There doesn’t seem to be much I can identify with culturally. My family has been “American” for a very long time. Yesterday was Saint Patrick’s day, though, and it reminded me that of my European-mutt heritage, there is indeed some ol’ Irish.

I’ve always known this, but I didn’t know the details of it until I started using Ancestry. 

It has been a timely discovery, because as a thoroughbred “American,” I have been feeling a bit disconnected from anything that might be further back.

Sure, there is Christmas, which my ostensibly religious family has partaken in for centuries most likely, but that to me seems where the traditions end. 

I am surrounded by people closely connected with their culture and heritage, some not even a generation removed. My family has been here for a very long time, though, and surnames tend to get thrown in a wash. Martienial lines are harder to uncover, as women leave their maiden names in marriage. This makes it hard to decipher exactly where you should identify with, should you choose to consider the underpinnings of your American identity. 

However, I have unearthed that I am principally French, with some entangled Irish and English. I also learned that I have some “White Russian” heritage, and that my great-great grandmother left Belarus (White Russia) in 1916, alone, at the tender age of 16 before it was absorbed by the USSR two years later. 

These little bits fill in a lot. That’s really all I have to say on the matter, but if you too generalize yourself as American, and feel that it doesn’t quite do it for you, then I encourage you to look into your ancestry. 

The site Ancestry is useful, and if you aren’t opposed to sending a swab of yourself in you can also get a specific regional breakdown. Ancestry is not the only platform that offers this service, and if the idea interests you here is a video that can help you decide on which one to opt for. 

Ancestry, the subject, is very enlightening, and I hope you too fall down a rabbit hole of self-discovery.