The Influence of Ethnicity: But Why?

A few years ago I also provided samples for DNA testing by 23andme.com, and among the analyses they offer is a breakdown of your ethnic background. For example, you could find you had 50% Irish, 23% German, and 27% Norwegian.

In some ways mine was remarkably boring; we certainly didn't find forgotten Polynesians or even Lapps in our past. But on the other hand, it was actually more diverse than I knew until very recently. Because it turned out that my Mayflower ancestor was merely the first surprise.

I had always assumed -- through sheer ignorance, really -- that our Early American forebears were basically British immigrants to Massachusetts. And many of them were. But many were Dutch families avoiding the Eighty-Years war with Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries. Now, I imagined myself to have a pretty good grasp of European history, but quite frankly I knew practically nothing about this.

Other European immigrants fleeing religious persecution were the Protestant French Huguenots, many of whom settled in New York. This at least I had heard of! Especially since it has been a frequent subject for fiction. But I did not know that sizable numbers of Huguenots were early American settlers, nor that they were my ancestors.

The Dutch settle on Staten Island (with their stuff)

Now I not only feel like a dope for never learning these facets of American history, but I am very eager indeed to find out more about it. The Dutch family patriarch, Thomas Janse Van Dyke (spellings vary) apparently packed up his whole family, including grown children, and moved to what is now Long Island City in 1661. Then it was New Netherlands. But the area wasn't restricted to Hollanders; it was a pretty cosmopolitan mix of immigrants from various European countries, traders as well as farmers, who did have one thing in common -- they were largely Nonconformists, or Dissenters, or other rebels against the establishment.

So two of the major themes of American life were present right from the start; true, these settlers wanted to make a lot of money, but they were also ready to stand and fight over a matter of conscience. They refused to be pushed around.

I was just discovering these unknown forbears through research when I received my DNA report of my Ancestry Composition, as they call it:

36.1%  British & Irish, 31.1%  Scandinavian, 3.9% French & German, 1.0%  Finnish,  26.9% Broadly Northern European.

There it is.

My mom's side of the family was always taken with Scottish history, and the romance of the Highlands, because they identified with it; those were our people. Now I'm suddenly interested in Huguenots and the history of New Amsterdam -- why is this? Maybe it's because life is so complicated that we need some artificial categories to help us sort it out. I'm sort of shocked at myself for looking at history through such a personal lens!