Your roots

[33girl]

My mom's side is Dutch, German, Italian & Irish (mostly Italian & Irish). My dad is hardcore 100% German (as is 65-70% of my hometown county). Which means I know the meaning of words like "ach du lieber", "hommi" and "rauschmidt." (those are probably spelled incorrectly)

[Hootie]

PETTINGER = Luxembourg
My great, great grandfather (I believe it was two greats...might be one) came over to the states with his two brothers. Evidently the Pettingers in Luxembourg were rather well off and each brother left with some of the families money to make a new life. My Great Aunt told my Aunt that evidently one of the brothers lost all of his money shortly after coming here and was never heard of again. We have no idea where he went or if there is a line of the family out there.
Anyways...my mom's side is a mixture of German, English and French. My Great Grandma was alive when I was little and I remember her singing German Lullabyes to me. The cute thing is that my Grandma and Grandpa Lierman (my mom's folks) were next door neighbors all their life and then ended up marrying!

Hootie

[EPTriSigma]

POLSKA, BABY!!!!

I am like 75% Polish with a little bit of Swedish thrown in their for kicks. I used to hate my polish last name because no one could say it right but now I have learned to love it. I think its halarious. I have determined that I need to marry a nice polish boy and hypenate our last names to form the coolest uber polish name around. It would be great!

[Senusret I]

Black, White, Native American

I'm not telling the percentages, so there.

[Susan_Renee]

My mom's side:
Some Cherokee Indian and Scotch Irish
Dad's side:
Irish and some type of Indian, but not sure which one.

[honeychile]

I won't post the url for my online family tree!

Mother's side: Scots, Irish, English

Dad's side: English, Swiss, German

Redheads in every generation - I had no chance!

[DeltAlum]

Mom's side: Cherokee & a little German.
Dad's side: Anglo Saxon

I swear I thought I posted in this thread years ago when it first came out!

Mom's side is easy. Mom immigrated to Hawai`i in 1973 during the first or second wave of immigration to the United States. Her family has roots in the provinces of Badoc, Ilocos Norte ... the northern islands of the Philippines. I've visited her birthplace only once when I was 3, but we have a school and a hospital named after my great-great-grandfather, one of the men who helped build the town last last century.

My dad's side, not so easy. Born and raised in Na`alehu in 1919 (there was a biiiiiiig age difference between mom and dad, FYI) on the Big Island, it's with him I have my Hawaiian and Japanese roots. In the Hawaiian culture, it's common for families to hanai (give up) their child, often the youngest to a close family member or a close friend of the family. Usually these people are unable to have children. My dad was one of them, and he was given to my grandfather's close childhood friend -- a Filipino/Spanish family, hence my Filipino/Spanish last name.

My father always knew about this, but he didn't think anything of it. After all, this was tradition and the culture was being kept alive despite first the Overthrow, Annexation, and then eventually statehood.

Anyway, my paternal grandfather was 100% Hawaiian (something very rare) who spoke the language fluently. My paternal grandmother was 100% Japanese from Nagano, Japan. They met while working on the sugar plantation.

I already told Killarney Rose this, but my paternal grandpa's MOTHER wasJAILED by the American provisional government (the same ones who Overthrew the Queen) for speaking the native language in public. This happened when she was a teenager. They were cruel to her, but somehow she survived and she refused to give up her native language.

And that's OTW...!

[AGDee]

Father: 100% Sicilian, first generation American
Mother: English, Irish, Scottish, German, French, Dutch, Black Foot.. her family traces back to the Lewis & Clark expedition. An ancestor was accused of murder and had a choice of going to prison or going on the expedition. They didn't think anybody on the expedition would live, so it was like choosing the death penalty. He married a Black Foot while exploring. That's the most interesting thing in my family.

I relate primarily to the Italian culture because it was so strong. My mother's family was too "heinz 57" to maintain any cultural traditions.

Dee

[honeychile]

Originally posted by OohTeenyWahine

I already told Killarney Rose this, but my paternal grandpa's MOTHER wasJAILED by the American provisional government (the same ones who Overthrew the Queen) for speaking the native language in public. This happened when she was a teenager. They were cruel to her, but somehow she survived and she refused to give up her native language.

And that's OTW...!

[layla2728]

my mom's 100% German (but it was her great-grandparents who were actually from the country), and my dad is 100% Iranian (moved to the US to go to college). So I'm 50/50

[LexiKD]

I am first generation 50/50 Greek and German.
They got here in the 60's and go back to the "old Country" all the time. I have to say that I like having such close roots = traditions.

Originally posted by honeychile

Sad, but true, honeychile!

The overthrow took place in 1893, but plans to rid the Hawaiians of their culture started with the missionaries in the mid 1800s. They thought the culture possessed heathen-like ideals, so they got rid of the language, the caste system, and the hula.

Once the Americans took over in 1893, the PG made it illegal to speak Hawaiian. It was truly the darkest days of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

[norcalchick]

I'm 1/2 Filipino and 1/2 Caucasian.

I think there's some Chinese on the Filipino side.
And I think there's some Native American on my dad's side. We've been trying to figure it out. Something about my great great grandfather being adopted, and I guess he was full Native American. One of my dad's uncles has a card that says he's a 1/4 Native American. He was into finding out his roots and stuff. That same uncle found a family tree that goes back to kings of Scotland and maybe family ties to Jesse James the Outlaw, so who knows.

[ThetaPrincess24]

My ancestry is all northern european:

Ireland, Scotland, England, Germany, Netherlands, and about all of the Scandinavian countries.