "You don't want to know." He went to his grave without telling anyone. When my uncle went to Scotland, he had tea with some old Scottish ladies (to help you picture this, he's a 6'4" former logger with, at the time, curly red hair and a Sam Elliot handlebar moustache. With a bone china cup gingerly held in fingers that could snap it with the slightest pressure.) One of them turned to him and said, "So your an ______, are ye?" "Yes'm", he replied. "Ach, you must be one of the ______s from [town that he can't remember the name of]." She turned away and refused to speak to him again. Now I know we fought on the right side at Culloden, so the terrible transgression in our family history, the transgression that dare not speak its name, if you will, must remain a mystery. Until I raise the funds to go to Scotland on an extended hunt for the elusive Scottish Bandersnatch source of our shame. I think I'll find it in a pub. And I *will* search every pub in the land if I have to.

My mother’s family were Cornish tin-miners & their wives who moved to Wales to mine coal instead. My father’s mother was a Welsh farmer’s daughter, his father half-Italian, half-probably-Irish-but-no-one-is-really-sure.

I'm 75% German, 25% Irish. From what little I've been able to trace on my own, it seems all my German forebears came from Pomerania, pre-WWII, from an area that is now Poland. I think.

My mom was the daughter of Swedish immigrants, so I'm 50% Viking.

My dad's family name is German, with other German names like Meyers, Snyder, and Schramm contributing -- so pretty much 25% German. There's a Livingood in there -- what a name! -- but it's probably derived from Leibenguth.

But his mother was a Penn, probably of the Penns, so there's quite a bit of English, with names like Thompson, Huffman, and Redman (Redmond), but there's also a good Quaker Engle thrown in, which could ultimately be German or Swiss. But it's close enough to 25% English not to matter.

Almost all of my ancestors were farmers (or related things like carpenters), except for my grandfather, who was a mathematics education expert (the New Math! partly his fault!) at the University of Chicago. If you bounce over to cousins, I have a few, ranging from the astronomer Jack Hartung to the gymnast Jim Hartung, and due to geography probably dancer/actor Billy Hartung as well.

Good Lord, (or Ar n-Aithair in Irish) I had no idea the Irish got around that much! Breeding like rabbits no doubt!
I'm Irish back to the 13th Century, when the name appears to have come in with some Welsh mercenaries. However, my colouring suggests some element of Spanish Armada blow-in in the woodpile!

I'm sad that the Irish Government have moved Paddy's Day to the nearest Saturday (today), but I guess I'm mainly sad that I'm not home for this.

Happy Faked Paddy's Day everyone.

Both parents are Estonians, with something a bit more odd thrown in for the kicks, which would explain my rather dark hair and greenish-brown eyes (a typical Estonian has blue or gray eyes and mousy hair).

Most people before me are from Kiruna, my grandfathers mother was from Narvik. My maternal grandfather was doing family name research and found no russians or germans (which is odd as there's plenty of imported germans in Kiruna) but quite a few women with Sami names. Everyone has been born pretty far north for hundreds of years, I break that trend. I guess it makes me "swedish", but then again, kind of not. ;)

Typical Euro-mutt Australian. My mum's family is Irish - her maternal grandparents were from Tipperary and paternal grandfather from Cork, but on her paternal grandfather's side we have an Irish convict to Australia. This was a Big Family Secret until I was about 8, when it became something to be proud of?!? Anyway, my mother is the eldest of 15 and I'm one of 67 grandchildren on that side - so Wilder has it with the breeding like rabbits and spreading throughout the world even though they became born-agains before I was born.

My paternal great-grandfather emigrated to Australia from Paris, and my paternal grandmother from Dumfries in Scotland (and how I come to be in England on an ancestry visa even though all of my forebears would have typically hated the English).

My nephew's father was Lebanese. My boyfriend is Australian of Cornish-Dutch-German ancestry born in Papua New Guinea so my kids will be little microcosms of Northern Europe-via-the Antipodes.

Are ethnicity monitoring forms common where you are? In Australia it's generally limited to asking if you're indigenous or not, but here every single time you fill in any form you have to complete one. I'm always a write-in: White-other-Australian-of-mixed-European-ancestry.

Oops got confused - the convict was on my mum's paternal grandmother's side.

Mom's Irish/German, Dad's Apache/Mexican (though his mom insisted they were "Mediterranean")

Mom's side.. . .she was a second generation native Californian. . .her father was born there and his parents came out from Arkansas.

Dad's side. . his parents moved to Makinaw, Ill. from Germany (not sure where) and started a farm. I do have a distant uncle somewhere in Bavaria, I hear.

All I got.

Paternal grandpa was Slovak/Russian, paternal grandma Scots-Irish. Moms was adopted, and doesn't know much about her birth parents, but is pretty sure that they were ethnically Eastern European.

(The scene: A rundown sports bar on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn. Turn of the twenty-first century. There are two customers-- jason's_planet and another, whose name has been lost to time. The bartender looks up from washing the glasses.)

BARTENDER: (To j_p) So, kid, what are ya anyway? Italian? Iris-

CUSTOMER: HE'S A NAZI! CAN'T YOU TELL?

(j_p turns to the other customer)

CUSTOMER: You're a German or a Hungarian, aren't you?

And that is how people tend to read me. On my father's side, we are mainly Swedish. One of my ancestors was a prominent member of the colony of New Sweden. On my mother's side, we are are a mix of Anglo-Irish.

And that, I suppose, is my genetic heritage, at least. It's pretty abstract to me because they came here so long ago. I prefer to define myself as an American.

