I was thinking earlier today about how people define themselves, or their identity, based upon what can be rather spurious notions.
For the longest time I have been told that I have Creek ancestry based upon an unfounded notion that one of my direct male ancestors on my fathers line was a Kentucky Confederate Lieutenant whose wife was one generation descended from Creek natives. That information comes from a will that ancestor left freeing his three slaves upon his death. There is no other evidence. None. Others have remarked that my brother, myself and several of my cousins on my fathers side tan easily in the sun where my cousins on my mothers side without such an alleged history......do not.
So what does that mean? Nothing to me.
What I have found is that I am descended not only from Northern Europeans, obviously factual and traceable, but to Central European Jews who may have a strong genetic heritage from Mediterranean origins. That seems more likely to me.
So what am I? I know for a fact that I have Northern European ancestry as well as Central European Jewish ancestry.
Here's the problem. I have some cousins several times removed that have done extensive research on their ancestry. That's why I know I'm derived from England among the remaining Cornish Gaels who kept their surname of Chun. They are part of my ancestry. So am I Gaelic? No. Being born in Georgia whose most recent ancestors are from Alabama, Kentucky and Georgia speaks mainly of Northern English ancestry based upon the migration patter when England colonized the New World. My ancestry among the direct male goes all the way to the colonization of Georgia.
Yet maybe there is the Creek ancestry as well. Unfortunately much of the records of Georgia were destroyed during the Civil War. Most of mine on the direct line come from Burke County, GA.
What's my race? I know there are Northern Europeans and Central European Jews as a fact.
What is my culture........will that help? I'm an atheist.
Someone tell me what my race is? Because for the longest time in Europe Jews, even those born in and raised in that culture, were considered a separate race from Prussian, Frank, Saxon, Austrian, English, Irish, Swiss, etc. The Jews were always considered a separate race. But I know for a fact that my family history is that of a family, by the surname of Solomon, who migrated from the Germanic States in Central Europe in the 1800's. I also know that I'm derived from Northern English.....a mix of Breton, Scandinavian, Scottish.......who migrated to this continent less than a century before my Jewish ancestors did. Than what if the Creek myth of my family history is true? What is my race?
Don't ask me my culture? If you do that you fail the test immediately.
And here is what I thought earlier today while taking a shower. I thought of the reality show regarding the Roloff family focused on two little people who married and conduct their lives. They have children who are average size.
Read that and sink it in for a moment.
Genetically here are two people who match each other in every way, other than sex, genetically and have children who do not match themselves genetically. Namely on the condition commonly referred to as dwarfism. Here is the other aspect. Cultural experience. There is a definite distinction in culture among those of our society who our little people dealing with common everyday reactions based upon an average human size and they deal with them in a way that has defined a culture within larger society. But the children of these people with a genetic condition do not experience that culture.
I'll leave that last there to see if anyone understands what I'm touching on in terms of race and any biological definition of race.
