How connected to your heritage do you feel?

[Deesse23]

After my mom died and my dad now getting real old (84), i started looking at my roots.
The start was not so hard, since my maternal grandpa, having been in the Waffen SS, had to dig out his ancestors anyway. Starting with this official book of ancestry i could trace my ancestors back to the 1500s. Then a somewhat suspicious connection, which leads back to the 1200s.
On my dads side, i was able to trace back to the 1700s. Currently i am trying (with my cousin 2nd grade) to identify the house my family left, when they settled over from the former Soviet Union in 1962. With dads help and some old maps from Eastern Prussia (early 20th century), i am 90% sure we tracked the location down. It has been hard to follow down my purely paternal line, since my great-great grandad seems to be born out of wedlock.

Its been an interesting journey, but i am not obsessed with it. Just curious.

My DNA confirming what i already wrote: roughly 50% German (mom) and 50% Baltic (dad).

[The Architect Of Fate]

As an Inuit person very connected

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Do you feel that you're part of the living tradition you were by fortune born into.

For example, I am very much English.  Do I feel English?  Do I feel some commonality with my immediate ancestors, or my wider culture, my history, my nation, my ethnicity etc.?

You don't sound like a Sassenach.

[Istvan]

I've been working away on my Ancestry tree for years and yeah, I feel connected to it. My forebears came from Ireland and toiled in the factories of Lynn, Massachusetts. Oddly enough, lots of my extended family are pretty conservative and have very little sympathy for what our not-so-distant ancestors suffered during the 20th century.

[arewethereyet]

I have a book that outlines my maternal family in the US back to 1650. It's interesting but not all that important to my day-to-day life.

[The Valkyrie]

I try to be.

Last time I was in the UK I raided Lindisfarne by boat.

[Pat Mustard]

I'm directly descended from eight couples who left Ireland around 1890. (Never looked up the exact date, not something I worry about.)

I have no interest in visiting the old country, and the most blatantly obvious thing about me is my temper. I do (did) like a good fight.

Erin go Bragh! Or something.

Hwat?! You've no interest in visiting me????

[Brian37]

I am adopted so my biological family and I really don't have that much in common.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm directly descended from eight couples who left Ireland around 1890. (Never looked up the exact date, not something I worry about.)

I have no interest in visiting the old country, and the most blatantly obvious thing about me is my temper. I do (did) like a good fight.

Erin go Bragh! Or something.

Hwat?! You've no interest in visiting me????

Not at all. Just buy me a plane ticket...

[Pat Mustard]

Hwat?! You've no interest in visiting me????

Not at all. Just buy me a plane ticket...

Naw, you come to me. Fewer maniacs with guns.