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"Should they...?" Why not? It is part of them/us. I wouldn't deny any of mine, though if I had to pick a color to describe myself, I'd choose brown.
Heather Locklear is descended from the Lumbee people, and there are different opinions about where their origins came from. Some people say Africa, some say Native American, some say Portuguese, some say a combination of some or all of them. Interesting research.
Thanks for sharing. I would never have thought Heather was part Lumbee. Not that I disbelieve it. I've known a few Lumbees as Lumberton isn't far from my area and so many have moved to here (Raleigh area).
If I can add a note here for the record regarding Lumbee being part Portuguese, it appears that it was fashionable for a while for Southern ppl to replace their black ancestry with Portuguese. The following link mentions this and that Lumbees could be from the Haliwa tribe, and have white and black ancestry. I have long been fascinated with American black and Native American history and so geek out whenever I hear the latest research on Lumbees. The family of the Richardson's is names in this article. This is the family I've known. And their look certainly is non Portuguese. here's the link for anyone interested A Report of Research on Lumbee Origins by Robert K. Thomas – Part 4 – Tuscarora Theory | Native Heritage Project
And some people do rapidly embrace whatever culture in that circumstance. Some people feel a connection.
Also, genetically speaking there is a connection that can affect one's health and perhaps one's behavior.
Vanessa Williams spoke of her brother having a rare blood disease common among Italians and it turns out they are part Italian. She talked about how her mother liked to bargain, and she said dna tests found out her mother is part middle eastern (they are stereotyped as liking to bargain). So for those who think our ancestry has to do with parts of our personalities, they do indeed embrace that.
I wouldn't be surprised if Vanessa mother's middle Eastern lineage is Syrian or Iranian. Based on Vanessa's eyes and beautiful skin color. She looks like some women I've seen from these countries. I always thought too, that she looked English in her facial bone structure.
I wonder about the genetic connection with regards to inherited behaviors. I have only just started researching my family and have gotten to around 1760. My father's side, who I knew little of as he passed away in the 70's, has been quite a surprise to me. Along my father's male line I found in every generation, a link to the sea. Setting aside the influence a father may have to his son in determining his work, we have multi generations listed on census records as mariners on packet ships, sailor's, ships' mate, etc.. And to my grandfather who was a riveter in a Belfast shipyard, where the Titanic was made, and who died when my dad was <1, and my dad who was a merchant navy man at age 18. Interestingly, my first summer job was on an island in the Irish sea. I was immediately hooked on being around the ocean and all things related. So I went back the following year and have always said that is where I will retire. My father had no influence on my decision at that time. My adult daughter has long said, before she knew of our family's proclivity for water, that one day she would live at the ocean. My youngest, without knowing her sister felt that way as her sister is much older and had already moved out before she was born, also said as young girl, she would one day have a house overlooking the ocean.
As for the island I loved so much, tracing my ancestors, I just learned that on my dad's side, a man with his family name was actually the first king of that island. I was absolutely floored when I read it.
Last edited by RaleighLass; 06-14-2014 at 07:48 PM..
Reason: left off a word
I wouldn't be surprised if Vanessa mother's middle Eastern lineage is Syrian or Iranian. Based on Vanessa's eyes and beautiful skin color. She looks like some women I've seen from these countries. I always thought too, that she looked English in her facial bone structure.
I wonder about the genetic connection with regards to inherited behaviors. I have only just started researching my family and have gotten to around 1760. My father's side, who I knew little of as he passed away in the 70's, has been quite a surprise to me. Along my father's male line I found in every generation, a link to the sea. Setting aside the influence a father may have to his son in determining his work, we have multi generations listed on census records as mariners on packet ships, sailor's, ships' mate, etc.. And to my grandfather who was a riveter in a Belfast shipyard, where the Titanic was made, and who died when my dad was <1, and my dad who was a merchant navy man at age 18. Interestingly, my first summer job was on an island in the Irish sea. I was immediately hooked on being around the ocean and all things related. So I went back the following year and have always said that is where I will retire. My father had no influence on my decision at that time. My adult daughter has long said, before she knew of our family's proclivity for water, that one day she would live at the ocean. My youngest, without knowing her sister felt that way as her sister is much older and had already moved out before she was born, also said as young girl, she would one day have a house overlooking the ocean.
As for the island I loved so much, tracing my ancestors, I just learned that on my dad's side, a man with his family name was actually the first king of that island. I was absolutely floored when I read it.
As you research your family history, have you done the dna test yet?
As for Vanessa, she is "My DNA breaks down as follows: I’m 23% from Ghana, 17% from the British Isles, 15% from Cameroon, 12% Finnish, 11% Southern European, 7% Togo, 6% Benin, 5% Senegal and 4% Portuguese."
