Question About My Genealogy

[Tennessee_Mountainman]

Hello! I was just curious, this might sound like a silly question, but I was wondering what region my ancestors were from. I have a long skull (in normal standards of course), tall height, dark brown curly hair. However, I have pale skin, blue eyes, get sunburned easily , and I'm freckled. A lot of my friends say that I look Jewish (as a joke? I always assumed Jews were just a religious group). I'm told I'm Scotch-Irish, but I just don't see this as I have dark curly hair like an Arab, except I have no relatives from south of Europe! Did some unlikely genetics make it into my development, or should I get the Ancestry.com test to see if I'm middle eastern? Thanks.

P.S. I hope I don't sound silly, it's just my genealogy is very special to me, thanks

 

[Drew]

Who you look like or whom you think you look like has nothing to do with the price of tea in China. We'll need family names and places to help you figure this out.

Ancestry.com is good, but flawed. You'll have to dig in the actual records to really know. Folks around here will help.

 

[Tennessee_Mountainman]

Who you look like or whom you think you look like has nothing to do with the price of tea in China. We'll need family names and places to help you figure this out.

Ancestry.com is good, but flawed. You'll have to dig in the actual records to really know. Folks around here will help.

Thanks! I asked around and my family doesn't know anything about Civil War ancestry. I do know is my last name was changed from O'Coll to Coll, to sound less Irish since they were discriminated against when looking for jobs at the time. I'm a direct descendant from the semi-infamous(?) Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, but that's as far back as it goes for me. Vincent was a mob hitman in NYC in the 1920s and 30s, so it's possible earlier on my ancestors moved to NYC. If so, it could even be possible that I have ancestors in the Irish Brigade, though I would still doubt it. I'm an in-direct descendant of James W. Starnes, Colonel of the 4th TN cav, killed commanding the 2nd TN cav brigade June 20th, 1863.

 

[Tennessee_Mountainman]

Never mind the last name! Found out he is the one who changed it. "Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll (born Uinseann Ó Colla, July 20, 1908 – February 7, 1932) was an Irish American mob hitman in the 1920s and early 1930s in New York City. "

 

[Drew]

Never mind the last name! Found out he is the one who changed it. "Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll (born Uinseann Ó Colla, July 20, 1908 – February 7, 1932) was an Irish American mob hitman in the 1920s and early 1930s in New York City. "

There were a lot of those! FWIW, the City of New York makes available (at no or very little cost, a few bucks) birth and death records to those searching family history. I can't figure it out tonight, but it may be possible to search online or via email for pertinent records. It's worth a shot.

 

[Podad]

Hello! I was just curious, this might sound like a silly question, but I was wondering what region my ancestors were from. I have a long skull (in normal standards of course), tall height, dark brown curly hair. However, I have pale skin, blue eyes, get sunburned easily , and I'm freckled. A lot of my friends say that I look Jewish (as a joke? I always assumed Jews were just a religious group). I'm told I'm Scotch-Irish, but I just don't see this as I have dark curly hair like an Arab, except I have no relatives from south of Europe! Did some unlikely genetics make it into my development, or should I get the Ancestry.com test to see if I'm middle eastern? Thanks.

P.S. I hope I don't sound silly, it's just my genealogy is very special to me, thanks

Do the test

 

[nc native]

Who you look like or whom you think you look like has nothing to do with the price of tea in China. We'll need family names and places to help you figure this out.

Ancestry.com is good, but flawed. You'll have to dig in the actual records to really know. Folks around here will help.

I have learned a lot about my family from Ancestry.com. It has been a big help in
helping me learn my family story. Ancestry.com does have a lot of records to help
you in your research and some of the user family trees can be useful. I recently took
the DNA test and it has confirmed a lot of my research.

As far as your physical appearance, looks can be deceptive when it comes to where
your distant ancestors came from. I have been asked on many occasions if I was
Italian because of my facial shape and wavy hair. My heritage profile according to
the DNA test showed me had no DNA from Southern Europe whatsoever. About
80% of my DNA comes from Ireland and the British Isles and the rest comes from
France, Germany and Scandinavia. I have dark hair, pale skin and blue gray eyes like
the original poster.

 

[John Hartwell]

Looks, in the end, don't mean much. One of your 32 gt-gt-gt-grandparents might have been a shipwrecked Greek or Portugese sailor, or the granddaughter of one, and some of those genes just happen to pop to the surface in you -- or maybe something completely different. To really know you have to do the genealogy: tracing names and places, births, marriages, etc etc, with actual records. DNA testing can give you some general hints, but there's no substitute for the real thing.

 

[Drew]

Looks, in the end, don't mean much. One of your 32 gt-gt-gt-grandparents might have been a shipwrecked Greek or Portugese sailor, or the granddaughter of one, and some of those genes just happen to pop to the surface in you -- or maybe something completely different. To really know you have to do the genealogy: tracing names and places, births, marriages, etc etc, with actual records. DNA testing can give you some general leads, but there's no substitute for the real thing.

The so-called 'black Irish' were and are all over the place as well. Just sayin'....

 

[major bill]

Good luck on your genealogy. Have you done a DNA test? They are not really expensive. Just a bit of humor.

 

[Tennessee_Mountainman]

Thank you Drew, NC, and all the other guys for the help!