Update: This isn't verified but I'm pretty sure I have Nordic/Scandinavian/Viking/Norwegian/Swedish/Finnish ancestry on my mom's side!

That's so cool, Sine! I've always been interested in my ancestry! I do know a little bit, like the fact that I'm very Italian, a tiny bit Cherokee, and and my Jewish ancestors came from Austria/Poland before they were a thing. How did you figure this out?

ooh yes!! during the pandemic, my mom and i got really interested in our family's ancestry - my mom's been doing a lot of research lately, and she's working on a book about it for a historical society in the town her side of the family had a role in founding/developing, which is pretty cool.

on my mom's side, i'm german, dutch, indonesian, english, and french, and on my dad's side, i'm irish (that's literally it). my dad is convinced he's part norwegian because the vikings invaded ireland (and he loves the vikings), but i'm not sure lol

it's so cool you know so much about your ancestry, Sine! have you been doing the research yourself or did you do some sort of dna test? 

ooh, cool idea! I love finding out about my ancestry. Fortunately, a lot of people in my family have worked really hard on recording all the information they knew, so I know who almost all my ancestors on their side of the family are, at least up until about the 1600s. There's a family legend that we're descended from William the Conqueror, which, while not proven, hasn't been actually disproven... :0 Tremble before me, oh ye Saxons, before Norman might!! *brandishes a sword* There are a bunch of other interesting ancestors that I have, though - some famous people, and some people who just had interesting lives but never became well-known... ministers, politicians, artists. There are photos of them in a folder my mom has. I always get absolutely fascinated when i look at them - these people from the 1800s gave me some of my genes and enabled my existence, yet despite the deep tie I have with them, I have little in common with them. Except that a lot of them very much valued education and reading, something that's endured through the generations :)

I have ancestry from immigrants from all over Europe; and, of course, from Mexico. Which means that I've probably got ancestors who were Roman, Celtic, Arab, and Indigenous. (The thing is, originally Spain was Celtic. Then the Romans conquered it. Once the Roman empire fell, the Arabs or Moors conquered it. Then the Spanish, or Celt-Roman-Arabs as they'd probably be called if they'd lived in the United States, conquered Mexico and a new culture was born from the blend of indigenous and Spanish roots, with a bit of African influence from the slaves who arrived. [And come to think of it, the Indigenous peoples originally came from Asia... so Mexican culture has its roots in every single broad cultural group on the planet!! It makes me a bit irritated when people say that Latin Americans can be classified as a seperate "race". First of all, the concept of "race" is scientifically incorrect, all humans are one race, but second, Latin Americans are literally a mix of almost every single "race" imaginable, a living example of how you can't classify people by putting them in totally separate boxes. It's just that calling us "Celtic-Roman-Arab-Indigenous-African Americans" takes way too long to say lol.])

One thing that really interests me about my ancestry is that again and again, there's this pattern of how I have ancestors who were on different sides of a struggle. I have Mexican ancestors who fought in the Mexican-American War of 1848, and a great-great-great[insert many greats here] uncle who died fighting on the American side. I've got ancestors who owned plantations and ancestors who risked their lives to free African-American slaves. All of those people probably hated each other, yet they all went to the making of me. While I'm not proud of some of my ancestors, I think it's a really good cause for hope that people who were bitter enemies in their time can become united through family, and that we, the current generation, can come from both sides of a story and refuse to be defined by the wrong things our ancestors may have done. 

I often wonder what it would be like to actually meet your ancestors. Would they be totally shocked at who their descendants were? Or would you discover that the real reason you have that trait that no one in your family understands is because of Great-great-grandpa Sam? I feel like I know my mom's grandparents, because of all the stories that have been passed down about them, and I wish I could've met them... I think it would be very inspiring, at any rate, to talk with all the people who had survived and fought against enormous odds, managing to keep their families going and ultimately resulting in you.

I'm part German, part Irish, part Irish or German AGAIN (I can't remember which), part Lebanese (part of me is from Lebanon, and I can't spell LOL), and part Native American (I don't look like it at all...).