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> could be simply called "class differences" Yeah, seriously. My family has been American for at least four generations. I can tell by looking in the mirror

> could be simply called "class differences" Yeah, seriously. My family has been American for at least four generations. I can tell by looking in the mirror that I'm at least 95% European, but I have no idea from where - before about my great-grandparents, there isn't much genealogy to follow, and for the most part that's because most of my ancestors were trying to keep a low profile and avoid having any records that the police could follow. I'm doing OK for myself now, but I grew up at the end of a dead-end dirt road that was connected by another dirt road to the actual paved roads. There's poor everywhere.

ptaipale 8y ago
True enough, but having a history doesn't make one "high-class". I do know part of my genealogy up to a landed gentry nobleman who wreaked havoc in Germany and Prague in the 30-year war on behalf of the Swedish king, but still my father was born to a tenant farmer family. But you may have a point that apparently the social differences are smaller small countries and communities where genealogy is better known. To take an example, in Iceland, there is extremely good genealogical data about everyone for over a millennium. Social differences are not very big and were not that big even before the adoption of modern welfare state.
- walshemj 8y ago
  Actually it probably does a "poor" kid from the right back ground (minor nobility landed gentry or even middle class ) will find it easier to get into Oxbridge / Harvard and also grok the social aspects as your parents told you how it works - Boris Johnson is a good example originally not rich but had a lot of connections. For example know why not to wear "brown" shoes in town to an interview for a high paying job / internship.
  - biztos 8y ago
    What's the issue with brown shoes?
    - mywittyname 8y ago
      "When in town, don't wear brown" is the adage. I'm not British, but I've worked for several British companies and this topic has come up in conversation when I complimented someone on their black shoes with a Navy suit, as it's a combination that I never thought to pair (I hate black shoes). My understanding is brown shoes are considered to be sporty or informal Britons. It's something you'd wear to go hunting or on a picnic, never to a work. So I think wearing brown shoes with business attire is seen almost like an American wearing hiking boots.
      - biztos 8y ago
        Interesting, thanks! My only dress shoes are brown, so that should help me stay out of fintech at least. :-)
      - Fomite 8y ago
        I deliberately wore hiking boots to my faculty interviews >.>
  - _JamesA_ 8y ago
    > For example know why not to wear "brown" shoes in town to an interview for a high paying job / internship. Why?
    - TheCoelacanth 8y ago
      Because it shows that you don't know the rule not to wear "brown" shoes in town to an interview for a high paying job / internship and thus are not of the right class to get a high paying job / internship.
      - ptaipale 8y ago
        Though here perhaps the "class" is not exactly the right word. To know etiquette is not quite the same as belonging to a social class. Question: do upper class Americans eat with fork in the left hand and knife in the right? Because I notice most everyone in America that I have met eats with the fork in the right hand, and I am almost unable to eat that way (except dessert).
        zoomablemind 8y ago
        It's curious, as a lot of etiquette norms are grown out of simply practical considerations (in this case, dominant right hand considered safer for knife).
axiom92 8y ago
> I'm at least 95% European, but I have no idea from where Try 23andme?
- emodendroket 8y ago
  There are lots of issues with the accuracy of that stuff, but even if there weren't, really, what does it matter, if you don't have any sort of connection to the places your forebears were from anymore?
  - js2 8y ago
    I don’t know, I feel it connects and grounds us to know a thing of our past. I like to ask people about their ancestry as part of bantering and I’ve had a lot of interesting conversations that way. I’m a fourth generation American of Eastern European Jewish background and I’ve been able to track my ancestry back into specific countries in Eastern Europe via documentation I’ve dug up on ancestry.com but haven’t gotten further. I’ve found it a fascinating exercise. I have not been able to determine the source of my surname (Soffian) which still remains a curiosity for me. Sometimes you uncover interesting artifacts. I learned I had a great uncle who immigrated to America from Romania aboard the RMS Carpathia in 1904. Eight years later in 1912, this would be the first ship to come to the Titanic’s rescue, and six years after that would itself be sunk by a U-Boat. My great uncle had left Romania likely to escape anti-semitism. He’d eventually find his way out to Denver. Sadly, he’d die in 1918 (the same year the Carpathia was sunk) at the age of 25, very probably from the flu. This was him btw, along with his headstone and declaration of intent to become a citizen: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l16p7esag82jibs/AADTWigk7acJSrK2596qAatba?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l16p7esag82jibs/AADTWigk7acJSrK25... I apologize for the digression, but I just find this stuff too neat not to share.
    - spyckie2 8y ago
      this stuff is fascinating to me too, thanks for sharing.
- annamargot 8y ago
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
If you are 4th generation, you probably are from a bit of everywhere given the way mixing works. But then even Europeans might ask themselves this question, since migration was/is a common thing in Europe as well.
- gammateam 8y ago
  Europeans know where they're from, their biggest question is what do you call the place they're from. "The conglomerate of free counties of supreme holiness", or "the post WWII ethnic safe districts masquerading as countries"
gammateam 8y ago
> I can tell by looking in the mirror that I'm at least 95% European, but I have no idea from where A distinctly American experience
- emodendroket 8y ago
  I mean I think the Europeans are probably lying to themselves if they think they're utterly ethnically homogeneous within one country.
  - gammateam 8y ago
    in a lot of the world there are good reasons to only talk about the current national identity, but that doesn't mean they don't know where their family is from.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      Going back four and five generations, unless you're from a prominent family or living in a family register-using country or something like that, the records are probably pretty spotty
      - Markoff 8y ago
        don't think so, coming from small country which was part of empire until WW1 there was not much issues to track records back to around 1750 mostly thanks to church (i remember national census around 1850) and it was family of farmers and guys doing odd jobs, nothing prominent, heck i remember one couple in family tree which had even birth date hour, both born between 2-3PM it got stuck in my head or poor fella having 14 children but only 5 of them surviving and their mother dying in 42

ptaipale 8y ago

True enough, but having a history doesn't make one "high-class". I do know part of my genealogy up to a landed gentry nobleman who wreaked havoc in Germany and Prague in the 30-year war on behalf of the Swedish king, but still my father was born to a tenant farmer family. But you may have a point that apparently the social differences are smaller small countries and communities where genealogy is better known. To take an example, in Iceland, there is extremely good genealogical data about everyone for over a millennium. Social differences are not very big and were not that big even before the adoption of modern welfare state.

