Ancestry dot what?

Well, on giving the topic just a bit of thought, I do have a bit to pass on.  The other night, one of my grandchildren called me up and asked if there was anything in my early years that I thought he might be able to use in one of his assignments.  It seems his teacher must be the kind of person who appreciates backgrounds.  That being the case, she decided to use her ability to provide homework that might give her students the opportunity to learn a bit about their heritage.  So, on passing on a few vignettes from my one and only published work (my autobiography), I felt maybe, just maybe I may have done my part in giving my grandson Dylan what he might need to earn a good grade for his assignment.

 

Well, as sometime is the case, his assignment forced me into a bit of thought about my (our) backgrounds.  Setting aside his grandmother Jennie’s attributes, both of her parents being definitely from Great Britain, I gave my ancestral remembrances just a bit of consideration.  My mother’s background was pretty easy to come up with.  Her dad was a Newbanks, a good German family name.  And her mother gave just as well, having the name Feallock—again, quite Germanic.  

 

From my other side, My dad always said we were Scotch-Irish.  Given a bit of consideration as to what that might describe, I will begin by pointing to that movie, “Braveheart.”  If you happened to have seen that movie, you might remember when our hero gave his salute to the British King who was overseeing the battle.  “Ah, the Irish,” was the King’s comment having just observed a backside presentation by our hero’s army.  Well, as you probably remember, the British succeeded in their difficulty with their Irish neighbors, and moved on with the defeated Irish, finding they had great difficulties in getting the defeated nation to do what they, the British, wanted them to do.

 

So what did this bring on?  Well, the Scotch were another matter.  Apparently the Scotch were willing to do what they needed to do to satisfy the Brits.  And, because of this, many Scots were brought into Ireland to get the British wishes accomplished—mostly, I believe, in the growing of crops to send to Great Britain.  That being the case, the term “Scotch-Irish” came to describe those imported Scots and, from the time I knew enough about heritage to ask questions on the subject, what I always heard was, from my dad, that we were Scotch-Irish. 

 

So, my heritage being known, I now wonder why I am called “White?”  It can’t be from the color of my skin, a somewhat taupe color that I grew up understanding was a flesh tone.  I am really no more a white colored person than virtually all of my African American friends are black colored.  If not white, then, how should I think of myself?  Well, given what I have described so far, I'm pretty sure that, following the custom my darker friends have used for many years, I could make my label appellation something like “a Scotch-Irish Germanic American.”  Yes, I suppose I could, but why not go the route of our African Americans and call people like me a European American? 

 

Or, again following our African descended friends’ lead, how about Euro-American?  Euro-American me?  Sure, why not?  We then might say we have Afro-Americans, Euro-Americans and (why not) Asian-Americans on our block, or so I believe.  Austra-Americans are also a possibility.  No Antarc-Americans, though.  There just never has been much of a human population at all on that last continent.  And, as for that South American complement, well they and we will just have to share.  Euro-American North (or South) is just a bit too much!

 

Ancestry dot who?  Well, today, let’s just concentrate on Euro-American me—something grandson will hear about sometime soon, believe me.

 

And, as my “Editor-in-Chief” friend always opines to his followers:

         Thank you, dear readers, for reading!  (Close enough, John?)

                                    Thanks, again!