Was just thinking of posting in here, dan:)

Dad: Born and raised in a town called Parwhani, Maharashtra*. After the Independence and then partition of India, family had to leave their ancestral lands (they were zamindars/landlords), and flea to Hyderabad, which was a safe place for muslims at the time, since it was an Islamic state basically. Settled down there, with almost nothing, and eked out a living until he was old enough to move to Saudi Arabia, and get a job. My father's grandfather had come down to India from Yemen, when the Nizam (the king of Hyderabad) was offering lands to farmers so that they could cultivate it. From farming they diversified into acquiring lands. By the time my father was born they lived in a palatial bungalow and had elephants in their backyard, or so I've heard.

A few of my cousins friends have been to Yemen, to go back to the old country, and they tell tales of tribal warfare where blood feuds are still common, and women work the lands and are strong enough to put any Western/Eastern man to shame. I belong to a tribe called Al-Yafai, which still resides there. I can just imagine showing up at a mud house and introducing myself as the cousin from India. (Someday!)

Mom: Born and raised in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Father was from Parwhani as well, although there has been no proof that he and my father's family knew each other, even though it must've been a small place back then.

Mom's father came to Bombay quite young, saved money, invested it in business, and ended up becoming what I would later find out to be the Copper King of Bombay. I thought it was all hogwash, you know--the family trying to pride themselves of the bygone days, until I sat down with a cafe owner outside the compound where my grandmother still lives, and while we got to chatting, and he discovered who I was, he told me that his father knew him well. And he said they used to call him the Copper King of Mumbai... who knew??? (Have no idea where his forefathers were from though.)

Mom's mom is a Pathan, from Afghanistan. My mom's Grandmother, used to be driven around in a planquin back in the day, circa 1900's. What a life these people must've lived.

palanquin, sorry

* As far as my knowledge goes, pre-partition, when Hyderabad was a sovereign state, its borders extended till Parwhani, which is now included in Maharashtra. Hyderabad was divided into various states, and the bulk of it is now what is referred to as Andhra Pradesh.

I'm about 90% German and Irish. My fiance likes to say that makes me a stubborn drunk. He's Albanian and Finnish, so I guess that makes him a stupid drunk?

Furian.

I just new that this would be interesting, hadjiboy. Now I'll have to dig out a map of India because I know where Bombay is, and Yemen, but none of the other places ring a bell, and I am even a tad more geography-literate than your average American.

But, thanks. It's fascinating!

After posting this last night, I was thinking it was an American obsession - as jasons_planet said, that's what we mostly are. I'm glad other continent type bunnies chimed in!

Through my maternal grandfather I'm (in order) Scots, Irish, English and Blackfoot. By my maternal grandmother I'm Scots, Irish, German and English.

All I know about my paternal side is that my grandmother was Scots/Irish and grandfather was English.

Verdict: mostly Scots with a strong dash of Irish and English. Yes, I glow at night and burst into flames when the sun touches me.

The mister is mostly Scots with a bit of English. BUT he is dark complected. I've said that there has to be a bit of Spanish from the Armada in the woodpile. Funny that others here say the same thing.

I have no idea. And how the hell do you find out when the only family member you have is an inveterate liar?

I guess I'm Scandanavian / Celtic. From way back. I have the short wide frame of a hill dweller and the blue eyes of a Viking plunderer.

On my mother's side: Both of her parents have English. There's also a bit of Irish on my grandmother's side; a bit of Scotch on my grandfathers'; and somewhere along the way, Spanish. That shows up in a slight olivey skin tone that my mother inherited - and also my second son. Both sets of great-grandparents moved to Canada in the 1800's. (I have an ancestor who was an engineer for the Canandian Railroad - last name Cudworth. My uncle has the silver tea set they gave him for 50 years of employment). So along with English/Irish/Scottish/Spanish I have French Canadian on my mother's side. My grandparents moved to the USA after their marriage in 1935.

On my father's side: Lying, murdering Irish. I have the temper that goes with it. I have no idea when they arrived in the USA.

My kids: Along with all of my traits, they inherited Finnish (from their father's mother - who was 100% Finnish) and German/Jewish from their dad. Talk about mutts!

Late to the thread.

Both parents Chinese, emigrated from Hong Kong to Canada in the late '60s. In fact they were head-hunted to come work as civil servants in the Canadian government. Since Hong Kong was still a British Colony at the time, my parents' education was Commonwealth-based. The night my mother arrived in Toronto was also the night that the Leafs won the Stanley Cup so she ended up in the middle of the spontaneous celebration on Yonge St. Her enduring memory was a police officer dancing with a stranger. As a new arrival, she was thrilled that Canada was so open and easy-going, not realizing the party was not likely to be repeated any time soon!

So, that's how I ended up a Canadian!

Descended from superheroes, so guess how disappointed my parents are.
Good thing they also suck.

Father's side - bunch of pale redheads.

I am of pale redhead ancestry.

Actually, I was a pale redhead as a child but my hair turned brownish as I got older. I still get sunburned after 10 minutes exposure, though.

*hands around the super strength sunscreen*

Neat story, typewriter!

My father's mother was Irish that settled in northern California and had dairy farms, and his father's family dates back to the migration of english etc. families landing in the Mayflower and moving to the south and then west to California. American history.

On my mom's side I'm a quarter swedish speaking Finnish. That's where I get my comfort food.Dairy farms were here too.

I've had a long history of being asked by black americans and africans about my ethnicity. The other day I was told I looked Aruban.

AMERICAN. Largely influenced by Africa.

My father was born in Manchester, England and his heritage (as far as I know), is British all the way down. My mother was born in New Zealand and her side of the family goes back several generations in New Zealand, after someone emigrated from Scotland. Somewhere along the line, I ended up with olive skin and brown eyes, though.