Do you know your origins/roots?

[Viazon]

How much do you know about your roots? Has your whole family always lived in your country or did they immigrate from another country? Why did they come over?

My mothers family back in Italy and carnie folk. They own a fairground. Whenever we go back to visit them, we get to visit the fairground and go on all of the rides for free. Pretty awesome. My grandad, that being my mothers father, came to England after the war. With a lot of the country needing to be rebuilt and most of the countries men having died in the war, they needed workers. There was a company not too far from my town called the London Brick Company. This lead to a lot of Italian workers coming to work. That is why there is now a very large Italian community in my town, Bedford. Most of the Italians in my town are descendants from people who came to work at the London Brick Company. There is even a mention about it on the company's Wikipedia page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Brick_Company#Italian_influence

After my grandad stopped working there, he was presented with a gift, as was everyone else. He received three commemorative bricks, coloured red, white and green for the Italian flag. We still have these bricks on display in my kitchen.

Then there is my dad. He came over to find work and helped build the railway tracks going from Bedford to London. My dad was a very promising boxer in his younger years. He could have gone professional and even had an opportunity to go to the Olympics one year but he decided against because of the corruption in Italian boxing. That's what he tells us anyway. If he had decided to take that road in his life, I may not have been here.

[Kyle]

My ancestry is from Norway.

[The Legend]

My ancestry is from a little bit of all over. I have one grandfather whose family is from the Czech Republic (more accurately Czechoslovakia), another grandfather whose family is from Finland, a grandmother whose family is mostly from Wales and another whose family is mostly from Ireland, but I have other blood from around Europe and even some Native American blood in me.

[PorkChop]

My ancestry is English. Like, pure English, all the way through. Pretty boring stuff.

A relative of mine died on the Titanic, but that's about as interesting as it gets.

[AkydefGoldberg]

My ancestry originates from Pakistan, specifically in Azad Kashmir (which is Pakistan's piece of the Kashmir land which they've fought three wars with India over) but nothing major besides that. I've been about two times and it's a cool place to go and unwind but roasting weather, gets to about 40 degrees in the summer.

[Kirbi]

I think I'm entirely Irish. At the very least, I've never heard any different, and I really look it. If I have a hint of anything else I'm unaware of, it's most likely English, I guess.

[Viazon]

My ancestry is English. Like, pure English, all the way through. Pretty boring stuff.

A relative of mine died on the Titanic, but that's about as interesting as it gets.

Some of the Titanic was built in a factory in my town. Got knocked down a few years ago. There are houses there now.

[The Legend]

My ancestry originates from Pakistan, specifically in Azad Kashmir (which is Pakistan's piece of the Kashmir land which they've fought three wars with India over) but nothing major besides that. I've been about two times and it's a cool place to go and unwind but roasting weather, gets to about 40 degrees in the summer.

I'm assuming that's 40 degrees celsius? It sounds quite cold otherwise.

[AkydefGoldberg]

My ancestry originates from Pakistan, specifically in Azad Kashmir (which is Pakistan's piece of the Kashmir land which they've fought three wars with India over) but nothing major besides that. I've been about two times and it's a cool place to go and unwind but roasting weather, gets to about 40 degrees in the summer.

I'm assuming that's 40 degrees celsius? It sounds quite cold otherwise.

Ha, yes celsius.

[JPG619]

I have many different backgrounds. Below are the ones I know but I bet I be missing some

Dad's Side is from
Poland
Austria

Mom's Side is from
England
France
Germany
Ireland
French Canadian
I know there more on my mom side. The rest just slipped my mind.

[Everlong]

We're able to trace the male line on my dad's side back to the early 1600s in southwest Germany. Most of the people on my dad's side came to America in the early 1800s, and have been in Wisconsin since then.

My mom's side is a bit more interesting. We were able to trace her Scottish ancestry back to the actual MacBeth. I'll have to ask my older sister for more info about that, she's the one who's real interested in genealogy.

[steve84]

By background is English and Scottish. You dig far enough into either, and you realise that Europe is basically completely interbred. Scots were Irish, English were Scots or French, and you've only gone back 300 years.

And by that rationale, I am descended from Charlemagne:
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com ... l-royalty/

Favourite family story (as an Aussie who is partially descended from convicts) is of a descendent who picked up a rope in the street, and didn't realise until he got home that there was a horse attached to the other end.

A relative of mine died on the Titanic, but that's about as interesting as it gets.

I had a great-something uncle of some variety who had a return ticket on the Titanic. Went missing after that point in time, but he may have been a bit of a boozer, which could explain why he went missing.