walshemj 8y ago
Actually it probably does a "poor" kid from the right back ground (minor nobility landed gentry or even middle class ) will find it easier to get into Oxbridge / Harvard and also grok the social aspects as your parents told you how it works - Boris Johnson is a good example originally not rich but had a lot of connections. For example know why not to wear "brown" shoes in town to an interview for a high paying job / internship.
- biztos 8y ago
  What's the issue with brown shoes?
  - mywittyname 8y ago
    "When in town, don't wear brown" is the adage. I'm not British, but I've worked for several British companies and this topic has come up in conversation when I complimented someone on their black shoes with a Navy suit, as it's a combination that I never thought to pair (I hate black shoes). My understanding is brown shoes are considered to be sporty or informal Britons. It's something you'd wear to go hunting or on a picnic, never to a work. So I think wearing brown shoes with business attire is seen almost like an American wearing hiking boots.
    - biztos 8y ago
      Interesting, thanks! My only dress shoes are brown, so that should help me stay out of fintech at least. :-)
    - Fomite 8y ago
      I deliberately wore hiking boots to my faculty interviews >.>
- _JamesA_ 8y ago
  > For example know why not to wear "brown" shoes in town to an interview for a high paying job / internship. Why?
  - TheCoelacanth 8y ago
    Because it shows that you don't know the rule not to wear "brown" shoes in town to an interview for a high paying job / internship and thus are not of the right class to get a high paying job / internship.
    - ptaipale 8y ago
      Though here perhaps the "class" is not exactly the right word. To know etiquette is not quite the same as belonging to a social class. Question: do upper class Americans eat with fork in the left hand and knife in the right? Because I notice most everyone in America that I have met eats with the fork in the right hand, and I am almost unable to eat that way (except dessert).
      - zoomablemind 8y ago
        It's curious, as a lot of etiquette norms are grown out of simply practical considerations (in this case, dominant right hand considered safer for knife).

axiom92 8y ago

> I'm at least 95% European, but I have no idea from where Try 23andme?

emodendroket 8y ago
There are lots of issues with the accuracy of that stuff, but even if there weren't, really, what does it matter, if you don't have any sort of connection to the places your forebears were from anymore?
- js2 8y ago
  I don’t know, I feel it connects and grounds us to know a thing of our past. I like to ask people about their ancestry as part of bantering and I’ve had a lot of interesting conversations that way. I’m a fourth generation American of Eastern European Jewish background and I’ve been able to track my ancestry back into specific countries in Eastern Europe via documentation I’ve dug up on ancestry.com but haven’t gotten further. I’ve found it a fascinating exercise. I have not been able to determine the source of my surname (Soffian) which still remains a curiosity for me. Sometimes you uncover interesting artifacts. I learned I had a great uncle who immigrated to America from Romania aboard the RMS Carpathia in 1904. Eight years later in 1912, this would be the first ship to come to the Titanic’s rescue, and six years after that would itself be sunk by a U-Boat. My great uncle had left Romania likely to escape anti-semitism. He’d eventually find his way out to Denver. Sadly, he’d die in 1918 (the same year the Carpathia was sunk) at the age of 25, very probably from the flu. This was him btw, along with his headstone and declaration of intent to become a citizen: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l16p7esag82jibs/AADTWigk7acJSrK2596qAatba?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l16p7esag82jibs/AADTWigk7acJSrK25... I apologize for the digression, but I just find this stuff too neat not to share.
  - spyckie2 8y ago
    this stuff is fascinating to me too, thanks for sharing.
annamargot 8y ago

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

If you are 4th generation, you probably are from a bit of everywhere given the way mixing works. But then even Europeans might ask themselves this question, since migration was/is a common thing in Europe as well.

gammateam 8y ago
Europeans know where they're from, their biggest question is what do you call the place they're from. "The conglomerate of free counties of supreme holiness", or "the post WWII ethnic safe districts masquerading as countries"

gammateam 8y ago

> I can tell by looking in the mirror that I'm at least 95% European, but I have no idea from where A distinctly American experience

emodendroket 8y ago
I mean I think the Europeans are probably lying to themselves if they think they're utterly ethnically homogeneous within one country.
- gammateam 8y ago
  in a lot of the world there are good reasons to only talk about the current national identity, but that doesn't mean they don't know where their family is from.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    Going back four and five generations, unless you're from a prominent family or living in a family register-using country or something like that, the records are probably pretty spotty
    - Markoff 8y ago
      don't think so, coming from small country which was part of empire until WW1 there was not much issues to track records back to around 1750 mostly thanks to church (i remember national census around 1850) and it was family of farmers and guys doing odd jobs, nothing prominent, heck i remember one couple in family tree which had even birth date hour, both born between 2-3PM it got stuck in my head or poor fella having 14 children but only 5 of them surviving and their mother dying in 42