Ethnicity??

[lkocanda]

How do I find out what I am?
I have tested in mtDNA and Family Finder..
Thanks

[Javelin]

How do I find out what I am?
I have tested in mtDNA and Family Finder..
Thanks

What are the ethnicities of your closest DNA relatives and do they match your Population Finder, more or less?

mtDNA can be a great clue but only for your direct maternal line, which may or may not be typical of your entire ancestry.

[Sue Crowley]

Ikokanda,

When you log into your account, cllick on Family Finder at the top, then scroll down to Population Finder and click on it. You will find that most folks don't think PF is particularly accurate.

[CoachTMBSC]

I used to look for that same answer. Many of my friends still do. The problem is, ethnicity is either self-identified or ascribed by others and is a very fluid social construct. ie: we humans make it up and it changes all the time. Sometimes it changes based upon who you're talking to at the moment. Sometimes we even argue over who is which what...

To compound things, we don't have to be just one. We can each belong to many. We can also be ascribed by others to one that we don't ascribe ourselves to or self-identify to some that others in that group don't identify us as.

None-the-less, a lot of us look for an answer to that whole "Who/what am I? Where do I come from?" question. For a quick and simple answer - do the Family Finder and then run your raw data through GedMatch's admixture utilities (or ask someone here to do it for you if you need to) and you'll get back all sorts of things to examine and consider. It'll you things like "you're 82.6% Western European" and such. Interesting, but not a perfect indicator.

Now, based on my too-long search for an answer that doesn't exist. You are whatever ethnicity you share the cultural attributes with. You're not those with which you share no culture even though some of your ancestors might have been.

As you examine more of "who am I?" start with the ancestral groups you know about or learn about through FF/atDNA but then examine the cultures yourself and learn what about you makes you like, or not, them.

Many of the conditions which make us one "ethnicity" or another don't show up in the DNA at all - but most do if you look for their source. I, for example, always have oyster stew on Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve is when the family gathers, a large meal is had, and we exchange gifts. That's all an ethnic marker.

The more you study it all, the more it becomes evident that there are no really simple pigeon holes to put everyone neatly into.

[MoberlyDrake]

My grandmother always told everybody she was French, even though she was fully aware that her mother was German. Her father was a French immigrant. Her mother's ancestors had immigrated from Germany between 1840 and 1886. Since her father's mother was from Luxembourg and his father from Lorraine, I imagine he had German ancestry too.

With my grandmother, I think it was a matter being a girl during World War I, when Germans were suspect. She also called herself "Marie Marguerite Eugenie". Her Catholic church baptism record says her name was Margaret Mary, and her confirmation name was Rose. Her mother, in a list of her children in an insurance booklet, wrote her name "Marguerite Mary". Her civil birth record was recorded at a period when they just gave the child's sex, date of birth and names of parents.

The end we result is that we really don't know what her name was, but we definitely think the "Eugenie" part was her own fanciful invention!

[Biblioteque]

Allegiance to one's country

Poland at one time was the largest country in Europe. Then they started carving it up, and Poland as a country actually became non-existant for a long time. What identity did those people have. What a sad state that was especially for the older ones.

[Bartot]

What are you actually after as ethnicity is not nationality, they are 2 different things.
As an example...a person might be a catalan which would be that persons ethnicity and that person would be spaniard by nationality.
or
a bavarian by ethnity and a german by nationality

different things