American Ancestry

M

Madserb2023

Member
Something that really confuses me and I am not sure what the reason is because this is not even something that you can attribute to education, but why are so many Americans surprised that they have ancestry from the UK? It would be like Brazilians being surprised that they have genetic links to the Portuguese. You speak English? It's quite amusing seeing people take genetic tests to be completely unphased by their 5% Bhutanese DNA but absolutely confused by their 95% British DNA even though their name is Thomas Jones Smith.
 
I'm not American so I can't speak from any personal experience. But are they surprised by it?

When you hear Americans talk about their ancestry they don't tend to mention English and it tends to be stuff like Irish, Italian, Polish or German. I figured it's because English is kind of the default and so therefore is less interesting.
 
Madserb2023 said:
It's quite amusing seeing people take genetic tests to be completely unphased by their 5% Bhutanese DNA but absolutely confused by their 95% British DNA even though their name is Thomas Jones Smith.
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I'm much more concerned than amused.

Why would anyone willingly give their complete DNA profile to a corporation or the government? That's just asking for trouble.
 
Because of this

red-tunic-front-scaled-e1595507424965.jpg
 
Because these people are self loathing morons desperate to belong to an oppressed group so they can absolve themselves of the "sins" of colonialism.
 
kpopSuperstar said:
What kind of trouble?
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I mean, do you really trust the government or a corporation to have a copy of your full generic profile?

The government can do who knows what with it, and if the corporation falls on hard times, they could sell their databases to the highest bidder.

Not to mention being hacked, etc...
 
I think a lot of americans have this "family story" of being from some place with a strong cultural sense (irish, scotland, german, etc) and then they actually look into it or do DNA testing and nope, 95% vanilla stock brit :P

Though those commercial DNA tests for ancestry are TERRIBLE. How exactly can you tell what is a "british" gene? Either you have to raid cemeteries for folks who lived there before any kind of immigration or you have to do EXHAUSTIVE searches for homestead families and then cross reference to find the genes that likely represent the "pure" native.

There has always been migration and population movement. And genes last a looooooooooooooooooooong time through different populations. You definitely can't just test the folks living on apatch of land today and use it as any kind of proof.
 
Poppinfresh said:
I mean, do you really trust the government or a corporation to have a copy of your full generic profile?

The government can do who knows what with it, and if the corporation falls on hard times, they could sell their databases to the highest bidder.

Not to mention being hacked, etc...
Click to expand...
But what can anyone do with my genetic profile?
 
jason10mm said:
I think a lot of americans have this "family story" of being from some place with a strong cultural sense (irish, scotland, german, etc) and then they actually look into it or do DNA testing and nope, 95% vanilla stock brit :P

Though those commercial DNA tests for ancestry are TERRIBLE. How exactly can you tell what is a "british" gene? Either you have to raid cemeteries for folks who lived there before any kind of immigration or you have to do EXHAUSTIVE searches for homestead families and then cross reference to find the genes that likely represent the "pure" native.

There has always been migration and population movement. And genes last a looooooooooooooooooooong time through different populations. You definitely can't just test the folks living on apatch of land today and use it as any kind of proof.
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You can test people living today whose ancestry is traceable many generations back. And compare with other groups of people from other places. It isn't magic.
 
I'm thinking this is just online morons. I'm not sure what my DNA and the answer is, I just do not give a shit. My assumption is I'm a Heinz 57. Good enough for me.

Real world answer: only idiots on the internet care about this. Also if I have Canadian, im soulless as those northern bastards aren't real people anyway.
 
Even if you only consider obvious white people, it is definitely more likely that you have a majority of some other ancestry rather than stock British. Especially if you live in the NE. Although most (obviously white people) likely have some small amount, the fact that many major white migrations happened after the 18th century would necessitate that the DNA is heavily diluted.

Ironically it is probably the South that is most British, as they had the least white migration due to how poor they were after the civil war.
 
Sakura said:
You can test people living today whose ancestry is traceable many generations back. And compare with other groups of people from other places. It isn't magic.
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It definitely is mostly magic. Travelling salesmen have been corrupting inbred small village genetics for millennia :P
 
Madserb2023 said:
why are so many Americans surprised that they have ancestry from the UK?
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Dude, Americans are some of the dumbest people on planet earth.

