How Mexican are YOU?

[Spiky Bugger]

This will come as really bad news to my cousin who grew up thinking she was "Mexican American," married a real live Mexican-- at which point she had to learn Spanish--has lived in Mexico and South America (and all over Europe), spent over fifty years with a three-word-surname, along the lines of "De la Fuente"...and who just learned, thanks to an advanced DNA test, that she is 55% Ashkenazi Jew.

 

[JackieOnLine]

OMG that was hysterical!

 

[Spiky Bugger]

OMG that was hysterical!

I thought so, too!

 

[Larra]

Very clever, but won't make up for the bad publicity for leaving a flight on the tarmac in Oakland with no air conditioning, no water and no food for over 4 hours. Which hasn't been investigated yet, due to the government shutdown, but hopefully will be.
And wouldn't it be funny if I were the reverse of your cousin, thinking I'm 100% Ashenazi Jewish and it turned out I was part Mexican? Seems unlikely since all 4 of my grandparents immigrated from Eastern Europe, but I supposed you never know.

 

[Spiky Bugger]

Very clever, but won't make up for the bad publicity for leaving a flight on the tarmac in Oakland with no air conditioning, no water and no food for over 4 hours. Which hasn't been investigated yet, due to the government shutdown, but hopefully will be.
And wouldn't it be funny if I were the reverse of your cousin, thinking I'm 100% Ashenazi Jewish and it turned out I was part Mexican? Seems unlikely since all 4 of my grandparents immigrated from Eastern Europe, but I supposed you never know.

WE really don't know. And you COULD BE part Mexican...because the good folks at Ancestry.com seem to think MY DNA is 7% from Russia and Finland, and Я даже не знаю русских людей.

 

[harrietvane]

Zero percent, alas! I think black pepper is spicy.

 

[DianaCox]