As you research your family history, have you done the dna test yet?
As for Vanessa, she is "My DNA breaks down as follows: I’m 23% from Ghana, 17% from the British Isles, 15% from Cameroon, 12% Finnish, 11% Southern European, 7% Togo, 6% Benin, 5% Senegal and 4% Portuguese."
Vanessa - wow! I knew she looked Brit. The Finnish part doesn't surprise me. The Southern European does. Ghanaian doesn't, as many women from there are known to be very pretty.
I did my DNA test about a year ago. It was thru AncestryByDNA and was the Ancestral Ethnicity test. I really knew nothing about the subject and simply bought the test for kicks. Results show that I am 98% European and 2% East Asian. I was born in England of UK parents, and so I looked at the results for the UK. I was surprised that my %'s didn't match the UK but matched those of Scandinavia. Now this is making sense as I have learned that the geo areas my ancestors on both parents' side came from is an area that was inhabited by Vikings for a few hundred years.
I have so far to go with all this stuff and, little time to work on it. But I will plug away.
I am thinking of doing another test so that I can upload results to look for others with family connections. Do you have any suggestions?
I wouldn't be surprised if Vanessa mother's middle Eastern lineage is Syrian or Iranian. Based on Vanessa's eyes and beautiful skin color. She looks like some women I've seen from these countries. I always thought too, that she looked English in her facial bone structure.
I wonder about the genetic connection with regards to inherited behaviors. I have only just started researching my family and have gotten to around 1760. My father's side, who I knew little of as he passed away in the 70's, has been quite a surprise to me. Along my father's male line I found in every generation, a link to the sea. Setting aside the influence a father may have to his son in determining his work, we have multi generations listed on census records as mariners on packet ships, sailor's, ships' mate, etc.. And to my grandfather who was a riveter in a Belfast shipyard, where the Titanic was made, and who died when my dad was <1, and my dad who was a merchant navy man at age 18. Interestingly, my first summer job was on an island in the Irish sea. I was immediately hooked on being around the ocean and all things related. So I went back the following year and have always said that is where I will retire. My father had no influence on my decision at that time. My adult daughter has long said, before she knew of our family's proclivity for water, that one day she would live at the ocean. My youngest, without knowing her sister felt that way as her sister is much older and had already moved out before she was born, also said as young girl, she would one day have a house overlooking the ocean.
As for the island I loved so much, tracing my ancestors, I just learned that on my dad's side, a man with his family name was actually the first king of that island. I was absolutely floored when I read it.
I have a very strong connection with water and being near the ocean as well - I don't know what it is.
On the subject of Vanessa Williams, well, it is obvious that she is really the quintessential all-American beauty. I was at her press conference back when she announced that she would no longer be Miss America. Damn, I was in love. Couldn't stop staring at her.
But similar to Vanessa, I have found that I have a lot of similar behaviors to a group of people I originally had no idea I had a connection with - Ashkenazic Jews. This is a group known for its intelligence and emphasis on education, and their achievements in many arenas have been well-documented.
I have an insatiable need to learn and am a compulsive reader; I must read at least one chapter of a book every day. I even miss sleep because I have to do this. I have a desire to learn about everything just for the sake of learning. I have found that Ashkenazim have a tradition (based in or related to the religious need to learn and study the Torah) of reading, studying and learning just for learning's sake and I have also found that (ignoring stereotype), my approach to personal finance and money is almost exactly what I have seen in learning about the culture of Ashkenazic Jews. Then, I find out that my mother's family surname is derived from a very common Russian Jewish name and that my grandfather and uncles (in addition to speaking Yiddish) worked in occupations, such as tailoring and jewelry making and sales, that were very common among Jews in Eastern Europe and in this country.
I posted a while back part of my journey in finding some very small African segments in my DNA. I am a very white person with all known ancestry being white (minus some Native American rumors that don't pan out in the DNA). I came up roughly 0.9-1.5% or so African on all the data sets on gedmatch and also similar results on some of the mainstream DNA testing sites. I found a decent sized segment on the chromosome browser that came up Sub Saharan African, enough to lend itself to my being just noise (though not full confirmation). I had my mom and dad tested and my mom had the same segment but twice as large (moving it into the realm of mostly confirmed).
In the branch that it comes from I haven't found an immigrant more recent than the 1700s and only a couple walls that end around 1810-1830 or so (though might still continue further)... all of which are listed as completely "white" on census (no scratched out entries, nothing to suspect anything different), on that branch they all pretty much go to the south (I was born in the west and in total have ancestors that go nearly everywhere in the US, back to both the North and South).
Due to this I was advised it probably means a slave Ancestor and probably the SSA (Sub Saharan African) is West African.