I say this as a completely stupid American.
 
Have you seen that podcast clip where the host asks the musician gust if she is just a "musician" and she doesn't understand what musician means and gets all offended, that is a proper American response to anything they didn't know before hand, ofc I am not talking about everyone but there is a vast majority over there who are genuinely braindead
 
L*][*N*K said:
Have you seen that podcast clip where the host asks the musician gust if she is just a "musician" and she doesn't understand what musician means and gets all offended, that is a proper American response to anything they didn't know before hand, ofc I am not talking about everyone but there is a vast majority over there who are genuinely braindead
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Imagine living your whole life thinking you're the best and you're living in the best country in the world and then find out you're actually just British.

I'd be shellshocked too.
 
I've asked a number of people throughout my life, and I think only one of them said they had English ancestry. It's probably a regional issue since I've only asked people in my area.
 
I don't expect someone who is not aware of the demographic history to necessarily know or understand. Somebody mentioned not wanting tp be Canadian but there is no such thing as Canadian DNA unless you mean Native American. If you had an ancestor from Canada you would get English, Scottish etc and possibly some French if they were from Quebec. The genetic composition between Canada and the US is similar. Alao, you might find that even though you think you are Irish, you may still find yourself mostly British due to 1000 years of colonial history. The northern part of Ireland genetically is closer to Scotland. Pure Celtic DNA is rare. Its just strange when John from New England who's family has been there since the 17th century doesn't realize he has English Ancestry. It probably would be better if instead of pilgrims, they said English settlers because it almost detached in people's mind
 
I wasn't shocked to know that the majority of my DNA (close to 50%) was German as my grandparent fled Nazi Germany and they were from several generations of German descent

Not a lot was known about my mother's side past my great grandparents so its that side that made me want to do some research and found her family was mostly Ireland/Scotland/Wales

The interesting part of mine was the 2% Native American which I wish I knew much more about
 
HeisenbergFX4 said:
I wasn't shocked to know that the majority of my DNA (close to 50%) was German as my grandparent fled Nazi Germany and they were from several generations of German descent

Not a lot was known about my mother's side past my great grandparents so its that side that made me want to do some research and found her family was mostly Ireland/Scotland/Wales

The interesting part of mine was the 2% Native American which I wish I knew much more about
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It's becoming increasingly obvious that scandinavians/europeans were all over parts of north america, and in fact may have been the source of the first human occupants of the continent. So no surprise there is genetic sharing between europeans and 'Native' Americans who very well may have been from an asian colonizer wave that took land from the original european descended inhabitants. Obviously that narrative would not be super popular in current academia.


Though now there are even older, like 100,000+ years, evidence of human occupation of north america, which would REALLY throw all the theories out the window, or maybe there was some non-homo sapiens humanoid running around that could use tools.
 
I havent seen this.

But I was surprised to find out that German ancestry is far more common than Irish and Italian. Midwest is full of them.
 
I have lineage traced back to James of wales I think. But I have ancestry that fought in the revolution. My mom was in the DAR. I was in the CAR as a kid.
 
jason10mm said:
It's becoming increasingly obvious that scandinavians/europeans were all over parts of north america, and in fact may have been the source of the first human occupants of the continent. So no surprise there is genetic sharing between europeans and 'Native' Americans who very well may have been from an asian colonizer wave that took land from the original european descended inhabitants. Obviously that narrative would not be super popular in current academia.


Though now there are even older, like 100,000+ years, evidence of human occupation of north america, which would REALLY throw all the theories out the window, or maybe there was some non-homo sapiens humanoid running around that could use tools.
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Yeah would love to know more about this 2% of likely one ancestor from something like 200 years ago, I think I recall reading that was the approx time frame to reach that %
 
If you have people who don't like studying, but love stupid shows like Friends, American Chopper, Duck Dynasty, Late Night with David Letterman, and all that junk that lowers their IQ,

Those thoughts aren't surprising.

Example of series that make people stupid
👇


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I'm really curious to know my genetic makeup. I'm American 1st and foremost, both my parents are from Mexico, but my mom is white and my dad looks southeast Asian 🤷

Guess I'll never know because I'm not giving my DNA to some random corporation.
 
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