Your ethnic composition?

[12th Doctor]

My background is a heavy mix of Northern European.  I generally tell people that I am just "German and Irish" for short, but there is a bit more to it than that.

First, as far as I know, my real father was pure German.  So, I likely start off 50% German right off the bat, but I have no idea where they were from, or if his mother is German.

Second, the two main branches of my Irishness (my mother's mother) come from the Kelley's and McManus'.  The spelling "Kelley" is typically associated as being slightly more Anglo, and is somewhat uncommon.  It allows us to isolate the probably location of my ancestral home to about 5 sq miles in county Mayo, where the English had more pull than in most of western Ireland, and that spelling is more common.  The McManus family were black Irish, and came from County Cork.  The McManus family came in the 1820's, the Kelley's sometime in the 1840's during the famine... both landed in the Philadelphia area.

Third, on my mother's father's side, we have the Soult's and the Rumley's.  The Soult's first came over about a decade after William Penn founded the colony and seem to have been one of those families that continued to move as new lands became available... by the War for Independence, they were somewhere in the Lehigh Valley, we think.  The "Soult" name was originally spelled "Solt" (they came from the Palatinate region of Germany)  but the family changed it in the 1810's after Nicolas Soult became famous, in France.  They eventually moved even further West, until they became one of the first groups to settle what is now Clearfield County, PA and founded the town of Clearfield.  We don;t know much about the Rumley's except that we have an ancestor who was a pirate, and that he likely settled in North Carolina after making his fortune on the high seas.

In terms of "minor" ancestries on both sides, I can't confirm this 100 percent, but I think I share a common ancestor with Herbert Hoover, through part of the then "Huber" family that settled in Philadelphia and married into the Soult's.  I am also a Spencer, through the Soult family, and thus distantly related to Winston Churchill and Princess Diana... though we aren't sure how.  Through the Rumley's I am a direct descended of William Blount, the signatory of the Constitution from North Carolina, and first man ever to be expelled from the U.S. Senate... and the only one not expelled for being a Confederate sympathizer... and also the "Blunt's" who are so prominent in Southern politics... Roy Blunt, etc.

So, as a wrap up I am Irish, Scottish, English, northern and southern German... and that is not taking any account of human migration patterns prior to 500 years ago.  Some of my ancestors were likely in Normandy 1000 years ago and, of course, they came from Scandinavia 300 year prior, and so on.

[12th Doctor]

Verily, have you had any chance to look through Irish church records? My wife says that once you get them traced back to Ireland that's all you can use.

Ah, but it's the getting to Ireland that's the trouble. And there are too many fecking Byrnes and O'Byrnes and various alternative spellings in Ireland to be making guesses about Peter Byrne's parents or grandparents. (Like I said, we're not even sure they were Irish.)

Well Byrne is one of the ancient Royal families in Ireland and quintessentially Irish.  Further Bridget was such a stereotypically Irish name that servant girls were called Biddies in the old slang.   Heaton while not of direct Irish origin was found in many parts of Ireland.  The English often tended to anglicize an Irish name to its closest English equivalent.  Ill have to face it that your likely part paddy.

If it is any use- there was a Bridget Heaton who arrived into NYC as an infant in 1852 from Liverpool by way of Ireland.
Another Bridget Heaton arrived from Ireland into NYC in 1865 at the age of 15.

Lastly there was another Bridget Heaton who arrived in 1849 likely Ireland via Liverpool born 1835.   Let me know if any of these fit a description and I could probably email or pm you the manifest.  Hope you dont mind the prying- I pay for a subscription so I like to get some use out of the site every now and then

Have you ever met an Irish person who wasn't descended from royalty?

[12th Doctor]

BTW... I almost forgot, through the McManus' I am related to the O'Connell's.  Daniel O'Connell is a great (6 or 7 times) uncle of mine.

[12th Doctor]

Verily, have you had any chance to look through Irish church records? My wife says that once you get them traced back to Ireland that's all you can use.

Ah, but it's the getting to Ireland that's the trouble. And there are too many fecking Byrnes and O'Byrnes and various alternative spellings in Ireland to be making guesses about Peter Byrne's parents or grandparents. (Like I said, we're not even sure they were Irish.)

Well Byrne is one of the ancient Royal families in Ireland and quintessentially Irish.  Further Bridget was such a stereotypically Irish name that servant girls were called Biddies in the old slang.   Heaton while not of direct Irish origin was found in many parts of Ireland.  The English often tended to anglicize an Irish name to its closest English equivalent.  Ill have to face it that your likely part paddy.

If it is any use- there was a Bridget Heaton who arrived into NYC as an infant in 1852 from Liverpool by way of Ireland.
Another Bridget Heaton arrived from Ireland into NYC in 1865 at the age of 15.

Lastly there was another Bridget Heaton who arrived in 1849 likely Ireland via Liverpool born 1835.   Let me know if any of these fit a description and I could probably email or pm you the manifest.  Hope you dont mind the prying- I pay for a subscription so I like to get some use out of the site every now and then

Have you ever met an Irish person who wasn't descended from royalty?

Yeah me.   I'm probably descended from Travellers.

I was joking anyway and even if half the people who claim to be descended from Irish royalty really are (and I doubt it is close to that many, at least in any significance beyond other people's royal blood ties) the claim becomes far less impressive when you realize that there were usually as many as 20 "kings" in Ireland at any one time.  Each clan had one.  There was, intermittently, one High King, but it wasn't like what you had in England.

[12th Doctor]

Yeah supposedly 3 million people (including Skip Gates) are descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages. For me I'm under no allusions My paternal ancestors came from a "tinker" town, all had tinker jobs when they came to the states and were generally ne'er do wells. Hey, you plant a cabbage you get a cabbage. 

The descending for Kings i.e. delusion of grander sterotype with the Irish was actually damaging throughout history and helped foreign invaders hold, divide and conquer.  It was a case of all Chiefs and no indians.

There was always a very strong aversion to central authority, throughout the Celtic cultural domain.  The organization of Celtic society was far loser than that of many of the Mediterranean societies.  It didn't keep them from achieving, as Roman historians would have us believe... at least not on the Continent.  In fact, in many, many ways, Celtic society was far more advanced than that of Rome.  This level of advancement was likely a large part of the reason that Celtic was once, by far, the most wide spread of the PIE language continuums.

[12th Doctor]

The ethnic composition of this forum is a lot like the one I have been inviting people over here from.

And yet amazingly we aren't trying to ignite a race war.