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My mom has been looking up her background for a year now and we come to find that we are mixed with almost everything! We have ancestors from Canada (native americans), China, Spain and the Islands! And this is just in the 1700s! Dang, my family really got around!

So I wonder, what is your native background?

That's really neat stuff! Just about all of my ancestors lived in the British Isles at one point or another. Whether they were vikings that moved to Scotland, Vikings to moved to France and then to England, or they lived there to begin with Most of my ancestors lived in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales though. There's a lot of Celtic ancestry, which is why I love Irish stuff so much. I know there's more nationalities, but the Isles are where most of my family descended from. I had this one lady tell me I looked Scots/Irish, which was really weird....

Well I'm Mayan, Aztec, Spanish (I have an ancestor from Spain), Apache and German. That's just what I know of, I've never bothered to look up my family or anything.

Reiluna wrote:I've never bothered to look up my family or anything.

Me neither but my mom was all like "we have to know about our family!" and started searching. I never got into it until she told me about us being a little bit or everything!

italian, euromud, and german

I never cared until we went to a Scottish Fest in Colorado. It took me a couple of times before I found out it was my heritage. Then I started looking because I wanted to see what kind of people were related to me. Mayan and Aztec stuff is awesome! I love the pyramids and the carvings My dad has pic of some cool ones

Yeah, I only know about my mom's background. I don't know my real father's background because he is dead (died on July 4) and we are not speaking to his family right now.

Actually, i think the correct word is ziggurats for that type of 'pyramid'. pyramids are usually smooth, i think.

lets see I'am Greek, Cheroke, and Brittish

Allen:That's sad to hear. I know what that's like. My biological dad 10 years and his parents won't really talk us. Nobody on that side talks to us except my great grandma. My (step)dad's family doesn't really have a lot to do with us either I know they came from Scotland, but that's it, because my dad doesn't discuss his family very much. I know he'd tell me if I asked, but it's kinda awkward.... My mom's family hates us too, mainly because we're better off than they are. My mom's parents are the only ones that like me, my mom, and my dad. No boring family reunions though!

I thought ziggurats were the ones in, oh gawd where was it, Mesopotamia? No. Babylonia? Persia? Oh well I guess they would be ziggurats because they're in a step pattern, but there's a step pyramid in Egypt too and I've always heard the term pyramid. Gr! Historians and their fancy words for basically the same thing

Hispanic 100% pure and fresh squeezed.

my family is as far as i know all from germany denmark and sweden

My stepdad is from sweden so I'm sure his background is swedish.

me english and a little bit of dutch in my family

Black Shuck wrote:My mom's family hates us too, mainly because we're better off than they are.

I know they're some haters in my mom's family. The whole family, even on my real dad's side, knows us as the "Rich Family".

I guess having a house worth 85k, three cars inculding a PT crusier and a dodge magnum, and having a computer for everyone gives that idea.

That might have a bit too do with it They don't do so well because 1) they don't do anything productive and 2) they're druggies and thieves that hate everyone. My grandpa gave me his truck and m one aunt threatened to burn it down Of course, it probably didn't help when my dad and I drove past her apartment and honked the horn and then my mom and I parked it next to her at City Market. Only reason it pisses 'em off so bad is because I'm the only grandchild my grandparents like and therefore the favorite and my grandparents never gave them or their kids anything. I guess when it comes down to it I'd rather have my end of the stick than theirs

Ziggurats: Mesopotamia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziggurats

The Mesoamerican pyramids are still called 'pyramids' (or 'step pyramids'), even though they more closely resemble ziggurats.

-- Vilkacis

I really don't know why my family don't do well. Alive today, I have (family I know) more then 45 which inculde an great uncle who is 92.

Oh wow! I was right the first time Thanks for clearing that up for me Vilkacis

I got some pretty illustrious ancestors, so my family's heavily into its history and genealogy. Hold onto your stripes, here we go:

I was adopted at birth so I grew up not knowing what I was. I didn't know until my biological sister found me (at age 36) and then came the info-dump.

On biological mother's side: German, Irish, Basque and Iroquois. Know more about my grandmother Doris than I do about my grandfather Jack. All I know about him is he was German, Basque and Iroquois, Grandma was the youngest daughter of a major rich family from Alameda County, CA (Oakland/Berkeley). She was an alcoholic so she was the one they hid in the closet when the relatives came over. Anyway, Grampa Jack was a volunteer fireman and he went off to WWII, died in the Battle of the Bulge and never came back. My mother never knew him and Grandma spent the next fourteen years on the couch, listening to the radio and getting plastered on gin before she re-married. My mother grew up wild, took up with one guy, got pregnant, gave that kid up; then took up with my father, wash rinse repeat, away I go and I never knew my father. Which turned out to be kind of a good thing...he was bad, and not in the cool way either...

So my father was half German and one-quarter Irish, one quarter Shawnee. And on the German side he went back to the Rittenhouses — yeah, the Philly Rittenhouses There's a whole dynasty right there, first Mennonite minister on American soil, first paper mill on American soil, the company's still going and the mill is preserved in the Park Service, and my ancestor David Rittenhouse, Sr. calligraphed the Declaration of Independence. He was the only founding father that didn't sign it, but he did the most important part: everything else!

In the old country, Old Papa Wilhelm goes back to a whole line of horse breeders, scholars, scribes, even Vikings. The family came down from Norway originally, settled in das Rheinland, and Papa Wilhelm went from there to Arnhem, Die Nederlands to learn his trade before hopping the ship to the colonies. He was part of the Germantown Compact which was the first anti-slavery protest on this continent. The signatories decried the practice as barbaric and swore they did not then and never would keep slaves. Can you imagine? This is in the late 1600s, today that would be like the Kill Your Television movement or ripping down the Teamster's Union. So anyway, if someone says "Don't knock slavery, your ancestors had them" I can say, "Most of them didn't and I can prove it!"

