Ancestry Form

Does being 11% Spanish, according to Ancestry DNA make me Hispanic? I don’t mind one way or another, but I’m forever filling out that question, and I’d like to be accurate.What question does the questioner is always filling out? For sure, the 11% result of a particular DNA ancestry test does not make you Spanish or Hispanic. What is your ethnic lineage? What is your nationality? For example, if you are of Puerto Rican parentage, the chances are good that you are almost 80% Spanish—that is, before taking into account errors in testing and other distracting nuisances. How do we get the numbers: Recently we had had numerous tests jumping into the market. The curiosities of people and marketing strategies have brought many to the realm of the testing environment. Let’s look at one particular example:A scientific study sponsored by National Geographic, 2021. established that over 80% of Puerto Rican men had West Eurasian (European) Y Chromosome DNA, and roughly 60% of Puerto Ricans carry maternal lineages of Native American origin. https://geneticliteracyproject.o...The CIA (revised for 2021. has the following numbers:. CIA World Factbook (updated Jan 2021. gives us the following for Puerto Rico residents:white 75.8%, black/African American 12.4%, other 8.5% (includes American Indian, Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian, other Pacific Islander, and others), mixed 3.3%.Another source provides the following:Ethnic Composition--white (mostly Spanish origin) 76.2%, Black 6.9%, Asian 0.3%, Amerindian 0.2%, mixed 4.4%, other 12% (2021) https://knowpuertorico.weebly.co...The 11% you mention does not make you Spanish—perhaps, a 50% or greater might allow you to pass as Spanish (Spaniard).

This is kind of hilarious given that the accent aigu on my last name often makes people assume that I am French.In actuality, the accent aigu is not part of our traditional family surname. It is just something my family added after moving to the US, so that only like 80% of Americans assume our first name is “Dave”, instead of like 98% without the accent.“Sure are a lot of Daves in your family!”“Yep. Even the girls.” Sigh.Also, I obviously don’t understand how to fill out forms that ask for Surname/Family name/Last name. Like an idiot I keep writing my first name for these. Luckily, the hourly workers doing data entry on the other end are smarter than me, and they properly switch my last name to be Romeel as it’s obviously supposed to be.Invariably, when people finally realize that my last name is Da-vay, they’re like “Oh what an interesting name. Is it French?”Nope. I am part-Indian, part-Scottish/Irish, and part-Bavarian. No French in there. But feel free to think I’m French, just so long as you don’t call me Dave.

I was always told as a kid I'm English, Portuguese, small bit of Scottish, German, French, Italian, and a tiny bit of native American (would explain the shovel teeth I inherited from my dad afterall). However, I always thought something was missing from the picture and that someone wasn't being entirely honest. My maternal grandmother insisted she's Portuguese and English, that's it. She'd go on to say her mother was found in an orphanage and that place burned down along with her birth certificate‡ back in Calcutta, India where she and my grandmother were born. Just based on her appearances (eyes, skin color, hair texture and color), things didn't quite make sense. But I had to believe it because we had no proof, right? Once my grandmother revealed she's a small bit German. When I asked about more, she went back to her orphanage burning down story.So, as my grandmother got older my mother decided to convince my grandmother to do the 23andme test. Idk how my mother convinced her but she did it. Lo and behold, my grandmother is more than half Asian. Turns out, my great grandfather was also part Burmese and well my great grandmother was really basically all Indian.Thanks to my wonderful YouTubers watching my personal ancestry reveal video, my Indian ancestors probably come from the eastern part of India (Calcutta is very close to Bangladesh), due to the mix of east Asian and South asian on my results. She may have been made fun of for being a half breed or something back in India. It also turns out Europeans who settled in India like the English and Portuguese brainwashed Indians into thinking white people are superior, to my lack of surprise there. Because my grandmother grew up with Indian servants in British India, it also may have served as a disadvantage to talk about Indian ancestry.Some people criticize me for saying my grandmother lied. She did by omission and was fully aware of her full ancestry, even though I didn't discuss everything in my video. I'm not mad about her not telling us the full story. Instead, based on what I've learned about this side of the family, I understand why she kept it to herself. Our maternal ancestry reflects the complex and rich history of India.As for other surprises, my uncle (her son) did this test and it turns out my grandfather we thought was pure English was likely 5% southeast Asian of some kind. It turns out I have a tiny bit of Ashkenazi ancestry on my dad's side, and that my cousins on my paternal side (via my my dad's sister) whose maternal haplogroup apparently peaks in Saudi Arabia from my Italian grandmother (hmmmmmm). There's a smudge of African ancestry from my maternal grandmother's side, likely from someone who was either an African slave in India or someone who ventured out of Africa and into India. Oh, and my maternal grandmother is more Irish than English.So how did it change my life? I understand now why I have certain philosophies about life not shared by a lot of my friends, why I tan better than most of my pure European peers, have slightly slanted eyes, and why I was secretly in love with India. I also understand why my grandmother kept it a secret she is over half Asian.Edit: adding YT video link.

