I'm part Rusyn. What is your ethnicity?

This question doesn't usually interest me, but last weekend I found out I belonged to an ethnic group I'd never heard of before.

For most of my life I have believed I was Swedish-Ukrainian--100% Swedish on my father's side, 100% Ukrainian on my mother's. Sometime in my 20s, my mother raised doubt in my mind about her father's family. She knew they were from an area in Eastern Europe that has been at various times the Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Austro-Hungary, Russia and Czecholovakia. It's now extreme Eastern Slovakia, in the Northern Carpathians just south of the Polish High Tatras.

Last month, a distant relative went to the ancestral village and met our mutual cousins still living there, then invited relatives around NYC to see a slide show of her trip. It was then that I learned I am only 1/4 Ukrainian. The other 1/4 is Rusyn, aka Ruthenian, Carpatho-Rusyn, Carpatho-Russian, Lemko, and I've probably forgotten a few. In my research on this lost piece of my inheritance, I've found that Rusyns are known as the Kurds of Eastern Europe because they're a persecuted minority that has been without a homeland. It's probably Rusyn-Americans who have made this characterization. As far as I know, there is no Rusyn Homeland Party.

So now I'm Swedish-Ukrainian-Rusyn. I can't tell you how weird it is to finally know this!

But you would not know I have Cherokee lineage by looking at me. I have the recessive blue eyes from my Irish ancestors :-)

25% Swede, 25% Czech, 25% English (3 of my grandparents were "full-blooded"), and the rest is a mix of Danish, Welsh, German, and who knows what else.

If there is anything else,I can't find it.

Everyone irish except for dad's, dad's, mom, which may, or may not count. She was German.

Adopted by Americans (Dad 50% English, 50% Irish, Mom 100% Japanese). :-)

Alsace on my mother's side (both families who settled in western PA), and probably the border area between Scotland and England. The wild, dangerous badlands of the UK.

I look Scots too. Fair-skinned, blonde, blue-eyed. Round face.

LOL!

I can speak some Swedish, but no Welsh!

And I probably can't spell it so gud either.

Wish I knew how to add Swedish letters to my posts... oh well!

n/t

and about 1/8 Dutch and 1/8 German (Hessian and Bavarian, along with an American family Branch).
However I know little more than the original family names.

Swedish-Ukrainian-Russian. Don't know all the details on the Russian (Rusyn?) part though :shrug:

but you already knew that as we've had this conversation before ;-)

:hi:

I'm 1/4 Irish, 1/4 Austrian-Hungarian, 1/4 Korean, and the rest is Native Hawaiian, Native American (Kree Tribe), French (YES!!!), and Chinese.

:hi:

Where were the Russians from, do you know? Wouldn't it be amazing if they were from Eastern Slovakia? We could be cousins!

PS: Come to think of it, we could be cousins on the Swedish and Ukrainian sides too. My father's mother was from Gotland, and his father was from Skane. My mother's mother's family came from near Zhitomir in the Ukraine.

except that Mom's father was Ukrainian, and her mother was "Russian."

Dad's the Swede. I do think we know the name of the town they came from. I should ask him next time I talk to him. When I get some time I'll try to find out more about both sides. I would love to find out I had a liberal cousin!! :-)

Me too. On both sides. But my distant cousin who introduced me to my new ethnic identity is a Democrat.

my parents are Repukes. They've gotten worse in recent years too. Had a big blow up with mom a few weeks ago as a matter of fact. Normally we try to avoid talking politics but she made the mistake of saying Arnold was a smart business man (they live in San Diego) and I just couldn't believe my ears and I lost it. Out came all the things I had been holding back. Poor mom - lol. She didn't see it coming. We didn't talk for about a week after that but we're ok now.

My father had those tendencies, and he was heading there much faster toward the end, but cancer interrupted his "progress," so to speak. Everyone else in my immediate family is a lefty. Even my father's father, who was normally apolitical, made a disparaging remark about Reagan. When he was in his late eighties, he called Reagan a dumb kid!

... I can barely talk to my father and/or my brother about ANYTHING other than the weather anymore. And if it's a beautiful sunny day, they will try to give credit where credit is due... Their SAVIOR... George W. Bush.

Makes me sick.

