Quote:
Originally Posted by SoCalGirl
I agree with the thought that the longer your family has been in the states the more likely that you're not ethnic any more. But I do want to remind people that when your family has been in the states for a long time your last name is a less dependable indicator of ethnicity.
For example, my last name is English. Most of my ethnic heritage is actually German. Even then there's some fuzzyness if my great great grandfather truly was Bavarian or French. He was the last immigrant that we're aware of and he was still here in time to enlist in the Civil War! Most of his daughters moved to the South. One even ran off and married a Cuban before divorcing and settling in Atlanta! The point is, names mean nothing these days. 
eta: Drole kind of beat to my point.  |
I think this is interesting re: last names not being indicative of your hertitage. My last name is very German. My great-great grandfather came to the US in the early 1860s. (No, I didn't miss a generation there, my great-grandfather married later in life and then had 8 kids.) The name hasn't changed since then.
My heritage is actually over 50% German - my dad is 100% German - my mom is probably about 25%. About half of my mom's side of the family has been in the states since around the late 1600s/early 1700s. And the heritage on my mom's side is German/Scottish/English/Welsh.
Perhaps it's just that my dad's side of the family hasn't been in the U.S. long enough. My mom does occassionally like to tease him about it since her family has been here so long.
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