Scottishness and identity

[nacider]

Americans always seem to categorize themselves when it comes to family history, maybe because 1000 years ago their grandparent was a little bit scottish or a little bit english they are HALF english/scottish?! it really irritates me, because they just don't say ONE thing its got to be more than one; 4% french, 50% irish, 20% scottish 17% african ect.ect. its like WTF!?

[Marlys of Mull]

I don't recall anyone on this thread breaking down thier ancestry by percentage. So already, that's an untrue statement.

Americans have a history that goes back only a few hundred years, in my case, 400 in one line. Other countries, as Thistlebeme mentioned in her last post, have ancestry that goes back for over 1000.

With the exception of the Native Americans, all Americans came from somewhere else, and even they, at some point came from somewhere else. Who could blame us for wanting to know where we came from?

I'm sorry your irritated by that, but it's your problem, and not caused by Americans in general.

[Strainsear]

Apparently, it isn't only the Americans who want to know where they come from:

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/6888/skgv3.jpg

[billc]

Obviously it is a human trait to know where you and your ancestors came from. I think Nacider is way off the mark with that one.

[thistlebeme]

Yeah, that was kind of harsh....
Go back far enough, and, as Marlys said, we all come from somewhere else. My clan, Fraser, is believed to come from Normandy, and yet there it is, as Scottish a Clan as any.

I am wondering where the connections are....the welcoming... when I have been in Scotland, I have been met with warm words of welcome & embracing of my heritage. "oooh, so you're a Cowie"...and then there are lots of questions about how my family got from there to here. I don't know what made my Gr'Grandfather decide to come to America. Maybe it was his choice, maybe not. What of those who were booted out during the Clearances? Do they not have the right to claim Scottish heritage and be welcomed for it?

[Polwarth]

For goodness sake.... we Scots have said: claim Scottish heritage, it's your right - it's the foreigners who tell us that they are more Scots than the natives who get up our noses!

[thistlebeme]

Hmmmn...foreign to more than the Scottish shores, I think....foreign to my way of thinking, and from the posts herein, foreign to those who are here.

I wonder, then, if we can find the commonality amongst us, and talk of our Scottishness, near and far, ....or is that another thread?