Well had a bit of a recent update... and like all things to do with Ancestry it naturally creates more questions than it answers. I had an expert analyze the data more and they ran it against a lot of data sets. They found a couple of things.
First of which, it is in fact SSA and it is from an ancestor and not noise. This helps me feel better some of my naive assumptions looking at chromosome painting on gedmatch tools lol.
Running the data further however he found something interesting, it was matching West African but matched more strongly East African, my biggest matches being the Maasai. A bit surprising from someone who is a "white" American with deep ancestry on that branch here, especially since nearly all the US slaves were East African. At first he thought this might mean ancestry from nearby regions to East Africa, such as the Near East or Mediterranean areas.
Upon further analysis he doesn't see those segments match those regional people and apparently look more and more East African. He's not sure how it links up with my genealogy, as mystery to both of us, but it seems likely that I have an East African ancestor within the past couple hundred years or so.
Again this simply raises more questions than it answers though it's always good to know more information in my opinion. It seems like there's probably a pretty interesting story how my 200+ year "white" in America branch has an East African person it it probably in the past 200-300 years or so (purely a guess of course but the matches are strong enough in me to be relatively "recent" in genetics terms).
It seems like all the explanations are unlikely but not impossible ones... This has motivated me to learn a lot more history about East Africa, it's migrations and slave trade history. I'm guessing my ancestor fits into one of these very generalized explanations:
1) Came over as a slave to the US but is a very rare East African slave, there were some recorded East African slave trades to the Americas, but very rare and moreso to South America... I guess it could also be an odd East African migration from within Africa to then be captured as a slave in a relatively quick period of time and little to no genetic intermixing with West Africans.
2) Someone in the East African slave trade that ended up (or close descendants) in Europe (probably Continental) and somehow interbred and had a descendant that came to the US.
3) Some odd migration out of East Africa to intermix with Europeans or straight to the US, non-slave cases seemingly are recorded (just like non-slave African did come to the US) but are very rare... maybe they worked on a Ship (or were on a ship) and travelled or something along those lines.
This is where my naivety at East African history kicks in and the plausible explanations. I've been looking it up but have found very (very) little info on East African DNA in Americans (despite the obvious more recent immigrants).
In any case I welcome this interesting new development and figured I'd share it. Really seems like a mystery like much of Ancestry research in general and I welcome any and every ancestry I discover into my self-identity since I wouldn't be here right now if this ancestor didn't exist and have that interesting story.
I'm a bit at a stand still, but trying to break some walls on the genealogy side to see if that helps, but genealogy walls are very hard to break.
I enjoyed your post. Thanks for sharing your journey! I can relate regarding the wall. The way I see it, and hopefully someone in the know can correct me, but now we are both at the point where records are harder to find, may have more errors or incomplete info. etc., and so we have to put much more time into this for diminishing returns. I'm back to the mid 1700's in the UK with my research and now have to uses churches and newspapers (if I'm lucky) to find more info. Still, I am having trouble finding a 2nd source to confirm when I discover facts. I have not yet found my Asian ancestry. But I learned I have more Scottish ancestors than I ever could have imagined.
As for your guesses about your ancestry - IMHO, it sounds like it may have occurred before they moved to the US. Keep us updated!
I have a very strong connection with water and being near the ocean as well - I don't know what it is.
On the subject of Vanessa Williams, well, it is obvious that she is really the quintessential all-American beauty. I was at her press conference back when she announced that she would no longer be Miss America. Damn, I was in love. Couldn't stop staring at her.
But similar to Vanessa, I have found that I have a lot of similar behaviors to a group of people I originally had no idea I had a connection with - Ashkenazic Jews. This is a group known for its intelligence and emphasis on education, and their achievements in many arenas have been well-documented.
I have an insatiable need to learn and am a compulsive reader; I must read at least one chapter of a book every day. I even miss sleep because I have to do this. I have a desire to learn about everything just for the sake of learning. I have found that Ashkenazim have a tradition (based in or related to the religious need to learn and study the Torah) of reading, studying and learning just for learning's sake and I have also found that (ignoring stereotype), my approach to personal finance and money is almost exactly what I have seen in learning about the culture of Ashkenazic Jews. Then, I find out that my mother's family surname is derived from a very common Russian Jewish name and that my grandfather and uncles (in addition to speaking Yiddish) worked in occupations, such as tailoring and jewelry making and sales, that were very common among Jews in Eastern Europe and in this country.
Have you also looked up about the genetic studies regarding health issue peculiar to the Ashkenazi? They are a highly studied group. It would be good info for you to share with your primary care doc so that they can guide you to take the most appropriate health tests. As for your water connection, be sure to let us know if you find any family history of this.
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