Identity

[Cescut]

Double post

[Kale]

What do you mean? How can a large even the largest part of your ancestry not influence your cultural background? Unless you mean unknown or remote ancestry but that's far from a common situation. Most people belong to a single ethnic group, followed by people like me which have a mixed background. I'd feel unrespectful to disregard a part of family's culture

Unfortunately, at least in the U.S., a great number of people don't feel the same way.

[HunterKillerDrone]

What do you mean? How can a large even the largest part of your ancestry not influence your cultural background? Unless you mean unknown or remote ancestry but that's far from a common situation. Most people belong to a single ethnic group, followed by people like me which have a mixed background. I'd feel unrespectful to disregard a part of family's culture

I personally know very few unmixed people but on the other hand where i live its always been a mess

[HunterKillerDrone]

it's a new "fashion"", what strikes and amazes me the most is to see that even unmixed people from families with a known ancient and same regular heritage, can fall into this type of thinking so often, for me it's amazing. Also the strangest thing is that people thinking this way, have a new definition of identity which however is unknown to their own ancestors and elders, who often knew much more than them about their own history, customs etc. besides what is ironic, is that with this new post modernist definition, old people knowing much more than them in terms of customs, knowledge, having marked their community for good things, etc., could be taxed by these latest arrivals, bearers of this new biase vision, as "strangers" and be excluded from the community according to their new criteria.
There are often ideological motivations of a "racialist" or "political" nature behind this vision.
In addition the haplogroup is only a very small marker which does not even "code" on the origin, it in no way changes the autosomal DNA, it is a very modern and very contemporary vision with the latest scientific discoveries, and factually we find this in almost no one except in a very few passionate DNA amateurs.

Its indeed a new fashion but how else can i brag about being Yamnaya (im joking dont take it seriously)

While you are correct people back then just looked at your face and could tell where you where from or if you where one of them or not and a face doesnt always tell the whole truth.DNA doesnt always tell the whole truth either but if i had a totally unmixed background i wouldnt even be wondering about this and probably wouldnt have any kind of test.For me its a journey of learning myself

When it comes to customs and such i really feel no connection to any customs of my country-countries since i didnt grow up in an environment where they had any meaningful importance to me or in an environment where they felt important.I share no common problems,struggles and daily challenges that my ancestors faced,i cannot listen to their songs and stories and say to myself "Yea thats me thats how i feel".What do i have in common and how can a farmer from any of my villages even remotely understand me ? Elders ? I have no elder people alive from my families and the only elders i can come in contact with "from my culture" are drunk people on the street.I wish i lived in the past,where most things were simpler but unfortunately i can only accept my current situation.

Dont take this as a bash and im sorry for coming out that way but identity in the modern world especially in western countries is a big problem.

Haplogroups are good for telling where you come from for 90% of people unless you are way too mixed.They also for the most part correlate with your familys history and if it did exist migration origin-route.I wouldnt really identify that much with it because autosomal DNA shapes you a lot more but Y and mt DNA all parts of the same puzzle and you cant have a full picture of someone without it.

[Cescut]

I personally know very few unmixed people but on the other hand where i live its always been a mess

Sounds very colonial ��, but I see you're from the Balkans and yes like also the rest of eastern Europe that's less homogeneous than western Europe.
Most of a my own mix is due to being mostly of mitteleuropean "imperial" stock, a common thing to balkanites, the northerners belonging to the central European empires descendants of the Western Roman Empire and the southerners to the Eastern Roman Empire and continuations

[curious.cat]

What do you mean? How can a large even the largest part of your ancestry not influence your cultural background? Unless you mean unknown or remote ancestry but that's far from a common situation. Most people belong to a single ethnic group, followed by people like me which have a mixed background. I'd feel unrespectful to disregard a part of family's culture

Imagine a Xerxean from Xerxestan living with native Alexians for centuries. They adopt their culture wholesale, some intermixing happens. Their descendants have always thought they're Alexians, and they identify as Alexians, even though they don't know only a small percentage of their ancestry is Alexian. A descendant will feel detached from, now all off a sudden because of DNA testing, identifying with Xerxeans or the culture of modern-day Xerxeans since they are not their ancestors that came from Xerxestan to live with native Alexians some long a** time ago. Hence, there is nothing disrespectful since that "ancient" culture that has been lost is not a part of that family's culture today whatsoever in the first place. Just to clarify: this is just my opinion. it's fine if others have their own. You wanted to know how, so I'm letting you know how.

[Cescut]

Ok but that's not like genetics works if a remote ancestor mixes in an other ethnicity, after centuries there will be little to nothing of that ancestor

[curious.cat]

Ok but that's not like genetics works if a remote ancestor mixes in an other ethnicity, after centuries there will be little to nothing of that ancestor

Not necessarily. For instance, european jews still have ancestry from the middle east.

[Cescut]

Not necessarily. For instance, european jews still have ancestry from the middle east.

And in fact European Jews are still Jews and not European, those who left the religion with time have abandoned also the cultural identity and with generations also the middle eastern dna

[Platonitzsche]

A lot of my self-formed identidy comes from my knowledge of the history of my ancestors, my place in it, and the place of my "extended family" here in this country.
By extended family i mean colonial brasilians, these are all brasilians with ancestors in this country since the period beetwen the 16th-18th century(most brasilians), we are way more closely related than we tend to realise, knowing that, does change ones identidy, gets you a feeling of stronger connection to those around you and to your surroundings in general.
Knowing what your ancestors did in the recent past too, knowing that a lot of my somewhat recent ancestors were slaveholders did shape my social-political identidy , in the other hand , knowing my remote ancestors were gallaeci and lusitanians that resisted roman occupation does not shape my identidy in any significant way , tho it is a motivational idea i like to remember myself when wanting to boost my energy on workouts, like a conventional romantisation of my origins as sprunging from badass free spireted folk.

But in many ways your identidy is not just shaped by inside thoughts of you, even those brought by acquired knowledge of history, but primarily by how others perceive and treat you , wich is strongly based on your appearence/phenotype, in the americas.
If you are and look like a mixed person, but is perceived and treated like a black person in your country , such is the case for Obama, that is what mostly defines your identidy, the non black ancestry becomes almost irrelevant, even when it is half of you.
In my particular case i look white and been treated as such my whole life , nobody cares if i am 1/16 afro , i might as well get laughed on when bringing this up as having any actual relevance to my identidy, tho it did make me go out of my way to learn and understand important issues (racial related issues)that were literaly essential to my existence, to the existence of most of my countrymen, to the genealogy of the standardised ideologies of our society , issues wich would maybe feel indiferent and distant, if i was just 100% european.