YOUR ANCESTRY IN DETAIL

NEW
99.8% Ashkenazi Jewish
Ashkenazi Jewish people settled in Eastern Europe in the late Middle Ages, and are genetically more similar to other Jewish populations than to most Europeans.
~~~~~~
So much for the family history of being direct descendants on my father’s side of Sephardic Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition in the late 1700s.

 

[k9ophile]

That loud thunk you heard coming from Tennessee was my head slamming into the desk upon hearing "I'll go to Mexico if they have a Taco Bell on every corner." (May be misquoted yet I refuse to hear that again.) Where I live, Taco Bell is the best Mexican food. Quite a letdown after living in Colorado. One saving grace is a restaurant in Franklin, TN. At a mere 86.3 miles from our house, it's easier and cheaper than going to CO or TX to get my fix. When I moved here I thought I might learn to like fried catfish, but alas that is not to be. While a little bit north of the Carolina's and Arkansas, I enjoy a good pulled pork or pork shoulder sliced.

I also refuse to get a DNA test. If called upon to name my ethnic background, I say I came from Ohio farmers. That's as far as I can go back in my history or even care to. My maternal great-grandparents came from Germany, and quickly assimilated. I don't know any German, but I do have a love for home made egg noodles. My father's side all have Scottish sounding surnames. I don't have any desire to try haggis.

 

[DonRobbie]

My mother is a genealogy expert (started as a hobby then she eventually developed enough skill and experience to do some work for hire). SO I have a pretty good idea of what my heritage is supposed to be. Her side is German (came over in the 1800s), with a fair bit of this that and the other tossed in for good measure. Dad's side is English (with some Scottish, Welsh, etc). I'm supposed to be about a 1/16th Native American. Did a genetic test, came back as 97% English. So either the test is totally off or someone along the way was mistaken about paternity. Probably will do another test sometime.

 

[Spiky Bugger]

That loud thunk you heard coming from Tennessee was my head slamming into the desk upon hearing "I'll go to Mexico if they have a Taco Bell on every corner." (May be misquoted yet I refuse to hear that again.) Where I live, Taco Bell is the best Mexican food. Quite a letdown after living in Colorado. One saving grace is a restaurant in Franklin, TN. At a mere 86.3 miles from our house, it's easier and cheaper than going to CO or TX to get my fix. When I moved here I thought I might learn to like fried catfish, but alas that is not to be. While a little bit north of the Carolina's and Arkansas, I enjoy a good pulled pork or pork shoulder sliced.

I also refuse to get a DNA test. If called upon to name my ethnic background, I say I came from Ohio farmers. That's as far as I can go back in my history or even care to. My maternal great-grandparents came from Germany, and quickly assimilated. I don't know any German, but I do have a love for home made egg noodles. My father's side all have Scottish sounding surnames. I don't have any desire to try haggis.

In middle shool, MiniSue's class did a "field trip" to Olvera Street, "the birthplace of Los Angeles." A tourist trap for sure, but some actual history lves there and it has lots of imported goodies and a kind of candy I like and TONS of restaurants. My elementary classmate's dad was the guitar player at a long-established restaurant there.

Google: Olvera Street Restaurants, then click on "more," and peek inside thirteen of them.

MiniSue had classmates who were pissed that there was no TacoBell.

 

[DianaCox]

So my 23andMe holds a real mystery. Keep in mind this history:

Father’s family came over from Transylvania in 1940, near the tail end of chain migration that started in the early 1900s.

Maternal grandmother’s family came over in 1906 from Warsaw. I don’t know anything about her family because she was estranged from them (I believe there was a wicked stepmother and several younger siblings).

Maternal grandfather’s family came over in 1913, by chain migration from Belarus, probably going back at least 10 years.

My mother was born in Moscow, after her parents, who were communists, moved there to fight for the revolution. They came back in 1935 when Stalin started purging the foreigners.

Analysis of my DNA indicates that my parents were NOT related to each other.

BUT NEARLY EVERY ONE OF MY 1040 DNA RELATIVES ARE RELATED TO EACH OTHER!!

How can that be?? At first I thought it might be that all of the relatives were related to just my father’s side (because they were the only ones I recognized names), and that possibly my mother was adopted in Moscow (she was my grandmother’s only live birth out of 6 or 7 pregnancies), but I have since figured out several that are definitely related to my mother’s father’s side.

How the hell could my two families have interbred when they all got to NY around the same time, such that almost all are related to each other?? It makes no sense to me.

 

[Spiky Bugger]

So my 23andMe holds a real mystery. Keep in mind this history:

Father’s family came over from Transylvania in 1940, near the tail end of chain migration that started in the early 1900s.

Maternal grandmother’s family came over in 1906 from Warsaw. I don’t know anything about her family because she was estranged from them (I believe there was a wicked stepmother and several younger siblings).

Maternal grandfather’s family came over in 1913, by chain migration from Belarus, probably going back at least 10 years.

My mother was born in Moscow, after her parents, who were communists, moved there to fight for the revolution. They came back in 1935 when Stalin started purging the foreigners.

Analysis of my DNA indicates that my parents were NOT related to each other.

BUT NEARLY EVERY ONE OF MY 1040 DNA RELATIVES ARE RELATED TO EACH OTHER!!

How can that be?? At first I thought it might be that all of the relatives were related to just my father’s side (because they were the only ones I recognized names), and that possibly my mother was adopted in Modcow (she was my grandmother’s only live birth out of 6 or 7 pregnancies), but I have since figured out several that are definitely related to my mother’s father’s side.

How the hell could my two families have interbred when they all got to NY around the same time, such that almost all are related to each other?? It makes no sense to me.

Small town syndrome?

My mom used to tell me about double cousins, on her dad's side. I just notified someone on Ancestry of the death of a 97 y.o. "cousin." (I think that in Mexican culture every age peer who isn't a sibling is a cousin.")

He wrote back to remind me that we are double cousins! Probably double third- or fourth-cousins!

Meanwhile, MrSue's also-small home town, current population +/-1600, presented a problem for him. He says that "going two grades in either direction, there were maybe three girls" he wasn’t related to.


[And I had to do the math on another thing...MiniSue gets along quite well with "a cousin," who is the daughter of my "half-cousin, Cindy." (Cindy's dad and my mom were half-brother & sister.) That makes MiniSue and Cindy "half first cousins once removed." But I'm not sure what that makes MiniSue and Cindy's kids...I think they are "half second cousins."]

 

[DianaCox]

Small town syndrome: not possible, because my parents’ families are RECENTLY from very far apart (Transylvania, Warsaw, Belarus). The interbreeding must have happened in the early 1900s. And lots of these people are 2nd to 4th cousins.

Now on the other hand, Charles’ parents come from a small area in SW VA where there are 5 main family names, and the family has been there since the 1600s (there is a detailed genealogy book). I suspect Charles’ 23andMe (he has to redo his sample - for some reason, it didn’t have enough DNA in it) is going to show he is his own grandfather.

 

[k9ophile]

Google: Olvera Street Restaurants, then click on "more," and peek inside thirteen of them.

You are evil, plain and simple. There is drool all over my keyboard. If I were to have some chili verde with pork like the kind I loved, it would probably kill me after all the bland Mexican food I've had. It's a risk I'm willing to take. We're planning on going to Denver later this year for the grandson's high school graduation. If I do die, I doubt any mortician will be able to get the smile off my face. Bonus? I can get some good appetite stimulants at numerous weed shops thanks to the voters of CO. I do not want a small stomach day where I'm sneezing after four bites. For what it's worth, even the Taco Bells in CO will have a spicier green sauce for their burritos. I ordered a "burrito, green" here and was met with blank stares.

 

[southernlady]

YOUR ANCESTRY IN DETAIL

NEW
99.8% Ashkenazi Jewish
Ashkenazi Jewish people settled in Eastern Europe in the late Middle Ages, and are genetically more similar to other Jewish populations than to most Europeans.
~~~~~~
So much for the family history of being direct descendants on my father’s side of Sephardic Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition in the late 1700s.

This might be of interest to you: https://geneticliteracyproject.org/...-a-half-sister-and-sparked-painful-questions/