I'm also related to some of th Zeigfield Girls on my father's side of the family. One of them married, moved down to Anaheim, and — yeah, you guessed it, she and her husband owned one of the orange groves that Walt Disney bought

On my mother's side of the family we have a couple bigwigs in the Alameda County Democratic Party and two California Supreme Court judges. Heh. Rather ironic that I registered Libertarian, neh?

English, Irish((not im not drunk)) aaaand, canadian

vrikasatma wrote:I got some pretty illustrious ancestors, so my family's heavily into its history and genealogy. Hold onto your stripes, here we go:

I was adopted at birth so I grew up not knowing what I was. I didn't know until my biological sister found me (at age 36) and then came the info-dump.

On biological mother's side: German, Irish, Basque and Iroquois. Know more about my grandmother Doris than I do about my grandfather Jack. All I know about him is he was German, Basque and Iroquois, Grandma was the youngest daughter of a major rich family from Alameda County, CA (Oakland/Berkeley). She was an alcoholic so she was the one they hid in the closet when the relatives came over. Anyway, Grampa Jack was a volunteer fireman and he went off to WWII, died in the Battle of the Bulge and never came back. My mother never knew him and Grandma spent the next fourteen years on the couch, listening to the radio and getting plastered on gin before she re-married. My mother grew up wild, took up with one guy, got pregnant, gave that kid up; then took up with my father, wash rinse repeat, away I go and I never knew my father. Which turned out to be kind of a good thing...he was bad, and not in the cool way either...

So my father was half German and one-quarter Irish, one quarter Shawnee. And on the German side he went back to the Rittenhouses — yeah, the Philly Rittenhouses There's a whole dynasty right there, first Mennonite minister on American soil, first paper mill on American soil, the company's still going and the mill is preserved in the Park Service, and my ancestor David Rittenhouse, Sr. calligraphed the Declaration of Independence. He was the only founding father that didn't sign it, but he did the most important part: everything else!

In the old country, Old Papa Wilhelm goes back to a whole line of horse breeders, scholars, scribes, even Vikings. The family came down from Norway originally, settled in das Rheinland, and Papa Wilhelm went from there to Arnhem, Die Nederlands to learn his trade before hopping the ship to the colonies. He was part of the Germantown Compact which was the first anti-slavery protest on this continent. The signatories decried the practice as barbaric and swore they did not then and never would keep slaves. Can you imagine? This is in the late 1600s, today that would be like the Kill Your Television movement or ripping down the Teamster's Union. So anyway, if someone says "Don't knock slavery, your ancestors had them" I can say, "Most of them didn't and I can prove it!"

I'm also related to some of th Zeigfield Girls on my father's side of the family. One of them married, moved down to Anaheim, and — yeah, you guessed it, she and her husband owned one of the orange groves that Walt Disney bought

On my mother's side of the family we have a couple bigwigs in the Alameda County Democratic Party and two California Supreme Court judges. Heh. Rather ironic that I registered Libertarian, neh?

cool story.

That's a lot of famous relatives Vrikasatma! The ones I'm related to are this guy called the Ultimate Name (silly me, I don't his name), William the Conqueror (who built the Tower of London), a Lord Forrester who had Torwood Castle, which is near Falkirk (William Wallace aka Braveheart, had a battle at Falkirk), Sir Douglas, who carried Robert the Bruce's heart back to Scotland, William Penn, and then important people in Utah history. Orange Warner homesteaded Fillmore (I can't throw a rock over there without hitting someone I'm related to) and Orlando Warner, who Warner Lake was named after (Warner Lake's by me), and John Powell (not John Wesley Powell) who converted to LDS and moved to Utah. He kept a journal and had the worst luck, but he still pressed forward. Now his journal's kept in a Mormon museum. My grandma's stepdad never fought in the World War. I think he was too old anyways, but he really didn't want to go so he stabbed himself in the hand with a screwdriver My grandma hated him. Birds always crap on his side of the gravestone (the other side's my grandma's mom). My grandpa's family owned half of Fillmore at one point, and when he and my grandma were married, they had a ranch. My grandma broke horses for racing or just for riding and she held more chemical application (my grandparents had a bug spraying business) licenses than any other woman in Utah. That's all I can think of

It gets better. My ancestor David Sr. and his brother Benjamin were surveyors for the Mason-Dixon line and set the southwest corner of the state of Pennsylvania. They also built the prototypes for Benjamin Franklin's inventions. Too bad he didn't believe in patents, our family would be right up there with the Carnegies and Vanderbilts. They made the prototypes for bifocals and the Franklin stove. David Sr.'s work was more utilitarian, Benjamin had the artistic flair. I like to think I got a little of Uncle Benny's mojo

David Sr. was George Washington's number one advisor, as well.

I saw a portrait of Ol' Papa Wilhelm, I think I'd have liked him. He looked like a pleasant, humourous man, lots of laugh-lines. It was funny; he had five kids and the first four had Biblical names but the youngest daughter had a Pagan name, Psyche. I can't wait to meet them all when I make the final plunge and go over there

It did get better! I'd like to see my ancestors. I think it'd be cool to go back in tme and see them in their "element", just doing their thing I almost forgot, heh, I'm related to Matt Warner, who was a outlaw who rode with Butch Cassidy. He later became a sheriff. On my dad's side, I'm related to Billy the Kid. Don't know why I forgot those That Papa Wilhelm sounds like a neat fellow