I only stumbled across this forum today and just can't resist adding my little "pedigree" to the ever growing list.
As an Australian, and therefore from a very new country (counted in the overall scheme of things) I thought, like most of us, that we hailed from "the old country". The definition of the term depended entirely on who you were talking to at the time and could have been either England or Ireland.
On my mother's side I found the following: A convict tried in Dublin and transported to "the colony of NSW" in 1800 forming a liaison with another convict tried in Bristol in 1801. Their daughter married another convict who was tried in County Kerry in 1811.
Their daughter married the son of yet another convict who was tried in Tipperary in 1823. Then just for a total change of focus, their grand-daughter (my grandmother) married a man whose father was Chinese and whose mother was from Manchester.
Tracing this convoluted line has been a challenge, but fun, except for the Chinese part because my great-grandfather had adopted a very English surname prior to his marriage in 1864. Until I get beyond that English name I'm afraid my brick wall there is greater than the great wall of China.
My father's side is a lot less complicated because his line came to Adelaide from Kirriemuir in Angus in 1849. There is an intermingling with English there (maybe from Kent?) and one of my father's great uncles married a girl whose parents were born in Prussia.
My husband is Scottish - no more no less - and his line is so uncomplicated by comparison it is almost boring, but I have yet to track his family's movements back more than his grandfather in Falkirk.
How on earth do I describe my own racial or ethnic self?
Philippa
Poll