How can people be so many nationalities/heritages?

Question

my friend says she is over 9 nationalities, so do other people I know.

I'm only 2 things, and I've asked my mom countless of times if i'm ever anything more then two things. But like my Polish friend says she's like Hungarian, Mongolian, French, German etc etc.

How could people be so many things? D: is there a way to find out? I keep asking my family and they say I'm only two things and that the fact that other people say there like 9 different things is just ridiculous, like idk.

Answer 1

You can't have 9 "nationalities", since a nationality depends on where you were born, or been granted citizenship. Some people have dual nationality (for example English and Canadian), but most have only one. I think your friend means her heritage, or cultural background.

Cultural backgrounds depend where your family are from, and what culturees they have brought into your life. Your mother may genuinely not know about your history. And even if SHE did, she might not know about your father's history, and that's 50% of your makeup.

The only way you can find out is to trace your family's history. And perhaps an aunt or uncle, or even a grandparent knows more. They may have done the research already, so all the answers may be there for the taking. I was researching my tree for a year before my grandmother admitted that my grandfather had already done loads of it!

People are so many different cultures because their ancestors travelled and settled in different places, having children with local people, and therefore having multi-racial children.

I am made up of 6 different cultures (English, Belgian, Swiss, Dutch, German and French), and my partner is made up of 2 cultures (Spanish and Gibraltarian), which means when we have children, our kids will have 8 cultural backgrounds.

But it's easier to be multi-racial in Europe, since a lot of the country boundaries moved over the centuries, so if families moved to the border, and then the border changed, they became different nationalities, and had children with others of that nationality that were perhaps from more inland areas of the country.

Also, you need to remember that there are so many cultures within Europe, whereas other places (like the States of Russia or China) only have the one culture in a few thousand miles.

Answer 2

They can be that way by having lots of different nationalities among their 32 great great great grandparents.

You find it out by reserch. Research into your family tree is called genealogy. If your grandparents are alive, and they remember who their grandparents were, ask them, and you've got your great great grandparents. (Ask them maiden names, birth dates and death dates, too.)

If, for instance, your father's side of the family stayed in Scotland, wearing skirts, studying engineering, eating haggis and playing the bagpipe to annoy the English, and marrying only other Scots, while your mother's side of the family stayed in England, avoiding the opportunity to marry someone who was Irish, Huguenot, Hindu, Pakistani, Norwegian, Chinese, American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealander or South African, it is quite possible that you only have two kinds of nations in your blood, until you get back to Normans, Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Roman mercenaries from Belgium.

Your parents won't know, unless the genealogy bug has bit them. One of your great aunts may know. The bug bites elserly but handsome ladies with alarming frequency.

The resolved questions here are full of tips and links for budding genealogists. Ignore the questions about Taylor Swift, family crests and surname origins.

Answer 3

My children are Norwegian, Swedish, English, Scots-Irish, German, Irish and Italian-by-way-Spain, and French-Canadian.  Darn-- that is only 8.  All because so many distant ancestors migrated from Europe, mostly in the late 19th century, but some earlier.

Others have an even more diverse ancestry.

But there is nothing wrong with only two heritages.

If you do your research at some future date, you may discover other countries of origin.  I did when I did my research.

Answer 4

when your family has been here for 300 years+ thats alot of time to mix in.  i have at least that many.

Answer 5

Well, not every person came from a country with only one heritage group.  For instance, in the small town of Chicopee Massachusetts, you could have a Polish person marry an Irish person and their Irish/Polish child could marry a person whose parents were Russian and French Canadian.  Then, that Polish/Irish/Russian/French Canadian could marry someone whose parents were Chinese and Amerindian.  I just went through only three generation and you can already see a wide range of heritages.

Personally, I am only Irish/Scottish/English/French/Amerindian for at least 16 generations, while my wife is French/Indian ONLY.. for at least 15 generation.

Answer 6

I am always opposed to disrepect to parents.. but this time, mom is wrong.

Do the math.. you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents; 8 greats. If you are young enough to know all 8, this is not that far back.

The number DOUBLES every generation.. so, by the time you have identifed 64 ancestors... all can be from different places. Any hard core researcher gets to that level with little trouble, and beyond.  You'll run out of countries, before running out of ancestors.  So.. yeah, you absolutely are part of all those ancestors and where they came from. Small amounts, maybe but still real.

Now.. I'll give mom a break.  If she says NATIONALITIES, that refers to the place where you are a citizen, which is in the present.  You might have dual nationalities if you stretch it, but that isn't hugely common.

Your friend easily has heritage from many places.. but her nationality if born in the US, would be American.  One refers to ancestry, the other refers to political allegiance.

http://rwguide.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

Here is a guide for getting started, and many people here to help at any time along the way.  I invite you and mom both to come hang out with us, we can be a fun bunch.

Answer 7

Very simple: for instance, my mother's father was British (1), her mother's mother was Scottish (2), all three were American (3). My father's father was Italian (4), my father's mother was Italian but her grandmother was German (5). There in just one person we have 5 so I can easily see how 9 would happen just as easily.

My children now have my background (5) plus my husband's background (Irish (6), German (7)). See how quickly it can add up?

Answer 8

You can tell your friend that her nationality is the country where she was born and if she became a naturalized citizen in another country that became her nationality.  Sometimes a person can have dual citizenship.  Nationality and ethnic or racial heritage is not the same thing.

I have had ancestors in this country before the Mayflowers, but the person who receives naturalization in a federal courthouse this week, their nationality becomes just as American as mine.  The only way they can have another nationality is for them to have dual citizenship.

Now, there is no pure nationalities or races.

You say you just have 2 things in your heritage.  If you trace your ancestry as you go back, any percentages will change.  For instance you might have had a great great grandfather from Germany but he might have had a great grandfather from Poland, France or Bohemia.  There were lots of boundary changes in some of those countries.

In the colonial South, they had English, Scots, ScotchIrish(called Ulster Scots in Britain), French Huguenots and people from one of the German states.  My maternal grandmother, born in 1873,  whose ancestry was 100% American colonial was a mix of all those things.  However, her nationality was nothing but American.

She married my maternal grandfather in 1899 and he was a mixture of Polish,Polish Jew, German, English and Native American.

I recently had a Mitochondrial DNA test done and found I am in Haplogroup K1 which is most Ashkenazi Jews and some people around the Alps.  So apparently my maternal grandmother who was 100% American colonial had some Jewish ancestry.  Her German ancestry came from Alsace.

My father was Irish, orange and green, but one marriage in Ireland in the 1700s  brought in Spanish, Italian and Austrian.  

The English themselves are a nation of mutts.  They had Celts before the Romans invaded and brought soldiers from most of the known world.  Then the Germanic Anglo, Saxons and Jutes invaded.  After that the  Danes came.  Then the French speaking Normans who originally were Northmen but settled in an area of France now called Normandy and naturally they intermarried with the natives.

All of our ancestors were nomads at one time.  A lot of the nations that exist today did not exist until the last melennium.  Genealogy DNA suggests(I didn't say prove) that everyone ancestry goes back to Africa, even Scandinavians.  Our differences are due to mutations.  Some types of people could not survive in certain areas.

Your Polish friend is probably absolutely right.    At one time Poland ruled a good part of Eastern Europe.  Then Poland was divided between Prussia, Russia and Austria.  The Mongolian Tartars were always  goine on rampages through that part of the world.  You will see somewhat slant eyes among Poles and Polish Jews.