It's largely a matter of choice—usually not your own choice, but your parents, when they register you and get your first national ID card (身份证). One of the major ethnicities is not even based on blood ancestry at all but on religion: Even if you have two Han parents, you can (if I understand it correctly) put yourself down as Hui if you consider yourself a Muslim. I don't believe anyone is asked to prove their ethnicity, though I guess I've seen my wife (who is Manchu, but only on her father's side) fill out forms where the ethnicity of parents is asked.

Back in 1991, before Ancestry dot com was a thing, I got interested in genealogy‡ my family’s, in particular. So, I set out on a mission to find out all I could, and put together a family tree. Less than two years after the World Wide Web was created (aka: WWW). So, I wasn’t really on the internet yet. I had to do it old skool, although I did use a computer to draw the actual “tree”, as there were no genealogical tree templates that I knew of, yet. I sent out a form letter to every single person I knew, who was even remotely related to me. I even had to take a quick crash course in Russian Cyrillic, so that I could communicate with my relatives behind the Iron Curtain (which was half of them, in various countries). The curtain fell the following year, which made communication much easier, but at the time, I wasn’t even sure if any of my correspondence would get there and back. Amazingly, it all did. I sent out these form letters with pre-drawn, empty “trees”, for everyone to fill out. I also included a self-addressed stamped envelope, to make things as easy as possible for everyone.By the autumn of that year, I had received nearly all my templates back, all filled out as best as everyone could manage. Then began the task of making sense out of all of them, and compiling them into one massive tree. I ended up with nearly 600 people to list. For every person, I listed 6 bits of information: Name, place & year of birth, place & year of death, and their occupation. It took me about 6 months, but by Christmas, I had a surprisingly full family tree. I printed these all out on 17″ x 24″ sheets of parchment, rolled them up into scrolls, and handed them out to everybody as Christmas gifts. It was a big hit, as no one had ever seen the big picture yet. This is my Pociask Family Tree:This was in 1991, so I suggested everyone add to their branches by hand, as the years go by. By now, there are probably another 100 or more kids and grand-kids born. But that’s me, in the lower-right corner, above the block of text. I drew a chain of heavy links around the whole thing to signify that we were all linked together.The furthest back I got for my lineage was 1796, in Prussia. My great-great-great grandfather, with the last name of Busz, was born there. This part of Prussia had previously been part of the Polish Kingdom, and afterwards, once again became part of Poland after WWII. They eventually moved to the Kingdom of Bohemia, which became Czechoslovakia. My four grandparent's lineages basically hailed from 4 places: Prussia/Bohemia, Ukraine, and two from southern Poland, in the mountains. So‡ I am pretty much Prussian/Bohemian/Ukrainian/Polish. The late 1700’s was as far as I could get back for my family. My daughter, on the other hand, through her mom, I could trace back through Stephen Austin, one of the founders of Texas, and then all the way back to Mary Queen of Scots.As far as my family‡ they were refugees after WWII. They lost everything there, and both my father, and my mother came to America as Displaced Persons, although they came separately. My father alone, and my mother with her parents and 9 siblings. This is my grandfather’s “Reiseausweis” or Travel ID Card for the voyage from post-WWII Germany, to NYC in September of 1952:And here is the ship they came over on, the USS A.W. Greely, that was named after a US General, Polar explorer, and Medal of Honor winner:This ship was in service from 1944, all the way to 1986. It had a pretty good run, and was an important ship, as it brought my family to America! They all came here under the sponsorship of a farmer near Buffalo, NY who would house and feed them in return for a couple years of what was basically indentured servitude on his farm, picking lettuce, strawberries and all of that kind of stuff that many migrant workers from Mexico and Central America do today.So‡ how far back do I have to go in my family tree before I get to someone whose first language was not English?Well‡ that would be me!I didn’t really learn English until I went to kindergarten in Buffalo, NY. We were a bi-lingual family. Actually, tri-lingual, unbeknownst to me. You see, my grandmother only spoke Czech, while everyone else spoke Polish. Somehow, I spoke in Czech to my grandmother and Polish to everyone else, without even knowing it! Yeah, I didn’t realize that until I was in my teens. That was kind of a weird revelation.So‡ yeah, there’s that.

I can only speak on this matter from a Swedish point of view: I am grown up in the western part of Sweden and we had close ties to Norway and Denmark and thought of them as good neighbours with similar languages to our own. When I moved to the east of Sweden I came to realize that Sweden and Finland have even closer ties regardless the language barrier. This is of course due to defense reasons, but it has also historic reasons. Finland was a part of Sweden for a very long time throughout history and it was lost to Russia in a war which made Finland a more or less autonomous part of Russia. The formation of the Soviet Union enabled Finland to claim independence which was approved by the Soviet Union.There is also a minority in Finland speaking Swedish and many Finnish have migrated to Sweden during the centuries to find work and good land. It is hard for me to think of Finns as foreigners in spite of the language barrier.