-- Allen

people you thought were pretty smart growing up, end up not being able to see through the bullshit. The last time I got into it with mom her answer to every one of my points was, "if you say so," which meant: that's not what Faux News says so I don't believe it. She actually did not believe me when I informed her that Gore got more votes!!! Once again it was, "if you say so." I tell you they have these people so fucking brainwashed. When I asked her why the only place they have a particular skew on a story is on Faux and that if you look at news from International sources it won't be the same and asked her why the rest of the world would uniformly lie, she said, "they're just jealous." I mean it's crazy!! How can people be this gullible?

I'm just so glad I have the sanity of my DU family to fall back on.

What part of Slovakia?

Kovalcik is the name that my great grandfather had. Pardon my ignorance but what does Rusyn mean and what faith relgion wise are these people. My ancestors on that side were Catholic. Oh I think I may have an idea where, my ancestor who was the flag raiser at Iwo Jima was from some place called Jarabenia, it was just a villege. I am pretty sure they were occupied by the Austrian-Hugarians.

The Rusyns are a mysterious lot. They're village-centered, sort of like shtetl Jews. They were converted from whatever Pagan rites they used to worship to Greek Orthodox Christianity by St. Cyril, I think, in the 800s. In the 1700s, they split from the Orthodox Church for some political reason and, though they were allowed to keep their Greek rituals and liturgy, they swore allegiance to Rome, thus, the Greek or Byzantine Catholic church was born.

Interestingly, I was just looking at famous rusyns on http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org/, and found this:

Sgt. Michael Strank, US soldier, raised US flag on Iwo Jima -- Strenk, Grofik from Orjabyna, Spis

Your ancestor must have known him.

Sorry you had to learn you're Rusyn this way. ;)

Scottish, Irish, Welsh, French, and Cherokee.

Then some very small fraction German, swedish, Irish, Dutch (don't know how that got in there) and I think a small bit English.

Phew! Did I miss anything?

People describing nationality always makes me think of recipes.

edit: whoops! i meant nationality, Always get those mixed up.

Is Swiss a separate ethnicity, by the way? Anyone?

can't type today. Stayed up to late *yawn*

I know what you mean.

Or would I rather not know?

:shrug:

Fresh ham with dumplings and sauerkraut, did you eat a lot of that too?

And klotchky. Not sure if that's czech or esatern european or just a food in general.

and used to eat buchti (I dunno if that's spelled right) and kolachy - little pastry-bun type thingies. My favorite were the poppy seed filled ones. My mother called the stuff "mark." (again, who knows how to spell it). Yum. Klotchky sounds like fliechkey. What was in it?

When we went to Johnstown, I remember kielbasa fondly.

is all along the Carpathians, from Poland down through Slovakia, Rumania, Hungary and into Croatia, I believe.

just Turkish
:)

:-)

But you couldn't tell it, as I have blond hair and blue eyes.

:shrug:

...mixed with Limey, Kraut, and Mick.

That's HILARIOUS!!!

tall German build with Portuguese coloring and features.

English, Swedish, German, Scottish, and Irish.

Sarah

Incidentally, the Ruthenian church looks for all intents and purposes like a Greek or Russian Orthodox church. And it was affiliated with the Ukrainian Orthodox branch until a schism occurred some two or three hundred years ago that made the Rusyns split off and swear allegiance to Rome, on the condition that they didn't have to change a thing about their liturgy or rituals. (I'm not sure if priests were no longer permitted to marry.) So they became known as Uniates, or Byzantine-, Ukrainian-, or Greek-Catholics. It's another quirk of this ethnicity that fascinates me. (I'm an atheist, myself, and am not planning to join a church just because I'm one-quarter Rusyn!)

I'm Anglo-Welsh-Scots-Irish-Franco-American. Everybody got that?

Mayflower.

I guess I'm Scotch, Irish, English, French, German, Russian, Norwegian and part Lakota Sioux.

Two grandparents of british descent. My maternal grandmother was born in Hamilton, ONT, but both her parents emigrated from England, one from Bulton and one from Wales. My paternal grandmother's family traces its roots to Richard Warren, a passenger on the Mayflower and an original settler in Pymouth.

My paternal grandfather was born in Parry Sound, ONT. He was french-canadien. I never met him, he died before I was born. I don't know when his family came over from France.

My maternal grandfather, whom I am writing a book about, is from Austria/Italy. He would throw a fit if you ever called him an italian-he considers himself to be austrian. The village he was born in is in the alps, and was austrian at the time of his birth. The borders changed after WWI (grandpa says it's because the italians switched sides, so they got Brenner Pass as a prize). His father was austrian by birth and his mother was slovenian.

