What are your national roots? What are your parents’ and grandparents’ national roots?

It doesn’t take long to discover how diverse your ancestry is AND how different it is from what you may have assumed.

wordstemplatespro.com

For example, I was under the wrong assumption that my father was the first person born in the United States, his father was born in Canada and my paternal great-grandfather was born in Ireland. I remember hearing something about my mother’s family also being of Irish descent, so I just assumed that was it. I’m an Irish American with a brief stop in Canada.

Well, it’s not as simple as that. Even the Family Tree chart displayed above quickly shows that my parents had parents who had parents … with just 8 generations the number of ancestors quickly escalates to 256. See https://nationaltoday.com/national-roots-

I had been under a misunderstanding that my first paternal great grandfather had emigrated from Ireland.  What I learned was that my eighth paternal great grandfather was born in New York in 1639 and that every subsequent descendent was born in North America. My paternal ancestors have lived here for many generations.

While I do have a lot of Irish DNA, I discovered direct ancestors born in England, France, Germany, Scotland and The Netherlands as well. And the number of maternal (aka maiden) surnames quickly added up to 140. I’m surrounded by relatives!

Today’s senryu: National Roots Day

no pure bloodline here,

I’m a blend of many seeds

and stronger for it

If a zoo keeps a male lion and a female tiger in the same enclosure, a liger can result. It has a mix of its parents’ traits. https://www.snexplores.org/article/mixed-world-hybrid-animals