American ancestry

Subject: RE: American ancestry
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Jul 11 - 12:54 PM

How do genuine Caucasians, from places like Georgia and Azerbaijan, feel about having their label hijacked to refer to people from the other end of Europe?

Subject: RE: American ancestry
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Jul 11 - 01:44 PM

Retreading old ground, discussed in several threads.

In classical anthropology, "Caucasian" was named for the peoples from the Caucasus, who were considered the type for the groups Indo-European, Semitic, and Hamitic. These peoples extend from western Europe into central Asia.
The great English biologist Thomas Huxley attacked the concept.

The term persists in legal terminology, and is frequent in police reports. Last week. a report from the Calgary (western Canada) police described a suspect in a rape case as Caucasian. Other racially descriptive terms used by local police include East Asian, Black,, Native (American Indian), etc.

Subject: RE: American ancestry
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Jul 11 - 03:11 PM

"Ethiopians" as a term for Africans seems to have been discarded, fortunately. "Caucasian" in this sense never appears to have caught on outside North America. Both words have similar racist overtones.

Subject: RE: American ancestry
From: pdq
Date: 30 Jul 11 - 03:23 PM

Caucasian has certainly "caught on" in other places than North America.

It is based on the correct scientific name of a subspecies Homo sapiens

The profound igrorance of all things science is one of the great tragedies in Western Civilization.

Subject: RE: American ancestry
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 30 Jul 11 - 03:35 PM

Someone asked if Scandinavians don't celebrate their heritage here. Ja sure they do...can't throw a stick in my neck of the woods without hitting some sort of Scandinavian event. They used to speak Finnish, which of course is a Nordic and not Scandinavian group according to my mentor..in the next town from me till WWII..Finns and nonFinns..towns where I grew up spoke only Swedish and one I am just finding out only Croatian. I can't tell if OP was serious or joking..there are all sorts of immigrant groups, some of whom assimilated or intermarried more than others. I can think of Slavic groups, Scandinavian groups, Dutch, German, Polish..Northern US tended to receive Northern Europeans..probably not as much vise versa because industry and jobs were in the north and south was more agriculture...I think..Lots of Italians and Greeks here and there...Porteugeuse from Azores in East Coast. French descent in New England and midwest and Louisiana. Germans and Mexicans in Texas, which was Mexican territory and maybe still should be. Japanese and Chinese on west coast. All sorts of people...some brought here in chains..Africans of course but possibly others. Some groups tended to go to Canada..especially if they were part of the British Empire...and it was often cheaper. Ukranians in Manitoba. Russians in ?? Scots were sent to Cape Breton. People went where they had relatives, or they were lured to specific mining or whatever jobs, or the boat went from their country to a particular harbor..all sorts of reasons.

Now..pure English ancestry in U.S...there was a lot of intermarrying so you don't hear of it much. I think early on they married with German and Dutch especially. You don't hear of festivals etc. of English..part of it might be that they feel a sense of cultural embarassement because rightly or wrongly some of America's troubles are laid at their feet. So anyway, lots of sources of our population..most get along most of the time...terrible problems over the years but also very good people at the heart of it all. mg

Subject: RE: American ancestry
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 30 Jul 11 - 03:37 PM

Oh Jerry mentioned being related to Wyatt Erp..Earp??? So happens I am said to be related to Batt Masterson..we all heard our father tell us we were but he did not say what the relationship was. I have looked at Masterson genealogy boards and of course everyone says they are related to Batt Masterson..but I really am but I don't know exactly how. Would love to hear from genealogists about this. mg

Subject: RE: American ancestry
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Jul 11 - 04:12 PM

Caucasian peoples

Subject: RE: American ancestry
From: pdq
Date: 30 Jul 11 - 04:32 PM

No, People of the Caucasus and Caucasian do not mean the same thing.

                                                                               same source, but about the Caucasian Race

Subject: RE: American ancestry
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 30 Jul 11 - 05:09 PM

I have no direct relatives who are Scots or Irish or anything other than German/Russian/Polish. I believe there are a few distant cousins left in Russia, but not sure. About twenty-five years ago one family immigrated to Chicago. The daughter--in my generation, but quite a bit younger than I--came to the Los Angeles area for art school. She was the stereotypical morose Russian. Lots of angst..I was really uncomfortable around her.

My brother married a woman of Scots extraction. Their son married a girl of Korean parentage, and they plan to raise their children in the
Jewish religion. And I've cousins who married into MacDonald and O'Connell. Of the MacDonalds, one married a Pilipino. One married a Mexican-American; her daughter back-married into a family of European descent.

So it is of no never mind the nationality, ethnicity, race or religion, straight or gay...my collateral family is a proverbial
salad bowl.

What a great country!!!

Subject: RE: American ancestry
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Jul 11 - 05:40 PM

She was the stereotypical morose Russian.

That doesn't sound like any Russians I've ever known. But then stereotypes are like that.

Subject: RE: American ancestry
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 Jul 11 - 06:30 PM

I have some Cherokee, more French, a lot of Hungarian Jew, and a generous dose of Russian. No scots or irish or english directly, but there were some other european americans. Mutts can be anything...

Subject: RE: American ancestry
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 30 Jul 11 - 07:46 PM

The stupid nonsense that is anthropolgy:

"The concept of a Caucasian race or Varietas Caucasia was developed around 1800 by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a German scientist and classical anthropologist.[3] Blumenbach named it after the Caucasian peoples (from the Southern Caucasus region), whom he considered to be the archetype for the grouping.[4] He based his classification of the Caucasian race primarily on craniology.[5] Blumenbach wrote:

"Caucasian variety - I have taken the name of this variety from Mount Caucasus, both because its neighborhood, and especially its southern slope, produces the most beautiful race of men, I mean the Georgian; and because all physiological reasons converge to this, that in that region, if anywhere, it seems we ought with the greatest probability to place the autochthones (birth place) of mankind.[6]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race