It's fascinating stuff.

I think it's really interesting to understand where your ancestors came from in such detail.

If your ancestry interests you, visiting your ancestors' homeland has got to be a profound experience. Even if it's remote, it's probably not that difficult to fly to Prague and take a train or bus. And you could do a lot of primary research, too.


I know from a family geneologist that my father's direct male ancestor came from Amsterdam to what is now New York with Peter Stuyvesant in the 1600's. (He was probably originally from Flanders, or what is now part of Belgium.) Most of the family stayed in New York or New Jersey and were ordinary, practical, industrious Yankees -- famers, small businessmen, city officials. One ran a ferry from Staten Island in the 19th century. Another was a Presbyterian missionary to China in the 1870s and wrote a couple of books (which I found on the internet).

My mother's side of the family is mostly German. They came to America in the 1840s from the Swiss border probably to escape the draft. They settled in Cincinnati, which was the end of the rail line at that time, and built small businesses in things like tanning (leather, that is) and ironwork.

It makes a strange sort of difference to have that perspective.

I'd like to make a trip there in the next year or two. We were planning on going to California for spring vacation this year...maybe next year. My mouth is watering for it!

And I agree with you about knowing something about your background. I learned more about my family last weekend than I knew my whole life, and I was frankly surprised at how interesting it was, even just knowing that I have second cousins in Alberta and Saskatchewan because my great grandfather's younger sister migrated to Alberta in the 1930s, long after her other siblings (except the two who stayed) migrated to the US.

because I consider myself as much as these and American or even more so depending. Ok me: I am Irish, German, Slovenian, and Slovak.
Theres jokes about the Irish and Germans and so I dare you to make jokes about the Slovaks and Slovenians. Ha Ha. Also this makes me 75% communist :evilgrin: all those nations except Ireland were once Communist and that also means many of my ancestors were occupied by empires. Always proud of my heritage.

with a tad of French (one of the Germans was Alsacian.) My kids have Polish and Italian. A few more generations and we will all be the UN.

My daughter is Jewish, on account of her mother, whose relatives came from Poland (near Krakow, I think) and the Ukraine (Kiev).

Nice little family church
http://www.fortidsminneforeningen.no/eiendom/sakshaug.htm

Also German. Somehow my grandparents got here between the world wars.

Want some lutefisk on that unleavened bread?

Think I'll pass on the lutefisk, thanks.

:puke:

with a dash of Italian, I am told.

But in the end we are all mongrels!

I'm mostly black, but part Welsh, Cherokee, and Romanichal.

Romanichals are a major branch, located primarily in the UK. Most gypsies in the U.S. are Romanichals.

Do you speak any Romany (is that what it's called?)?

African-American heritage is also very interesting (to say the least), because it's much more specific than is ordinarily thought. I was thinking of that when I watched Martin Scorcese's film in The Blues series and you could see the direct links between traditions in Mali and ones in Mississippi. I know a lot of Cuba's African heritage is Yoruba--and this means quite concretely that the enslaved Africans on Cuba came mostly from a specific place in Nigeria. I wonder if any African-American DUers have traced their heritage back to a specific palce and people in Africa.

The thing with Romany language is that there are so many different dialects. It really differs a lot depending on the country, because the dialects absorb things from the majority language. Unfortunately I don't speak it, though I do know some words here and there (my DU handle actually means "witch" in a few dialects). It's pretty hard because I don't have much contact with the Rom part of the family. There's a lot of shame issues involved and the rest of the family won't even discuss it. :(

It's interesting you should bring up that Scorcese documentary, because those links inspired me to want to trace back my African roots. I never seem to get the time, though.

because the Rom are a very interesting group.

Good luck tracing your African roots. I'll bet there's some good info on the Web about how to do it.

Snormanglishench :D

What is it with all these part Swedes?

Guinness :beer:

took Guinness to Ireland one pillage-fest, and forgot to bring the recipe back. ;-)

Basically my family gets together to beat up British people.

I am mostly Mexican with Spanish, French and Native American for good measure!

But it is my Mexican roots that I identify with:)

Do you ever think yourself, "My lord, I'm Aztec!" (That would be pretty far out, as far as I'm concerned.)

My great-grandfather, who moved up to the US in 1910, didn't speak Spanish but spoke Nahuatl. It's pretty crazy if I think about it!

And pretty cool. I'd love to say I was part Aztec.