I was born and live in the United States. I am a descendant of African slaves. My mother’s family are US Northerners, and we are seven generations of Detroiters. My father, also a descendant of slaves, came to Detroit during the Great Migration. My nationality is American because I am a natural-born citizen of this country. Regarding race, I do not identify as anything because I think racial classification in the US is utter bullsh*t.I have black or sub-Saharan-African genetics, and I am classified as black despite that my known ancestors are Scots. ‘The one-drop rule‡ a legal policy used by the US Census Bureau until 1970, declared any person with at least one sub-Saharan-African ancestor (“one drop of black blood”) as black.Which is cool, I love being me. But race in this country is used as a social and cultural determinant. In fact, on the first US census, race was defined as a social indicator. Persons in a 1790 household were either white, free-person, or a slave. As it happens, the US government did not account for black immigrants who entered the country with rights, so in order to document black free-persons, the US Census Bureau added a ‘colored‡ category to the subsequent census.I identify myself as black to government and non-profit organizations because these entities use demographic numbers for record keeping and programs. Even though, I do not accept my racial classification, my participation in this farce affects how policies are enacted and services in this country are distributed.

Hmm‡ I personally think that it is a wonderful decision. As I understand it, the story of Aladdin unfolds somewhere in an imaginary kingdom called Agrabah on the banks of River Jordan on the Arabian peninsula.I know that the original story of Aladdin and the magic lamp happens somewhere in China (I have read that version in my childhood). But the Disney version has changed a lot of things. So we need to take it in that spirit. They have chosen to show Aladdin as a story that happens in an ancient imaginary Arab kingdom.That said, a half-White, half-Indian girl would be the best choice to play Princess Jasmine. If you see the local Arab women here in the middle east, that is exactly what they look like. They have beautiful fair skin with typical Indian features like dark doe eyes, thick black hair and dazzling smiles. One of the near-perfect examples for this is H.E. Princess Ameerah Al-Taweel of Saudi ArabiaDoesn’t she look gorgeous? AND‡ doesn’t she look a bit like Sonam Kapoor? There aren’t many pictures of actual Arabian women available on Google images that would be able to portray their real beauty. But I can vouch for it‡ they are some of the most breathtakingly beautiful women on earth. I guess it’s a good thing they cover those angelic faces all the time. There’d be way too many traffic accidents otherwise :D Compared to some of the women I have had to good fortune to see, Princess Ameerah is but a regular face.Now coming back to the original question before I get too carried away…So as you see, most Arabian women look like very fair Indians. So to have Princess Jasmine played by a half-Indian, half-White girl would just nail it. She’d have the typical fair skin of Arabian women and Indian features to complete the look.(Artist’s impression of a modern day Disney’s Princess Jasmine[1] )Some people have asked why they couldn’t choose an Arab girl for the role then. That would be easier said than done. Because not all ‘Arab girls‡ have the combination of looks that I just mentioned. Most of the said ‘Arab girls‡ who could have been possible choices for the role hail from more liberal Arab societies like Lebanon, Jordan, etc. The girls there have a distinct European influence in their looks.Having lived in the middle east for almost all my life, it’s very easy for people like me to tell whether a woman is a khaleeji (hailing from the Arabian peninsula) or from sham (Pan-Arab nations). The ones who do have the precise looks are bound by their culture and traditions that prohibit them from acting in movies. So the makers are left with no choice but to go for the next best option.And I personally think Naomi Scott looks very pretty and quite apt to play the part of Princess Jasmine :)Images : Google ImagesFootnotes[1] Illustrator Shows How Disney Princesses Would Look Like If They Lived In 2021. And The Result Is Awesome

If anyone reads my content here, they’ll know I talk about this phenomenon of White (and Black) Americans falsely claiming to be “Cherokee” or have some degree of Native Americans ancestry, all the damn time. And yes, it is usually just false family lore. That’s just the blunt facts.However, as much as I discuss this kind of thing in my content (along with VERY detailed information about Warren’s specific claims), I have never seen any evidence that she claimed it in order to qualify for a job. In fact, I see no evidence that it came into the hiring process at all.What I actually see is what might be called a box checker. Meaning, this was part of a demographic or record keeping sort of deal. It’s sort of like the federal Census form or any other personnel information document that is filled out by the individual, applicant or employee. This is simply based on self-identification.In that respect, Warren is no different than the millions of Americans that recycle these unsupported - and usually false - family myths.This is extremely common!However, the only reason this got latched onto is because it is now part of a partisan battle.So, she’s entrenched in her position that this is just “part of my heritage” (and ain’t nobody gonna take that away from her!). It apparently doesn’t require anything other than the recitation of the lore or claim that there is blood back there “somewhere.” No real ancestry or affiliation to a tribe is required. It’s a sort of independent endeavor.And on the other hand, conservative enemies have latched onto a narrative that they like.But, they are also somewhat delusional or self-selecting narratives that suit their personal psychological needs. Bear in mind, many of these folks that latch onto this anti-Warren rhetoric are staunch right-wing partisans. They are the folks that elected Trump, so they actually have no claim to moral principles anyway.One side (Warren) is just engaging in a common White American social quirk (claiming “Cherokee blood”) and isn’t backing down because she’s stubborn (not necessarily a bad trait to have in some cases). And the other (right wingers) is totally insane and latches onto anything that might be seen to discredit a “libtard.” Or, they’ll make a mountain out of a mole hill at the very least, as long as is about someone seen as a political enemy.