Show Us Your Pedigree! The Heritage Thread.

[jamespowers]

I am part Scotch---1/5th:

MacKenzie

 

[LizzieMaine]

They stole that castle from *my* family, the clan McLeod!

 

[jamespowers]

They stole that castle from *my* family, the clan McLeod!

How many fifths Scotch are you?

 

[LizzieMaine]

We were expelled from Scotland for not drinking. We were lucky to escape with our lives.

(I'm actually 7/8 Scotch-Irish and 1/8 Italian. And I come from a family of Prohibitionists. What are the odds?)

 

[Atticus Finch]

My Mom used to be into genealogy. She discovered that both sides of my family have been here for a long time. Since before the revolution, actually. But my name (and my father’s) came from Scotland. Mom’s maiden name takes you back to England.

AF

 

[DesertDan]

Mostly German with some Dutch and Cherokee.

My only famous relative is Confederate General Braxton Bragg. He is my many times great uncle on my paternal grandmothers's side.

 

[Retro Spectator]

I am 25% Polish, 25% Slovak, 37.5% Italian, and 12.5% British. I love Polka, ravioli, and crumpets. My Mother's family comes from Italy and England. My Father's family comes from Poland and Slovakia. I am mostly Central European. Even more so if you include Italy Central Europe.

 

[nick123]

1/2th Croatian
1/4th Italian
1/8th German
1/8th French

That's a whole lotta war.

 

[HudsonHawk]

We were expelled from Scotland for not drinking. We were lucky to escape with our lives.

(I'm actually 7/8 Scotch-Irish and 1/8 Italian. And I come from a family of Prohibitionists. What are the odds?)

You sure it wasn't for being Methodists?

 

[jamespowers]

You sure it wasn't for being Methodists?

Kind of the same thing isn't it?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Pretty much.

 

[Gregg Axley]

I am part Scotch---1/5th:

MacKenzie

1/5th...at a time.

Cherokee Indian, Scotch, German

 

[jamespowers]

1/5th...at a time.

Cherokee Indian, Scotch, German

Scotch too eh?

 

[Horace Debussy Jones]

I'm German and French on my mom's side. Ancestors there hail from Alsace Lorraine mostly I think. Then on Dad's side it's Bohemian and Irish. The Irish landing in Baltimore sometime before the civil war and making their way through Virginia to eventually settle in what is now West Virginia. Served in The Army of Virginia.

 

[Shangas]

While I said in a previous post that my family is 'Chinese', I felt that this was too general. 'China' is a huge country.

To be more specific and true to myself and my heritage, my family is actually Straits Chinese. I'm Straits Chinese on my father's side, and I believe, also on my mother's side.

The Straits Chinese (also called the "Peranakan"*) were the inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore and Indonesia, who migrated there from China during the 15th-19th centuries, and who intermarried with the local indigenous populations. "Peranakan" means "Descendant of Marriage between a Local and an Immigrant".

The Straits Chinese get their name because they lived on the Malay Peninsula, east of the Straits of Malacca, and around the Strait of Johor - Hence - Straits Chinese.

While the Straits Chinese were Han Chinese by ethnicity (and later, Han-Chinese-Malay/Indo), they were not, and did not see themselves as being Chinese, from China. They saw themselves as a completely different group of people. While they kept Chinese traditions, customs, superstitions and belief-systems, in all likelihood, most Peranakan Chinese did not speak a WORD of Chinese - if they spoke anything at all, it was most likely Malay, Indonesian, English, or Cantonese (the language of Canton Province and Hong Kong in southern China).

The Peranakan were famous for their porcelain, their clothing, their food, furniture and household decorations, furnishings and personal possessions - ALL OF WHICH, without exception, were highly and intricately decorated to the N'th degree.

Traditional Peranakan Tiffin-Carriers. As you can see, most of them are highly decorated (these are enameled steel).

This is traditional Peranakan/Straits Chinese ladies' wear - Called Sarong Kebaya. Sarong is the wraparound skirt (some of you may be familiar with that if you've ever been to Southeast Asia). Kebaya is the close-fitting, long-sleeved blouse or jacket on top. My grandmother used to wear clothing like this all the time when she was a young lady in the 1920s and 30s. My father said she STILL wore this stuff when he was a child in the 1950s and 60s.

These are Peranakan slippers, worn by women.

These are traditional Peranakan ladies' belts, worn around the Sarong to hold it up, and prevent it from unwraveling unexpectedly. These belts are solid silver. They're MY belts. Originally they belonged to my grandmother. I inherited them from her when she died in 2011.

The Peranakan I.D.'d themselves less and less with China with every passing generation. When the British and other colonial powers came along in the 1700s and 1800s, the Peranakan saw themselves not as Chinese, or even Malays. But rather as British subjects, under protection of the Crown. This lasted until the 1940s and 50s with the Second World War, the Japanese Invasion, and the gradual end of colonisation in the postwar era. There are still millions of Peranakan around, but their crafts and heritage such as this is slowly disappearing.

The Straits Chinese were called 'Peranakan', but were also called 'Baba-Nyonya'. 'Baba-Nyonya' is another Malay-Indo word, like Perankan. Literally, it means 'Man-Woman', but it was also used to refer to people ("men and women of this subculture", hence the term) of both sexes, who were Peranakan in ancestry.

Peranakan culture was also divided into 'Men' and 'Women'.

For example Porcelain might be called Peranakan porcelain. But since it was mostly made and decorated by men, it might also be called "Baba Porcelain".

Peranakan cooking (like everything else they did, extremely elaborate and labour-intensive - I speak from experience!!) might also be called 'Nyonya Cuisine', since it was the duty of the ladies of the house to handle affairs of the kitchen.

 

[vintage.vendeuse]

I submitted my DNA to 23andme and got my ancestry profile back.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/23andme-is-terrifying-but-not-for-reasons-fda/

Nevertheless, I can't help being curious, too...

 

[Horace Debussy Jones]

That's pretty scary! :eeek: No way I'm sending my DNA to a nefarious laboratory somewhere. I'll just go with what I already know.

 

[gaseousclay]

50% Japanese (mom)
25% German
25% Swedish (dad's side)

That makes me 100% awesome


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[LuvMyMan]

I am sure there are no "cone heads" in the past family tree in my life, or before....very certain I am from the planet Earth, and have some miles of travel and experiences behind me.....Our family seems to share a German back ground if you time travel back to the 1800's when they first decided to reside here in the USA.

My Husband has German, Dutch, British.....what a combo!

This was all a topic here at our home just a few weeks ago, and one of my best friends seriously would have to list one part of her background is without any doubt, "Red Haired Milk Man".......

 

[Horace Debussy Jones]

Grammy and Grampy,... lol

[/URL][/IMG]