Ancestry
I've never quite realized how diverse and especially unique America really is until I met Arild and started talking to him about ancestry. I've always been so used to hearing people say something like, "Oh I'm 1/4 German, 1/16 African- American, 1/8 Native American, 1/8 Latino decent and 1/32 Irish. As for the rest I'm not so sure, but I am 100% American."
My closest ancestry is Swiss (my great-great-great grandparents came to America and were orchard farmers) and French (from my understanding this individual and his brother were adopted by an American couple as children). Even further back, there is Native American ancestry on both my parents sides (Cherokee on my father's and Blackfoot on my mother's), German and Dutch and English on my mother's, Irish and English on my father's side. If there's any other mixture of nationalities in there, which I'm sure there is, I really have no idea what or who they were.
I've once traced some family on my mother's side from the 1600s living in Kent, England before a few generations down the line in the 1700s left and came to America. I found that especially interesting. Arild however...... he's all Norwegian with just a tiny bit Finnish. Nothing surprising there with Norway sharing a border with Finland.
Arild thinks this is interesting how every American is unique as we're all descendants of immigrants. We're made up of people who were optimistic and left everything they've known in hopes of pursuing a better life and chasing "the American dream", or they came to America against their will, or they had their home stolen from them. He has told me he thinks of Americans as more daring and willing to chase a dream than perhaps other nationalities and his reasoning behind that is, well, that's what we know. That's what American ancestry is based on. He of course applies that to my situation and how it didn't take much for me to be willing to move. I have an undying curiosity to get out and explore and experience things - perhaps just like our ancestors.
My closest ancestry is Swiss (my great-great-great grandparents came to America and were orchard farmers) and French (from my understanding this individual and his brother were adopted by an American couple as children). Even further back, there is Native American ancestry on both my parents sides (Cherokee on my father's and Blackfoot on my mother's), German and Dutch and English on my mother's, Irish and English on my father's side. If there's any other mixture of nationalities in there, which I'm sure there is, I really have no idea what or who they were.
I've once traced some family on my mother's side from the 1600s living in Kent, England before a few generations down the line in the 1700s left and came to America. I found that especially interesting. Arild however...... he's all Norwegian with just a tiny bit Finnish. Nothing surprising there with Norway sharing a border with Finland.
Arild thinks this is interesting how every American is unique as we're all descendants of immigrants. We're made up of people who were optimistic and left everything they've known in hopes of pursuing a better life and chasing "the American dream", or they came to America against their will, or they had their home stolen from them. He has told me he thinks of Americans as more daring and willing to chase a dream than perhaps other nationalities and his reasoning behind that is, well, that's what we know. That's what American ancestry is based on. He of course applies that to my situation and how it didn't take much for me to be willing to move. I have an undying curiosity to get out and explore and experience things - perhaps just like our ancestors.
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