I spent a couple of weeks in Ireland last year, and it was freaky. A whole country of people that look just like me. And all the guys had the same ill-fitting pants that I have. I felt so... welcome... somehow.

Or did your family come from Dublin? Did you meet any relatives?

We eat well.

And we put gravy on EVERYTHING!

;)

Actually we are from Chicago but I moved here in the 80's...

No wonder I felt at home.

(Except for the Green Bay Pukers, of course...)

Both my parents' families are from the same area around Lvov, which has been tossed around between countries for centuries, so there could very well be bits of other stuff mixed in. Interesting story: my next door neighbor is a Polish immigrant,came over about 10 years ago, and it turns out his dad was born in the very same region as my grandparents. Small world.

Edit: I still am Canadian above all.

I come from two families who have been here a long time, with some Native American ancestors thrown in. My father's side of the family has traced their presence in the states to just after War of Independence. Don't know about my mother's side, but they've been here a while. At least since the 1850s.

though there's some speculation that the family name has some French influences.

nobody knows where they're from. Or we're all from Tanzania.

I can't tell you how many people have said "Transylvania's not a real place!" Well! It's a region in Romania between the Carpathians and the Transylvanian Alps......filled with Maygars, Szeklers, Roms, Hungarians, Turks, probably Rusyns, and us. (Fangs for letting me tell the tooth about my ethnicity........always a pain in the neck trying to convince people!!!)

At one time my mother mistakenly thought our ancestors might be from Transylvania and I was kind of proud of that. In any case, if the Carpathians run near it, chances are there are Rusyns there.

Ancestors migrated during the potato famine.

easy

;) (I guess there's a bit of ass-kicking on both sides!)

YES INDEED

and isn't it "Russian"? :)

Cat

a separate ethnic group.

and the fact that I was one in the same minute!

Like between "Romans" and the Rrom (or Rom), which is the "modern" term for the group most commonly known as Gypsies.

:)

my first and last name are Irish and that was the culture I was most exposed to growing up. I am also Scottish, English, Swedish, Danish, and who knows what else.

:D

For someone in the U.S. -- Scots/Irish and British, with possibly a little PA Dutch (i.e., German) thrown in. Mostly British. What's funny is most of the women in my family have dark eyes and dark hair, and some of us (me included) have curly hair. My aunt and uncle (she's my mother's sister) retired to Florida about twenty years ago, and people in Florida, on meeting her, mostly assumed she was Jewish. We are a little swarthy, for being mostly Scots on that side, now I think of it.

I know there are "black Irish" who are supposedly descendants of Spanish sailors who rescued themselves from the Spanish Armada.

Ethnicity is a funny thing. All it takes is one or two interminglings a few dozen generations ago and voila! New ethnic group. Or new traits in an old ethnic group.

heritage. Or, as hubby (who's half German and half Polish, and looks it) and I call it, 'the Moor in the woodpile theory.'

Entirely possible. Lots of different Mediterranean peoples passed through the British Isles at various points in history. Purity of claim is hardly any concern of mine -- none of my ancestry is going to get me anything more than brown eyes and curly hair! -- but my mother's a genealogist, so I know a little more about the past few generations of my family than some people do.

Well, we've got the Czech/Bohemian bit (25%), English (12.5%), Lowland Scottish (12.5%) on my dad's side.

Mom's side is a total mishmash, but largely Scandahoovian as we'd say in MinneSOHta. Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and a wayward bit of German and Slovak mixed in for good measure-- although I'm not completely sure about the Danish bit, because I found out that my great-grandfather was actually illegitimate a few years back, so his Danish "father" was actually his step-father.

Oh yeah, there's also some Jewish mixed in with the Czech/Bohunk stuff, but I don't know how much. Probably not more than 1/32 I think but I'm not sure.

Only in America, eh? :D

I have a great great grandma in my history named Fatima, which makes me wonder if there's Uzbek, Azerbaijani or Chechnian in there somewhere. So it's not only in America, necessarily. ;)

Dat's meeee.....

That's an interesting combo.

As is Hungarian, Estonian, Turkmen and others.

All Ural-Altaic ethnic groups originated from the present-day "stans" around 3,000 years ago. The Finns migrated north, Turks migrated to the Mediterranean.

:D

Spells Celto-Mutt.

Mixed British Isles ancestry, with some Norman French and Viking in there somewhere, apparently.

English, Scottish, and Italian - with some French, German, and Dutch.