My grandmother looks "asian" what could it be?

[2cold]

Charles Bronson is of Lithuanian Tatar descent.

My mother had slightly slanted eyes. She said some kids in school back in Lithuania used to tease her about it. She said it was quite possible there may have been a far distant Tatar in her family tree.
Otherwise mom looked very much the blonde Lithuanian.

[ovcatto]

I strongly suggest that the frequent visitors to this thread avail themselves of the PBS program Finding Your Roots hosted by Prof. Skip Gates.


Finding Your Roots | PBS

[DewDropInn]

My Polish grandmother was very Asian looking. It's the Genghis Kahn effect.

[Mac15]

Yes, my mums sister has asian eyes with pitch black hair too. My mum was born with these eyes but they went when she grew older. Is it possible that we have some native american ancestry there? I don't think its asian because in Northern Ireland there wasn't really any asian contact.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by owenc

Yes, my mums sister has asian eyes with pitch black hair too. My mum was born with these eyes but they went when she grew older. Is it possible that we have some native american ancestry there? I don't think its asian because in Northern Ireland there wasn't really any asian contact

This is one of the places where genealogy really gets interesting... remember, it only takes one individual from a different population group to bring that group's DNA into your bloodline line.

And if history has anything to teach us, it is that men and women have been crossing every kind of line there is from the beginning of time. We are, literally, sexy beasts. The latest DNA research has shown that while the Denisovans and Neanderthals were two other species of human which are now extinct, a bit of genetic material from each of their lines is now in our blood. One theory, still controversial, has it that the gene for red hair may have come from the Neanderthals.

[BuffaloTransplant]

Originally Posted by MissesAnna

I got her DNA results yesterday! I had posted out of curiosity before the results came back. She is identified 70 percent with Finnish and 30 percent with Altaian. Altaian are Asian looking (I think) . It is crazy, because we always expected Native American, considering the family are from Appalachia for many generations. Now I am thinking , Appalachian regions are not as much Scottish/German mixed as people think, but ALOT of Russian/Eastern European/Asian. My grandmother did not have a ANY percentage of Scottish, Irish, German or English.

Her genetics also had traits in common with Serbian , Albanian and Polish...But mostly just Finnish and Altaian.
My family look very EuroAsian and Russian, so I find it very funny, especially considering I get asked if I am Russian everyday of my life and always thought I was a Russian looking Scottish or German person

After reading a little bit about the Altay mountains, they seem genetically related to Native Americans or atleast Eskimos! I've joked she was an Eskimo, never expecting her to actually be anything close.

The family members are quite surprised, considering they couldn't pick the Altay mountains or Finland out on a map.

Alatia is NE of Kazahktan and NW of Mongolia. In wiipedia, it does no translate to English, but a map is there. Highly possible that many, many years back, her ancestors crossed the land bridge to Alaska.

Look up the Ainu of Japan. They are not oriental, but more like this heritage - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_people
Ainu are also in Russia

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by bjh

I've heard Scandinavians have scoops on the back of some front teeth.

This is a feature exclusive to certain Asians and to Native Americans. Curious that Scandinavians have such teeth.

The Ainu are believed to be Australoid, though these days there's a lot of Japanese admixture, and in Russia--Tunguso-Manchurian admixture. But if you look at the oldest photos, you can see there are some Australoid features.

It would be great if the OP could post a photo of her grandmother. If the OP's still around...